All the Secrets We Keep by Megan Hart

2017

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Author:	Megan Hart
Genre:	Contemporary Romance
File Name:	all-the-secrets-we-keep-by-megan-hart.epub
Original Title:	All the Secrets We Keep (Quarry Book 2)
Creator:	Megan Hart
Language:	en
Identifier:	ISBN:9781503942783
Publisher:	Montlake Romance
Date:	1497283200
File Size:	525700.096

In the riveting conclusion to Megan Hart’s passionate new family drama, the secrets they keep are no match for the truths their hearts will never let go.
Still stuck in his small Central Pennsylvania hometown, Ilya Stern is used to feeling like a disappointment. After his high school girlfriend, Jennilynn, drowned, he married her sister, Alicia, only to divorce a decade later. The business they started together is threatened by a luxury development—and Alicia has already sold her stake. Now that Babulya, Ilya’s gentle Russian grandmother, has died, there’s no one left who believes in him. Or so he thinks.

Theresa Malone was Ilya’s stepsister for only a year, until his mother threw her pill-popping father out of the house in the middle of the night, forcing teenage Theresa to follow. Now she’s returned for Babulya’s funeral—and to facilitate the quarry-development deal. As she tries to convince Ilya to sell, she realizes her feelings for him have ignited—from sisterly into something more.
Working together closely, Ilya and Theresa struggle to define their intense attraction. When the details of Jennilynn’s death surface, will Ilya and Theresa’s deep connection keep their hope for the future afloat—or submerge them once and forever in their tragic past?

Table of Content

1. Unnamed
2. OTHER TITLES BY MEGAN HART All the Lies We Tell Lovely Wild Precious and Fragile Things The Favor All Fall Down Little Secrets The Resurrected Passion Model Driven Beneath the Veil Seeking Eden Exit Light Beg for It Perfectly Restless Hold Me Close Vanilla Flying Stumble into Love The Space Between Us Collide Naked Deeper Switch Stranger Tempted Broken Dirty Tear You Apart Captivated (with Tiffany Reisz) Taking Care of Business (with Lauren Dane) No Reservations (with Lauren Dane) Order of Solace series Pleasure and Purpose No Greater Pleasure Selfish Is the Heart Virtue and Vice
3. Unnamed
4. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Text copyright © 2017 by Megan Hart All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle www.apub.com Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates. ISBN-13: 9781503942783 ISBN-10: 1503942783 Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant
5. This book is for the hungry ones. Feed yourselves.
6. CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CHAPTER THIRTY CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE CHAPTER FORTY CHAPTER FORTY-ONE CHAPTER FORTY-TWO CHAPTER FORTY-THREE CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE CHAPTER FORTY-SIX CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT CHAPTER FORTY-NINE CHAPTER FIFTY ABOUT THE AUTHOR
7. CHAPTER ONE Theresa Malone had made a lot of mistakes in her life, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of making a few more. One of them was sitting across from her right now with a glass of whiskey on the table in front of him and a smirk that looked like every kind of bad idea. She’d invited Ilya Stern to Dooley’s tonight, so she had nobody but herself to blame. She ought to have known he’d be no different with her than he was with anyone else. Charming and difficult. “You are bound and determined to make my life miserable, aren’t you?” She frowned. “C’mon, Ilya. Why? What good is any of this going to do? You’re delaying the inevitable.” “It’s not at all inevitable, Theresa. And it’ll make me feel better.” He sipped from the glass with a grimace and set it down before leaning back in the chair to link his fingers behind his head. His grin was hard and didn’t soften his expression at all. Theresa drew in a slow, calming breath. “They’re not going to offer you more money or any kin
8. CHAPTER TWO By the time they pulled up in front of his house, the whiskey had settled in his gut with a low, roiling reminder that he meant to quit drinking any day now. Ilya didn’t feel drunk, but that was part of the problem. He hardly ever did, not until he got out of the car and the ground tilted under his feet so that he had to grab the door to keep from tripping. Ilya turned his face to the sky for a moment, letting the late-night rain tickle his closed eyelids. He opened his mouth, tasting it. So maybe he’d die from the poisons in the water, whatever. Something else could kill him first, and worse than that. “Life,” he said aloud like an answer to a question Theresa hadn’t asked. “Life’s what kills us.” “Oh my God.” She sighed, and he looked at her. She’d gotten out of the car and was leaning on the roof. Her hair—that cloud of soft, dark, curly hair—was getting wet. She pointed at him. “You need some help getting inside?” “No, nope. I’m good.” He closed the car door. From acros
9. CHAPTER THREE Then They’d made out for hours, but that girl was never going to let Ilya in her pants. He was going to spend the rest of his life with his balls aching. He should have given up long ago. Gone out with someone else who’d at least agree to jerk him off. When it came right down to it, though, Ilya knew he could date a dozen—no—a hundred other girls, and not one of them was ever going to be Jennilynn Harrison. He’d never met anyone else like her, and even at seventeen, he somehow knew he never would. What if he asked her to be his girlfriend, like be legit? If they held hands in the school hallway, went to dances? She’d wear his class ring, he thought as Jenni easily slipped his hand away from between her legs with the same skill she always did. Kiss him at the lockers before the homeroom-bell rang. When he asked her that question, she laughed aloud. “Us? Dating? Like a real thing?” “You don’t have to make it sound like such a bad thing,” Ilya answered, irritated. “Yeah, us.
10. CHAPTER FOUR “Are you disappointed in me, too?” Ilya’s words had echoed in Theresa’s dreams all night long, and she couldn’t figure out why. She woke without being rested. She’d intended to stay in the guest bedroom that she’d used the last time she slept here, but it had been full of construction supplies for the repairs she knew Ilya’s younger brother, Niko, was doing. The bed had been covered in boxes, while tools and paint cans had been scattered on the floor. The couch in the Sterns’ den wasn’t the most comfortable in the world, but it was better than the backseat of her car, which was where she’d been sleeping for the past two weeks. Theresa had spent the past nine months or so crashing on couches and guest rooms with a series of excuses to her friends, all so she didn’t have to tell them the truth. She didn’t have an apartment to go to, and she couldn’t afford a hotel room. She could barely afford to cover her cell-phone bill or buy gas. There were only so many stories she could
11. CHAPTER FIVE Then In the Stern house, Theresa had a room all to herself. There was a bed with a fluffy comforter and soft sheets. A dresser for her clothes, only hers—no sharing with her dad, three drawers for her and three for him. The bathroom situation wasn’t the greatest—one for the entire household, including two teenage boys who made a big mess and never cleaned up after themselves. Aside from that, she loved living there. She was grateful for it; that was the truth. Every day. She’d come home from school to find Babulya in the kitchen slicing red beets and boiling chicken bones to make stock. The fact that there was someone at home to make any kind of meal on a regular basis was also one of those things Theresa appreciated. Homemade soup, even the weird kind that Babulya made, was a luxury compared to the days of canned soup and stale saltines. Off-brand cereals. Soured milk. It was one of the things, back in the first days when her dad had started seeing Galina, that Theresa ha
12. CHAPTER SIX The sound of voices woke him, but the smell of food was what brought him downstairs. The sight of Theresa sitting across the table from his brother took Ilya by surprise. For a moment, he wondered if he was still dreaming or had somehow slipped backward in time to just after Babulya died, when Theresa had ended up staying with them. “Hey,” she said when she saw him. “Umm . . . it was late last night. I crashed here. Better than falling asleep at the wheel and crashing my car.” “Don’t look at me. It’s not my house, as my mother’s been so kind to point out over and over the past couple months.” Ilya scratched at his bare chest idly, narrowing his eyes at her. “Coffee?” Niko pointed wordlessly to the counter. Ilya helped himself, then fixed a plate from the veritable feast someone had made. He took a seat at the table, looking up only when he felt the weight of two sets of eyes on him. “What?” “You look like shit,” Niko said. Theresa pressed her lips together against a smile.
13. CHAPTER SEVEN A month had never seemed like such a long time to Niko. Even during the worst times in his stint in Antarctica, knowing that even if he wanted to get out and leave there was no way he could, he’d never felt quite this restless. Eager. In four days, Alicia would be coming home. What that meant for the two of them, he wasn’t sure. He’d encouraged her to go on her trip without him, but there’d been a lot of lonely nights over the past three and a half weeks when he’d stayed awake, staring at the ceiling of his attic bedroom and thinking about how much he missed her. He’d been following her social-media accounts. Pictures of her grinning in front of landmarks. Snapshots of her artistically lit food. He’d been unable to stop himself from scanning each to see if there was a man in them, someone who showed up more than once, even in the background. Someone who’d been taking the place Niko had wasted so much time before claiming. His phone chimed just as his eyes were finally clo
14. CHAPTER EIGHT Then “When I was girl in Russia, I never asked Mother why on Fridays we had white bread, and on all other days only brown. She never spoke of being Jewish. It wasn’t allowed, you know.” Babulya handed Theresa another egg to crack into the bowl. “But she made the Jewish bread every week. Many times I’m sure she went without or had to scrimp, save, barter for the eggs and white flour and the butter. But she always did it.” “Now you do it.” Theresa threw the eggshells into the trash and turned back to watch as Babulya added some softened butter and salt to the center of the flour. Babulya nodded. “Yes. Now I do. And you do, too.” “I’m not Jewish, though. Is that okay?” Frowning, Theresa dug her hands into the mess in the bowl when Babulya waved at her to start mixing all the ingredients. “None of us here in this house are very Jewish,” Babulya said. “But we eat the Jewish bread. Is fine.” When the dough had become smooth and thick, only a tiny bit sticky, Theresa put it all
15. CHAPTER NINE His whole life was crumbling all around him, and what was Ilya wasting his time doing? Sitting in Alicia’s old desk chair, looking up tanks on the Internet. It was easy enough, relatively speaking, to get one. If you had the money to pay for it. He’d have to settle for a school bus, he thought as he scrolled through several pages on a website. Take off the front and back doors to make it safe. Remove the seats so that divers could swim all the way through it. He’d sink it far enough away from the helicopter to keep it interesting, although the bus itself wasn’t going to attract anyone. Most every dive site around had one. A tank would bring people in. He wasn’t idiotic enough to put any money down on one, though. Not because of the expense—in the past he’d taken out loans and lived on hard-boiled eggs and tuna for nearly a year to make upgrades to the Go Deep dive site. But why would he waste his time and money acquiring, hauling, and sinking a tank when it didn’t look lik
16. CHAPTER TEN Theresa’s phone buzzed from its place in the center console of her car. She’d plugged it in to charge but had turned off the car engine so that she wasn’t wasting gas. The night air in April could still dip low enough to be considered chilly, but under the weight of a few blankets and wearing fleecy pj bottoms and a heavy sweatshirt, she wasn’t worried about being too cold. With the inflatable car mattress in the backseat, she wasn’t even particularly uncomfortable. She fumbled for the phone to glance at the screen, assuming it was her father. He had a way of forgetting what time of day or night it was, his messages rarely urgent and never frequent, but generally inconvenient. At first, the name on the screen confused her, and Theresa had to rub at her eyes to make sure she was seeing it correctly. Then she sat up in the backseat of her car, the blankets tangling around her feet, to hold the phone closer to her face. Another text buzzed through as she looked. With a sigh, s
17. CHAPTER ELEVEN Then “Wake up, girl. C’mon.” Theresa fended off the tugging hands and grabbed at her comforter. She tried to burrow back into the pillows. It had to be a nightmare, but no, again the blankets were yanked away, and her father’s hands were shoving. Pulling. “Get up—now. Pack your shit. We have to go.” Theresa, bleary-eyed, sat and gathered the blankets to her chest. “What’s—” “She’s kicking us out.” Her father was hollow-eyed, hair sticking up all over the place. He stank of nervous sweat, and his gaze darted around the room without settling too long on any one place. He paced, grabbing things and throwing them in a giant black plastic garbage bag. If she didn’t get out of bed and stop him, he was going to ruin her stuff. He’d done it before. Lots of times. “Dad, stop, I’ll get it.” He tossed the half-full bag onto the floor in front of her. “We have an hour.” “Or what? What happens in an hour?” She was already bending to scoop up the bag and put it on the bed, then pulled
18. CHAPTER TWELVE Alicia had only been home for a couple of days, but it seemed like a million years had passed since the last time she’d stood in the farmer’s market in Thailand, eating mangoes and sticky rice. A bagel with cream cheese and a large French vanilla latte weren’t quite the same, but that didn’t make it bad. The travel had been fantastic, beyond her wildest dreams, but the money from the sale of the dive shop wasn’t going to last forever. If she was going to travel again, she’d need to go sooner rather than later, because soon enough she was going to have to start thinking about getting a job. She sipped the hot drink and set it on the table, shrugging out of her jacket as she juggled her purse and laptop. She’d come to the coffee shop because sitting at home was becoming tedious and suffocating. She figured she’d start researching job possibilities, and maybe another trip, too. She and Nikolai hadn’t talked about what would happen if she wanted to leave again. Mostly, they
19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN Then “Do you know how proud I am of you?” Theresa’s father was in a good mood. He’d shaved, put on clean clothes. So far as she could tell, he wasn’t using, at least not at the moment. When he hugged her, Theresa closed her eyes and let him. They’d just returned from her high school graduation. She wasn’t at the top of her class, but she did well enough to get a small scholarship to Millersville University. She was going to study accounting. This didn’t thrill her, but it felt like a good, steady choice. She’d be able to get a job. She wouldn’t have to live in a crappy apartment with roaches in the walls and rats by the dumpster. Not ever again. “Very proud,” her father added when she didn’t answer. “Thanks, Dad.” She squeezed him in return, then let go. It had been a tough year and a half since Galina Stern had tossed them out. Her dad had quit his job at the hospital two months ago, or so he said. Theresa suspected he was fired. Again. You couldn’t miss so many days
20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN Then If there’d been men in his mother’s life, Ilya hadn’t known about it. Hadn’t wanted to know about it. The fact that she’d been bringing this joker around for the past couple of months should’ve set off warning bells. “She says they’re going to get married!” Ilya paced in Jennilynn’s den. Her parents were still at work, and her sister was upstairs in her room with the radio playing loud. Summer vacation just started, but already they were a little bored, wanting to get into trouble. He and Jennilynn had planned to smoke a little weed and watch some shitty scary movies, the kind with a lot of bare, bouncing boobs and blood. He didn’t feel like doing any of that now. Jenni tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “She’s going to marry that guy? The one from the hospital?” “Barry Malone. Yeah. That’s what she says. Next month. Talk about short notice.” Ilya threw himself onto the couch beside her. “Maybe she’s knocked up,” Jennilynn said, and ducked away from th
21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN The dive shop didn’t have much of a sound system, just a small radio set on one of the shelves behind the front counter, and an MP3 player dock in the office. Ilya supposed Alicia must’ve listened to music through her computer, but that was nowhere near loud enough for what he wanted right now. The heavy equipment had come in this morning while he was working on setting up another trip. The constant crashing and noise were making him crazy. That, and watching them destroy everything. He wanted to listen to some music to drown out all the noise, but the best he could do was tune in to a scratchy soft-rock station that wasn’t loud enough to cover up the sound of a squirrel farting, much less three dump trucks and a bulldozer. Muttering curses, Ilya went to the front door to watch. It didn’t take long for them to clear away the pavilions and the bathhouse, neither of which had been in the greatest shape to begin with. Still, it stung to see them go down in a clatter of spl
22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN It would take more than a few days for Theresa to fully settle in so she could feel like she lived here and wasn’t merely a houseguest, but it helped that Alicia had been spending a number of nights out with Niko, so Theresa often had the house to herself. Theresa had insisted on talking over everything with her new landlord/roommate—who’d be responsible for what chores, what Theresa was expected to contribute to the household, whether or not it was cool to drink the other’s milk without asking. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was find herself homeless again because she’d crossed some line she hadn’t known about. Tonight, Alicia had gone out with Niko to the movies and dinner. She’d told Theresa not to expect her home until around midnight. Theresa had spent the day pursuing leads and checking in with a few new contacts she hoped she could connect with an architect who was interested in turning an old power plant on the outskirts of town into upscale apartm
23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN “Stop it.” Theresa’s dark hair, still wet from her shower, had tumbled all over her shoulders and down her back in thick spiral curls that made Ilya want to tug them just to watch them spring back into shape. “That’s low.” “I mean it.” Ilya drank half his glass of wine. He looked at the crystal glass. It had been a wedding gift from someone on Alicia’s side. He’d never liked the pattern. Theresa dropped into her chair. Behind her on the stove top, a bit of steam drifted off the golden challah. “Please don’t mess with me.” “I’m not. Let’s say I had an epiphany. A sign.” He thought again of the shadow in the water, the push of it against him. The flash of orange and black. “Do you believe in signs?” “I don’t.” He smiled faintly. “Babulya used to do that thing with her fingers, remember that? She’d poke her fingers at you and spit to the side. Pfft, pfft, pfft. It was supposed to ward off bad luck.” “I don’t remember that,” Theresa said after a reluctant second. “But I b
24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Afternoon delight, nothing better. Niko stretched and yawned, drowsy beneath the blankets. Alicia sighed from beside him and nudged her head against his shoulder. Her hand, flat on his belly, toyed with the curly hairs below his belly button until, chuckling, he had to grab it to make her stop. “Ooh, you’re ticklish,” she said. “I’ll have to remember that.” He turned his face to kiss the top of her head. “Don’t you dare.” “It could be fun,” she told him. “Kinky, even.” Niko laughed but kept her hands from teasing him again. Alicia laughed, too, and kissed his bare shoulder before rolling onto her back. She kicked at the covers, pushing them down. When he protested, she knuckled his side gently and rolled over him to get out of bed, then walked naked to the chair in the bedroom corner so she could grab her robe. “Don’t.” He pushed up on his elbow. “I like to see you walking around naked.” “I’m sure Theresa wouldn’t appreciate it.” Niko fell back onto the pillows. “I tho
25. CHAPTER NINETEEN Ilya had brought in the mail, a handful of bills addressed to him, and the rest mostly junk. He’d opened the slim letter and shaken out the check made out to his mother in a nearly illegible hand without paying much attention to it until he realized it had not been meant for him. He looked it over. Fifty bucks, no change. The weird thing was it had come from Barry Malone. “This is yours,” he told her and set the check and envelope in front of her. It was nearly three in the afternoon, but Galina was eating a buttered English muffin and drinking coffee. She snorted softly as she slid the check toward her. She shrugged, maybe at the amount, and tucked it in her pocket. “Thank you for opening my mail. Apparently I’m so old and decrepit I can’t be trusted to do it myself.” “It was by mistake.” He wasn’t going to let her get to him. “Why’s Barry sending you money?” “We were married,” Galina said, like that made sense. Ilya snorted much the way she had moments before. “Sure,
26. CHAPTER TWENTY Ilya and Niko had gone together to pick up the pizza while Alicia and Theresa dug through the cabinets in the den to pull out a selection of old board games. If Alicia or Niko was upset that Theresa had invited Ilya to join them, neither showed it. Still, she thought she’d better make sure. Theresa swiped dust off the lid of an ancient version of Clue. “I should’ve asked first if you’d be cool with me asking Ilya to come.” “No problem.” Alicia shrugged and held up Monopoly. “We used to play this for days.” “I’m not sure why I did,” Theresa admitted as she set a battered game of Stratego on the table. “He called me to follow up on the offer, you both had just asked me to hang out . . . I don’t know. I guess it felt like I should. Kind of like . . .” “Old times?” Alicia nodded. “Yeah. I get it. Don’t worry. Really. Ilya’s the one who has to deal with me and Niko being together. It’s not like I’m holding on to any lingering romantic feelings for him.” “That’s good.” She’d s
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Meet me at the diner at one today. The message had pinged his phone about an hour earlier, but Ilya hadn’t heard it. Now he had only twenty minutes or so to take a shower and get over there, and even if he rushed, he was going to be a few minutes late. He shot Theresa a message in return letting her know he was on the way, but he stalled out in his bedroom, not sure what he ought to wear. It wasn’t a date, he reminded himself. They weren’t going to do that. Even if he was interested in dating anyone on a regular basis, which he wasn’t and hadn’t been for a long time, it couldn’t be Theresa. “You look nice,” Galina said when he stopped in the living room on the way out to tell her he was leaving. “You always did clean up well, Ilyushka.” She sounded drunk, although there was no evidence of her drinking. The pet name was a sign, though, as was the way she lolled on the couch watching daytime television. Ilya ran a hand over his hair, damp from the shower, and looked do
28. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Then “There’s been an accident.” That was what Galina had told them. Not much more of an explanation than that. Jenni had been missing for a day and a half before they found her body in the water at the quarry. In their swimming spot. Now it had been nearly a week and a half since then, and finally they were allowed to bury her. Theresa had overheard her stepmother talking to her dad. Jenni hadn’t drowned. She’d fallen off the ledge where they’d so often laid out their towels. She’d hit her head on the way down. Broken her neck. She’d been dead before hitting the water. Drunk. On pills. The murmured conversation between Galina and Theresa’s father, huddled together in the living room, shot out small, suggestive nuggets that left Theresa’s head buzzing with unanswered questions. “Listening at doors, you never hear good things.” Babulya shook a finger at her, though she didn’t look angry. Only sad. “Come away from there.” In the kitchen, Babulya pulled out baking sheet
29. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Theresa had been thinking about Ilya’s suggestion that she work at the diner, re-creating and preparing Babulya’s signature recipes to give the restaurant its own unique menu. It made no sense. She could cook, but not on that scale, and it was something she did for love. Not as a career. More important, aligning herself with him, tying herself to him, even in the least personal of ways—that could not be something she was considering at all. Could it? Staring at the ceiling of the room in a bed that did not belong to her, in a house she did not own, and in which she was only a guest by the grace of a woman she’d known long ago, Theresa folded her hands on her chest and took a long, deep breath. Agreeing to this would be insane, but she hadn’t stopped turning over the idea in her head since Ilya had offered it. With the money from her commission, she could pay off a good portion of the credit-card debt, making the rest manageable. She could continue her freelance wor
30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Then There was shouting going on, muffled behind his mother’s bedroom door. Galina and Barry had been going at it, on and off, every day since the funeral. Ilya didn’t care what was going on with them; he didn’t care if they were breaking down or angry or grieving or in the depths of despair or anything else. His whole world went dark, and nothing else mattered. Still, the constant rise and fall of their angry voices drifting through the wall between their two bedrooms made it hard to sleep, and that was all he wanted. To sink into oblivion. He would get drunk again, if the thought of taking even a single sip of booze didn’t make his throat convulse and sour spittle fill his mouth. He wouldn’t be able to drink a sip without puking at the reminder of how hungover he’d been. Not enough to get a buzz, much less hammered the way he wanted. That left sleep, and he couldn’t find it. He put the pillow over his head, crushing it against his ears, but that didn’t help. Tossi
31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Theresa’s father didn’t look good. Pasty. Circles under his eyes. He’d lost weight. Still, his gaze was clear, and he met hers unflinchingly as she took the seat across from him at the coffee-shop table. She hadn’t hugged him when she came in. “It’s good to see you, Ter.” Her father was the only one who’d ever called her that, and she’d never liked it much. Theresa flashed back to how different it had felt when Babulya had called her Titi, an endearment, a nickname born of affection and not simply a truncating of her name for the sake of convenience. She’d never told her dad not to call her that, though, so it was her own fault that he still did. “Thanks for coming,” she said. Her dad looked faintly surprised. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” The last time she’d seen him had been at Babulya’s funeral, when it would’ve been out of line for her to cause a scene. Before that, though, the last time had been brutal. Her father had wept in a way she hadn’t seen him do since J
32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Ilya hadn’t been this nervous about meeting a woman in a long time, and the fact that it was Theresa Malone meant his anxiety made no sense. Still, he paced. If he’d been a smoker, he’d have gone through a pack already. She’d said she wanted to go in on the diner with him, but that she had to work out some things first. He knew that meant something with money. She’d been up front about not being able to cosign a mortgage with him, that she’d be a liability, and although it had been obvious there was way more to the story than she was telling him, he wasn’t worried about that. Or about getting a mortgage. With the money he had from selling the quarry, even after paying off his portion of the debts, he had plenty to put down on the diner, and despite years of skating on the edge of losing everything, he and Alicia had always paid their bills on time. He’d get a loan, no problem. He could do it without any help from Theresa, if he had to. He didn’t want to, and he could
33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Ilya wasn’t late to the meeting with the lawyer, although waking up this morning had been hell. He’d tried to get drunk last night and hadn’t been able to stomach more than a single glass of whiskey. He’d tried to get laid, too—something that should’ve been even easier than getting hammered. When it came right down to it, though, Amber’s blatant invitation had left him unsettled instead of turned on. “Let’s go back to your place,” she’d offered first, and Ilya had told her they could not. His mother was there, and his brother. It would’ve been weird, he said. By the way she wrinkled her nose, he could tell that Amber agreed. She made another offer. “My place?” At that point, after a few hours of his hand on the small of her back, her shoulder, his fingers trailing down her bare arm to settle on her wrist, a casual tug of that spiraling lock of hair tumbling so artfully over her breast . . . after all that, he was sure that he could take her into the backseat of his
34. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Niko had taken his lunch to eat at the café table in what had once passed for the backyard garden but had now become a patch of scrubby grass littered with weeds. The garden shed had never been in good repair, but over time the roof had partially collapsed, and the door hung on one hinge. If it were his decision, the whole thing would come down, but he wasn’t up to the task right now. He’d have to get Ilya out here with a couple of sledgehammers. It would be fun, the brothers knocking down the rotten wood. For now, though, he was content to sit in the warming spring sunshine and enjoy a thick sandwich of sweet Lebanon bologna on white bread slathered with mayo. The combination was as disgusting and delicious as he’d fondly remembered from childhood. He’d traveled around the world and eaten meals ranging from basic to gourmet, but nothing had ever matched the satisfaction of the local delicacy. He hadn’t been looking for his mother, but she was there. Incredibly, be
35. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE She owned a diner. Theresa grinned to herself as she pulled into the parking lot, then walked around the back and up to the kitchen doors, the ones not for public use. She could use them because she owned the diner. Owned. The diner. Well, she didn’t actually own the diner. She’d simply agreed to help run this diner, with the potential to eventually own part of it, so long as she kept up her part of the payments they’d agreed on. She and Ilya Stern: partners. This thought sobered her a little, her smile fading. It had all happened so fast her head was still spinning a little. This was crazy. Beyond insane. Yet she’d couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so excited to be part of something. Maybe she never had. The door creaked open before she could even knock, revealing Ilya. His grin was as broad as her own. “Hey.” He stepped aside to let her in, then danced beside her as she stepped all the way into the kitchen. Such a kid, she thought, but fondly, letting his
36. CHAPTER THIRTY Alicia had pulled up a website that offered home-away rentals in exotic locations. The trip she’d taken on her own had been spent in hotels, hostels, and bed-and-breakfasts. She’d spent no more than a few days in each place, eager to the point of excessiveness to experience as much as she possibly could. But now she wanted to spend some real time in one place, getting to know it. “I like this one.” She pointed at the picture of a stone cottage surrounded by a garden of wildflowers. “Scotland. Near Loch Ness. Have you been there?” Nikolai leaned forward to look. “Nope.” “One of the few places you haven’t been,” she said. “It would be fun to explore someplace brand-new with you.” “I won’t eat haggis,” he warned. Alicia made a face. “Yuck. Me neither. But . . . Scotland? Is that a yes? This says it’s close enough to town to ride bikes. There’s a pub there.” “I think that’s a requirement, isn’t it?” Nikolai shifted on the couch to let his arm run along the back of it so his
37. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Theresa had always been good with lists. Checking items off a list had made her feel accomplished, in control, and confident. She wasn’t sure a list was going to help with this—the crawl space in Alicia’s house. It was first on the list of things to do in order to get the place in shape to be put on the market. “This is that last thing I want to do right before I leave to go to the other side of the world, but it’s not going to happen by itself. And I didn’t want to wait until I sold the house to have to deal with all of this,” Alicia said. “There’s so much of it. The furniture and stuff like that I can handle. Some of it’s going to go with me, and I’ll sell the rest. But all of this . . .” Theresa laughed as she peeked into the long, dusty corridor festooned with spiderwebs. Boxes, some labeled but most not, lined the space, along with odd things like an old laundry hamper, some ancient baby toys, and a high chair. Other things she couldn’t identify in the shadows.
38. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Then Jenni hadn’t said more than a word or two to him in two weeks. Ilya tried to act like he didn’t give two shits about what she did or whom she did it with, but the truth was, he’d been going crazy. She knew it, he thought, watching her from the back booth in the diner while Jenni moved from table to table, refreshing coffee and taking orders. Maybe she didn’t know he was there. More likely, she was ignoring him on purpose. It would be easier if they’d had a fight. Something he could blame this on, the slow but inexorable distance growing between them. It wasn’t even a cold shoulder—that he could handle. He could think she was a bitch and blame her for pushing him away, but the truth was that Jenni hadn’t been cold to him. Or mean. She’d simply been . . . gone. Looking at her now, he studied the faint dark circles under her eyes. Her cheeks seemed hollower. Her blonde hair was tied in a high ponytail but looked messy, all the same. She looked tired, even when she
39. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Theresa had been sorting through one of the crawl-space boxes when she found the pictures. The Harrisons had been big fans of their camera. She remembered every hallway in their house being lined with framed family portraits as well as candid snapshots. She’d been lucky if her dad remembered to send money in on picture day so that she could come home with a single eight-by-ten. And the wallet-size photos all the kids passed around like trading cards? Forget it. The photos in her hand now had been tucked inside the original paper envelope, along with the negatives. Alicia had gone through them to pick out the ones she wanted to keep—only one, a snapshot of the five of them in the Sterns’ backyard, sitting around the old picnic table with platters of hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato salad in front of them. The ones of her sister and Ilya she’d looked at without comment and tucked back into the envelope, then put them into the pile of stuff she planned to toss. The id
40. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Ilya had been looking up restaurant equipment on his laptop. He’d been surprised to find that the search for interesting items he could use to decorate the diner was not much different from the time he’d spent looking up quirky items to sink in the quarry. It required vision, he thought as he scrolled through several pages of vintage diner booths and neon signs that could be had for surprisingly reasonable prices. At the soft knock on his door frame, he slid the laptop to the side and sat up. “Hey. What’s up?” It did not feel right for his heart to beat faster for a few seconds at the sight of Theresa’s smile, but that didn’t mean it felt . . . wrong. The waft of her fresh perfume sent a now-familiar tingle through him as she sat next to him on the bed. He stopped himself from leaning closer to sniff her. A flashing memory of her heat surrounding him sent a shiver through him. That had happened, he reminded himself sharply. But he didn’t have to be stupid about it.
41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE With her trip to Scotland only a few days away, Alicia had gone a little into overdrive on cleaning out the crawl space. She didn’t have a job to keep her occupied, and the more she got rid of or cleaned up, the better she felt about her decision to unload this house and start moving forward with her life . . . and Nikolai. “I haven’t even started looking for someplace new,” she said as she and Theresa started tackling a new set of boxes. “Part of me thinks that if he doesn’t take that job with the Mutters, we could end up traveling around the world or back on a kibbutz or something like that.” Theresa pulled a box closer to her, flipping open the lid. “Would you like that?” “I don’t know. I’ve only gone on one trip.” Alicia shook her head with a laugh. “It seems like fun, doesn’t it? Roaming the world, doing things . . . I don’t know what I’d do for money, though. Teach English maybe? Dig wells? Cook dinner on a kibbutz? Hell, I have no idea. I’m just going to enjo
42. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX I believe you can do this. Theresa’s voice, quietly confident, echoed in Ilya’s head every time he used his keys to open the diner doors. He had monthly payments to the bank, utilities set up in his name, new equipment ordered to replace the few things that had been bad, and a small construction crew taking care of the interior renovations. He was doing this. Alicia had been the one to handle the day-to-day crap at Go Deep. Ilya should’ve appreciated that way more than he had at the time. Now, faced with a shadowed and quiet diner left empty but smelling of sawdust and varnish, his head was bursting with plans and ideas he was discovering needed more than enthusiasm to implement. He needed Theresa. He hadn’t seen her for the past few days. The last time, they’d argued lightly, over takeout food eaten at the prep counter, about whether they should even bother to try for a liquor license. Since the diner’s original owners hadn’t had one, Ilya had said they didn’t need
43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Theresa awoke in darkness, noticing for the first time that her head, which had felt like it was going to explode for the past two days, actually only ached a little bit. Her body still creaked with pain, but it felt more like she’d been run over by a bicycle than a tractor trailer. She felt sticky and gross from sweat, her pajamas clinging to her. For the first time in three days, she thought she might actually be able to take a shower. It was a mistake. She’d eaten next to nothing since coming down with this, and as soon as she leaned over to turn on the hot water, the world spun as dizziness overwhelmed her. She sank onto her knees next to the claw-foot tub, knowing there was no way she was going to be able to get herself in and out of it without falling. Theresa had not cried—really cried—for a long time. There’d been a few bouts of tears when things ended with Wayne—mostly of the self-castigating sort—because she’d allowed herself to get close enough to him fo
44. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT “You’re going next door again?” Galina looked up from her laptop, her reading glasses perched low on her nose. She’d been typing away there for an hour or so. Ilya hadn’t asked her what she was doing. “She’s still sick?” “She’s feeling better, but yeah, I’m going over.” He held up a takeout rotisserie chicken and sides he’d picked up from the grocery store. “We’re going over the menus. Talking about staffing. That sort of thing.” Galina made a noise low in her throat. “Hmm.” “Hey, Mom. You know, we could use your advice on some things. About the diner,” Ilya said. He wasn’t expecting her to look so affronted, but she did. Deliberately, his mother removed her glasses and looked down her nose at him. She closed the laptop lid. “The diner? Why on earth?” “You’ve worked in one,” he said. Her scowl flashed into something else for a moment before she smoothed her expression. “I’m not going to come waitress for you, Ilya.” “I’m not asking you to be a waitress. I just thou
45. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE For the first time in nearly two weeks, Theresa felt good enough to put on clothes that were not pajamas and throw in a load of laundry, run the vacuum, and clean up the piles of books, magazines, and empty tissue boxes that littered the den near the couch where she’d been spending most of her time. Her in-box had been filling up with messages from her freelance clients, and while she’d been able to keep on top of a lot of it, there were some things only in-person meetings could handle. There were also the long lists she’d been making with Ilya to take care of. There was also Ilya, in general. She paused while stripping the sheets from her bed, her arms full of cotton, to bury her face in the pile and let out a muffled squeal. It did not turn into a bout of throat-ripping coughs, so that was a relief. It did end up with her turning to sit on the bare mattress to fend off a wave of dizziness that she had to admit had nothing to do with her recent illness. It was the
46. CHAPTER FORTY “So, we need to have a little talk.” Those were never the words a guy liked to hear from the woman he was dating. Or maybe dating. Or wanted to date. Theresa smiled at him from across the kitchen table. “Ilya?” “Not about the diner, huh?” “It’s about us. And Dina Guttridge.” He groaned. “Shit. Look, it was a stupid thing that happened once, two years ago. You can’t get more stereotypical than that whole thing. I delivered a package to her that they’d dropped off by accident at my house, she invited me in for an iced tea . . .” “Spare me the details, please.” Theresa held up a hand. “I don’t care.” “No?” He wanted to be relieved but eyed her cautiously. “I don’t care about your previous poor judgment. No.” Ilya blew out a small breath. “Okay . . . ?” “She came over here earlier, warning me off you. Because you were not to be trusted.” Theresa raised an eyebrow and leaned back in her chair. God, she looked gorgeous. Hair pulled up, minimal makeup, tight T-shirt, and jeans.
47. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE It had been months since he’d lived in this house alone, and it still startled him a little to walk into the living room to find the television on and his mother on the couch. Most of the time she also had her laptop with her, typing away at whatever it was she’d found to keep herself occupied. Tonight she had the sound turned down low enough that she couldn’t have been paying much attention to the black-and-white movie scrolling across the screen. “I heard from your brother. He sent pictures,” she said without looking up. “Yeah. I got them, too. Looks like they’re having fun.” It had been a little hard to see Alicia’s smile, his brother’s arm around her. She’d never looked that happy with him, not that he could ever remember. It bothered him, although he didn’t want it to. His mother tipped her head to look at him over the rims of her reading glasses. “Where’ve you been off to all day long?” “Working.” She laughed softly. “It’s good for you, to have something to do.
48. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO The notice came in Theresa’s e-mail from the credit reporting company she’d been subscribing to. A credit inquiry, made in her name, had triggered it. It had been refused, thank God, although that only reminded her of how long it would be until she could get credit on her own. “If I can’t get a credit card because of this mess you put me in, what made you think you could get one? What made you think it would be anything close to okay for you to pull this shit again, Dad? Why would you do this?” Theresa tossed the printout she’d made of the message onto his shabby kitchen table, highlighting the part pointing out that her score had dipped once more. Her father gave her a pleading look. “I was behind on some bills—” “Join the club!” She whirled on him, sick with fury. Devastated. Hating him but not enough. Not quite enough. “I told you. If you ever pulled this again, I would report you. I would turn you in to the police.” “No, no, honey, I’m sorry.” He held up his hands
49. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE All their hard work had—well, perhaps not—come to fruition. Not yet. But they were well on the way. The staff had been hired, the menu perfected, the diner redecorated. There were a few glitches to work out, but that was the purpose of the soft opening. Theresa bent over the desk in the tiny diner office to go over her checklist. She was going to forget something, she knew it. “You okay?” Ilya came up behind her to press a kiss to the nape of her neck in the spot guaranteed to send a thrill all through her. “Nervous?” Theresa turned to kiss his mouth, her fingers linked loosely behind his neck. “A little. Not too much.” “You don’t look nervous. You look gorgeous. Like you should be on the menu under dessert.” He nibbled at her neck, making her giggle and twist away from him. “We’re not alone,” she said. “And, hey, only dessert? I thought I would at least be a full entrée with two sides, including your choice of soup or salad.” “Super salad. Comes with a cape.” Ilya
50. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR Galina and Barry had shown up at the same time. Ilya had seen them come through the front doors together. They didn’t look like they were making this a date, and so long as neither of them made a scene, he wasn’t going to complain. He was more relieved than he realized he’d be to see her. “Mom.” He kissed her cheek, noting the faint scent of perfume and the lipstick she wore. She’d dressed up, and he wasn’t sure why that made him feel sentimental, that she’d made an effort for him, but it did. He shook Barry’s hand. “Glad you could make it.” Ilya took his mother to Niko and Alicia’s table to take a seat, and Barry excused himself to use the restroom. Ilya, relaxing a little as he looked around at everyone enjoying themselves, decided to play the part of restaurant owner and walk around to make sure everything was all right. “I don’t want you here!” Theresa’s voice rang out, turning heads. Ilya’s stomach sank as he turned, already knowing what he’d see. He hadn’t expe
51. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE “We had a nice little thing going, Barry and I. I took the pills. He sold them. Eventually, he recruited that girl to help him. I told him it was a bad idea,” Galina added with a weary wave of her hand. All of them were hovering in a combination of exhaustion, rage, grief, and another entire collection of emotions Niko couldn’t begin to describe. The staff had been sent home. The doors locked. Ilya had broken out a bottle of champagne, but the rest of them had switched to coffee or nothing at all. “He didn’t tell me, by the way, when she started skimming the money, either. I didn’t find out any of that until after she died, and by then he owed me thousands. So I kicked him out. And you,” she added, to Theresa. “But honestly, what else could I have done? Kept you? You weren’t mine.” “You made that abundantly clear,” Theresa said in a cold voice. Galina gave each of them a harried, defensive stare. “None of you can understand what it was like. Struggling the way I did.
52. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX “We need to talk about this!” Theresa frowned. “Don’t shout at me, Ilya.” He held up the second bottle of champagne he’d been holding back for all of them to share after the other guests left, but Niko and Alicia had taken Galina out of there, and Barry, thank God, had gone and not come back. Ilya popped the cork, spraying foam, then splashed a glass full. Only one. He lifted it. “Cheers. What a goddamned mess of a night.” Her phone had buzzed four times in the past forty minutes, and she didn’t have to look to see that it was her father calling. She watched Ilya down the glass of champagne and pour another, again without offering her some. It would’ve been a kind gesture, if it was because he remembered her preferences instead of blatantly trying to deny her something that had been meant to be shared in celebration. She thought about reaching for him but didn’t. “You broke a promise to me, Ilya.” He faced her with a sneer. “Yeah, I broke a promise. Make this my fault
53. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN Alicia had stopped crying an hour or so ago, but her eyes still ached and her throat itched. Beside her, Nikolai’s slow breathing soothed her, though not toward sleep. It was going to take her a long time before she’d be able to do that. He hadn’t said much, but now he stirred to press his lips to her hair. “You okay?” “I don’t know.” She’d already told him she’d found the tin of pills in the crawl space and how Theresa’s reaction to the sight of it had made so much sense once Galina had spilled the truth. Alicia closed her eyes and let herself nestle into the curve of his shoulder. “I keep thinking how I knew something was wrong with her. I knew that she’d been getting into things over her head. I had no idea . . .” “You couldn’t have. None of us did.” She pushed up on her hand to look at his face. “Are you okay?” “Because I found out that instead of quitting her job at the hospital, I found out my mother was fired and sent to prison in South Carolina for stealing
54. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT Barry Malone was one pathetic son of a bitch. The moment he’d opened the door to see Ilya standing on the other side, he’d burst into blubbering, terrified gasps and pleas, begging Ilya not to kill him. “I’m not a murderer, Barry.” Ilya pushed past Theresa’s father and through the doorway into the dank apartment. It smelled like cat piss and sour milk. Light came in through the broken blinds in stripes like bars on a prison cell. The kitchen looked clean enough, but it didn’t take a detective to spot the garbage pail overflowing with beer cans and empty wine bottles. The guy couldn’t even be bothered to recycle. “No, no, of course not. I just meant, please don’t hurt me.” Barry closed the door behind them and followed so close on Ilya’s heels that his toe kicked Ilya’s boot when he stopped and turned. Barry put his hands up at once, flinching. “Like you hurt Jenni?” Ilya shoved his hands in his pockets, his fists aching to connect with Barry’s face. “I didn’t. I nev
55. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE There’d been no further confrontation with her father. Theresa had refused to see him or to answer his calls, and he’d left close to a dozen. She hadn’t bothered to listen to the messages. They’d all be the same, she thought. First, he’d beg her to forgive him. Eventually he’d start to accuse her of being in the wrong, and finally, at the end, he would cry that she hated him, and there would be no good answer for that. She probably did hate him. She had not spoken to Ilya for two days. She had left him a single voice mail, which he hadn’t answered, and one text he hadn’t replied to. She’d been careful to spend as much time away from the house as possible, leaving Alicia and Niko their space. In the aftermath of the huge reveal, Theresa had tried to talk to her, but Alicia had refused. Politely, with tears thick in her throat, but making it clear she was not going to discuss anything with Theresa, at least not right away. Theresa wasn’t sure where it left their friend
56. CHAPTER FIFTY Theresa would always remember the quarry best in the early autumn, when the leaves had started to change color but had not yet begun to fall. They’d been a quintet all those years ago, and now were only four, but they were good together, all of them. She and Ilya. Niko and Alicia. A lot had happened over the past year. Loss, renewal, beginnings, endings. Most of all, though, love. They’d all found love. With her fingers linked in Ilya’s, she let him lead the way over the small curb of asphalt that ridged the cul-de-sac and to the small patch of scrubby grass beyond. Then into the trees, all of them ducking as they pushed through the line of evergreens to get to the path Ilya had made. Behind her, Alicia and Niko were also holding hands. Ilya held a golden-leafed limb out of the way so they could all pass. The path beneath their feet was uneven and curving, but none of them stumbled or fell. Alicia paused at the spot where the old equipment shed had once stood. Only for a
57. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Photo © 2014 Whitney Hart Megan Hart writes books. Some of them use a lot of bad words, but most of the other words are okay. She can’t live without music, the Internet, or the ocean, but she and soda have achieved an amicable uncoupling. She can’t stand the feeling of corduroy or velvet, and modern art leaves her cold. She writes a little bit of everything from horror to romance, though she’s best known for writing erotic fiction that sometimes makes you cry. Find out more about her at meganhart.com, or if you really want to get crazy, follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/megan_hart and Facebook at www.facebook.com/readinbed.