Unmasked (New Adult Romance) (The Unmasked Series) by Anya Karin Read Free Book Online Page A

softly and put down the phone, got her
things and left before it could ring again.
    Halfway down the driveway, even though she left it
on purpose, Alyssa turned back to the house and thought about going back. She
told herself that her dad might call and need something, but that wasn't
likely. If something happened at school, the kids would be perfectly safe
without being in immediate contact with her. After she exhausted every possible
reason to go back for the phone, she arrived at reality that what she wanted
was for Bret to call again.
    She missed him so bad it hurt.
    Or at least she missed someone, or something, that
she couldn't quite put her finger on at the moment.
    Halfway down the street that ran between her dad's
house and the Newtown town square, Alyssa's thoughts somehow drifted back to
the forest and the mushroom gathering and the house – but mostly to the man
she'd seen in the window.
    The air outside was cool and sharply scented with
pine when she rolled down the window to try and clear her head, but nothing she
could do got him out of her mind.
    "Wait a minute," she said. "What if – is it even
remotely possible that the guy I saw in the window was Preston Webb? There's no
way. But still, tall and thin is pretty much how dad described him, right? No
way. That's beyond crazy."
    A deer sprinted across the road and Alyssa's
attention snapped back.
    Minutes later, pulling into the parking lot for
her morning workout, the first of many stops she had meticulously planned out,
Alyssa looked around the car for the duffel bag with her workout clothes, and
then realized she left the whole thing sitting on the table beside her phone.
    "Good. Very good, Alyssa." She sighed and blew a
fallen lock of hair out of her face. "Well, guess I can check that off the
list. I wonder what the eggplants are looking like?"

Chapter Five
    ––––––––
    "Sir, what happened to that contract?" Gadsen's
aged leather voice crawled across the table as he sat. "I thought you were
going to sign it and give it back to me so I could have it to the council by
tonight's meeting?"
    "I took care of it. It's safe and sound." Where,
exactly, it was safe and sound, he refrained from saying. "What're we having
tonight?"
    "Roasted chicken, roasted vegetables. I hope you
enjoy it. I made it with a cream sauce that I hope you find acceptable."
    For all Gadsen's faults, he was a damn good cook,
Preston thought. He looked across the table at his butler, at the man who had
more-or-less functioned as his surrogate father for most of his life, and then
formally taken over the roll five years ago. His eyes slid over the visage of the
man who kept him held and captive, against all his wishes, in this massive
estate. The old man's face was marked by two wars, and a half century of
service to his father. Still, Preston couldn't help but feel his temples throb
and his cheeks burn when they were in the same room anymore.
    "Is it strange that I eat with a butler?"
    "Strange how, sir?"
    "Well, most people don't do such things, right?
The butler brings the food and then goes off somewhere else?"
    "That's true. I thought you wanted me to stay, but
I can certainly go back to my quarters if you'd prefer."
    "No, no, that's fine. I was just curious." He
chewed a little chicken, a little asparagus.
    The thought crossed his mind to tell the old man
to shove off back to whatever little abode he kept. But he swallowed his
tongue. As much as Gadsen aroused his most passionate irritation, it was
nothing to being alone.
    Alone. The word rang in his mind.
    Always alone.
    Preston put down his fork and pressed fingers to
his temples, already beginning to throb again, so soon after he had just
managed to defeat a headache.
    "Tell me something," he said, and was almost
immediately seized with a pounding right in the middle of his forehead.
    "Anything, sir? Oh my – are you having another
attack? Do you need a warm cloth?"
    "Uh, yeah. That would probably help."
    Seconds