Sunset Rivalry: The Caliendo Resort (By The Lake: The Caliendo Resort Book 2) by Shannyn Leah Read Free Book Online Page B

tonight.”
    But she hadn’t and it was because she needed him.
    Quinn cut into her ramble. “But the fact you’re hiding and lying to them, desperate to get a file, like a child , indentifies and sums up your maturity.”
    Her mouth fell open and she shook her head.
    “Do you even hear yourself Barker? You secretly dig up dirt on people for money. Money. ” She said the word like it was a pathetic motive, but being a Caliendo she didn’t understand what it was like to be poor. Quinn’s actions had nothing to do with money, but it was his dad’s greed that had.
    Quinn hated going down the conflicting road of his father, Max’s actions, still loving a man who put Quinn’s siblings at risk. Quinn even understood his motives, but couldn’t relate to his idiocy at allowing money to sway Max onto Robert’s private payroll.
    Anya continued her angry rage against him with no idea that his memories were constricting his chest.
    “You unearth secrets about people that will destroy them. Sure, some information might be illegal and maybe those people deserve what they got, but who are you and my dad to decide the punishment for their actions? And what about all the innocent people whose path accidently cross my father’s? You screwed them.” She pointed a finger at him and stepped closer. “And trust me, every single person that you assisted my father with, he took that information and destroyed them, their families...their entire lives. That’s on you Quinn.” 
    Quinn sucked in a deep breath of air, angry that he needed to do so in front of her. But damn this woman did not understand and he couldn’t tell her.
    When he’d been met with her tear-stained face, two years ago, accusing him of being just like her cruel father, Quinn had kept the truth about Robert’s involvement in the death of his sister from her.
    When Anya’s pleading eyes begged him to tell her that he was nothing like her heartless monster father, Quinn couldn’t reveal to her that he’d build a barrier around his emotions to keep the heartaches at bay.
    He also hadn’t told Anya that she was the only woman who had ever touched his soul and the only person he had ever wanted to talk to. Even before he’d begun working for Robert, Quinn had never felt a connection with a woman like he had with Anya.
    But how could he expose her father’s illegal activity, bringing justice to Quinn’s sister and all the other lives Robert had destroyed and maintain a relationship with Anya? Robert’s daughter? She might hate Robert’s actions, but he was still her father. Quinn knew better than anyone that loving a person and not loving their behaviour were two entirely different feelings. Quinn couldn’t put Anya in that situation two years ago and he wasn’t going to now. Not when he was so close to the truth.
    “I haven’t been a part of your father’s side-business in two years, or anyone else’s. I have been clean for two years. I came back to the resort when Marc called me about you.” The strength in his voice was swallowed by the guilt he carried.
    Yes, he’d given up on finding the file and bringing justice to his sister, but only to take the money he’d earned on Robert’s off-the-record payroll and put it toward monitoring the lives that Quinn was responsible for destroying. From a distance he helped to ease some of their hardships and some of his guilt. None of it had worked. All the mended fences wouldn’t replace the loss. But now he could get his sister justice and make the fences he’d broken have hope again and not loss.
    Anya’s eyes narrowed with a slight bit of softening as she caught his tone shift. She might be readable, but she was smart too. In all the time they’d spent together he hadn’t let her in other than sharing his father’s death. A death she’d been acutely aware of since Max worked in the resort until he died. Anya didn’t know his mother and sister were dead or that the accident that claimed the life of