To Lauren Blakely, Christine Reiss and Kristy Bromberg for talking me off ledges and teaching me how to do my job all the time. I’m useless without you gals. And for the friendship. It means so much in this crazy world we’ve found ourselves in.
To ShopTalkers and FYW and FUNK and WRAHM and Order and all the women and authors who engage and share and teach me on a daily basis. I appreciate you more than you could know.
To the members of the Sky Launch—I love you ladies so much! You thrill me and excite me with your enthusiasm. Please keep sharing your love for books and romance. I enjoy watching you—especially the men you post.
To all the bloggers and readers who read and share and review and message—I wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for you. Thank you. Everyday, everyday, thank you.
To my most favorite people—my husband, Tom, and my three littles (who aren’t so little anymore). We’re a messy bunch, but we fit together, and I’m glad I have you. We’ll get through. I promise.
To my God who sees what I don’t see and knows what I don’t know and gives me every breath I breathe. Help me remember that you’re only always as far away as air.
About Laurelin Paige
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With millions of books sold worldwide, Laurelin Paige is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling Author. Her international success started with her very first series, the Fixed Trilogy, which, alone, has sold over 1 million copies, and earned her the coveted #1 spot on Amazon’s bestseller list in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia, simultaneously. This title also was named in People magazine as one of the top 10 most downloaded books of 2014. She’s also been #1 over all books at the Apple Book Store with more than one title in more than one country. She’s published both independently and with MacMillan’s St. Martin’s Press and Griffin imprints as well as many other publishers around the world including Harper Collins in Germany and Hachette/Little Brown in the U.K. With her edgy, trope-flipped stories of smart women and strong men, she’s managed to secure herself among today’s romance royalty.
Paige has a Bachelor’s degree in Musical Theater and a Masters of Business Administration with a Marketing emphasis, and she credits her writing success to what she learned from both programs, though she’s also an avid learner, constantly trying to challenge her mind with new and exciting ideas and concepts. While she loves psychological thrillers and witty philosophical books and entertainment, she is a sucker for a good romance and gets giddy anytime there’s kissing, much to the embarrassment of her three daughters. Her husband doesn’t seem to complain, however. When she isn’t reading or writing sexy stories, she’s probably singing, watching Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead, or dreaming of Michael Fassbender. She's also a proud member of Mensa International though she doesn't do anything with the organization except use it as material for her bio. She currently lives outside Austin, Texas and is represented by Rebecca Friedman.
www.laurelinpaige.com
[email protected]
Books by Laurelin Paige
Visit my website for a more detailed reading order.
The Dirty Universe
Dirty Filthy Rich Boys - READ FREE
Dirty Duet: Dirty Filthy Rich Men | Dirty Filthy Rich Love
Dirty Sexy Bastard - READ FREE
Dirty Games Duet: Dirty Sexy Player | Dirty Sexy Games
Dirty Sweet Duet: Sweet Liar | Sweet Fate
Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)
Dirty Wild Trilogy: Coming 2021
The Fixed Universe
Fixed Series: Fixed on You | Found in You | Forever with You | Hudson | Fixed Forever
Found Duet: Free Me | Find Me
Chandler (a spinoff novel)
Falling Under You (a spinoff novella)
Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)
Slay Saga Slay One: Rivalry| Slay Two: Ruin | Slay Three: Revenge | Slay Four: Rising
First and Last
First Touch | Last Kiss
Spark - short, steamy sparks of romance
One More Time
Ryder Brothers Close
Want by Kayti McGee | More by JD Hawkins
Hollywood Heat
Sex Symbol | Star Struck
Written with Sierra Simone
Porn Star | Hot Cop
Written with Kayti McGee under the name Laurelin McGee
Miss Match | Love Struck | MisTaken | Holiday for Hire
Half Truths
Half Truths
By: Claire Contreras
Prologue
“I wish you’d stay out of it.”
“I wish you’d stay out of it.” He glared at Lana, sitting in his passenger seat. “You don’t even know what you’re getting involved in.”
“I know more than you think.”
He shook his head. They’d been arguing about this for a month. So often that people thought they were a couple. It was a thought that wouldn’t have disturbed him had it not been for what he knew about her and what she was doing. It was stupid of him to think he’d manage to change her mind, but he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her continue on this self-destructive path.
“I’m trying to help you.” It would be his last attempt at convincing her.
“I want you to stop helping, period,” she yelled, then lowered her voice. “You should slow down.”
He eased his foot off the pedal as he took the first curb. He hadn’t ever known Lana to be loud, and chalked it up to the situation she’d put herself in.
“I’m just saying, he’s no good for you and you’re going to regret—”
“Pull over.”
He exhaled. “Will you calm down? I’m not going—”
“Pull over,” she said, cutting him off again.
He was getting furious, but tried not to let it show. Once again, trying to be the bigger person in the situation. Before he knew what was happening, her hands were on the steering wheel. She pulled hard to the right. On instinct, he pulled the other way, slamming on the brakes. She pulled once more to the right and between the water on the winding road, the steering wheel battle, and the braking, he lost control of the car. The last thing he saw was the tree right before he slammed into it. His seatbelt caught the impact of his body propelling forward, and the airbag slammed him back into his seat.
It took him a moment to recover and look over at where Lana had been sitting. He expected to find her sitting there, but her door was ajar and there was no sign of her. His heart pounded in his chest. Had she flown out of the car with the impact of the accident? He scrambled with his seatbelt, but managed to get it off. His door opened with a creak as he stepped out. His entire body seemed to shake as he walked around the car in search of Lana. He could hear water running nearby. A waterfall was near.
“Lana?” he called out. His breath caught when he spotted her near the edge of the waterfall. His pace picked up slightly, as fast as his injured leg let him. The gorge was miles high and he didn’t need the crashing sound of the water as it cascaded to tell him the only thing that would cushion her fall if she fell . . . if she jumped were rocks.
“Lana?” He called out her name again, his voice desperate. Could she not hear him above the sound of the running water?
She glanced back at him, a haunted look in her eyes, and then she jumped.
Chapter 1
The air was thick with fog and a cold chill that seemed to flow through the turning leaves and straight into my chest. I reached for my inhaler out of the pocket of my jacket, shaking it a few times before pushing three times to inhale–two to open up my chest and one for good measure. Asthma was an affliction I’d recently been diagnosed with. Mild asthma, but asthma nonetheless. I guess that’s what I got for trading the concrete jungle for some nature. Now, even after moving back to my home state, I couldn’t seem to get rid of it. I stopped walking at the end of the sidewalk and waited for the group of people in fro
nt of me to finish looking at the campus map before stepping up to it.
The only thing worse than transferring to a new university was transferring to a new university your senior year. I didn’t know where anything was and this campus was so big it had its own zip code—literally. Even in my thoughts, I shouldn’t have been complaining. It was an Ivy League university people would kill to have the opportunity to attend, and technically it was the one I was supposed to attend before I decided to follow my boyfriend to Duke instead. Now I was boyfriend-less and following my father’s and brothers’ footsteps instead. My mother joked that I’d swapped herds, trading one boy for another, as if I was a sheep. I found it difficult to argue her point, even if hearing it upset me.
One thing I couldn’t argue with was the fact that my father had been right about a lot of things. Like when he told me I would regret following a boyfriend to college and that the minute we broke up I’d run home crying and begging to enroll here instead. The breakup wasn’t exactly what made me run home crying and begging to transfer, though I couldn’t deny it playing a part. It was my brother’s accident that had done it for me. My brother, who’d been my best friend my entire life and the most vibrant person I knew, suffered an accident that made him miss graduation, give up being captain of the hockey team, and run home with his tail between his legs. Since his return home, he’d been put on anti-depressants and was going to the therapist three times a week. A therapist, who was my mother’s colleague, and was constantly giving the news that my brother still wasn’t speaking to him. That made it worse. He’d only discuss certain things with us, but nothing of substance, and definitely nothing with relation to the accident. It was as if he’d blocked the memory out completely, or was trying to. My parents broached the subject carefully at first, but had now moved on to not saying anything at all, out of fear that they’d trigger him. Behind closed doors, when I knew he wasn’t listening, I asked my parents questions about that went unanswered and ignored and further perpetuated my curiosity and the turmoil I felt over it.
Nevertheless, my journey to this school had taken a long essay, countless letters of recommendation and my father calling the dean incessantly whilst telling me he told me so every single time he hung up the phone with him, but I’d managed to make it here. Now, I was determined to do quite a few things. Graduating was high on that list, but finding out what happened to my brother—what really happened to him—was my priority, as well as finding out what happened to Lana Ly, the student that seemed to vanish without a trace. The media coverage on her was at a minimum these days, and maybe it was because she’d gone to our high school and it felt like her disappearance hit close to home, but I wanted to at least gain that attention back.
After all, people didn’t just vanish. Especially not people like Lana Ly. Shaking my head, I picked up the pace. I needed to get to the headquarters of the school paper sooner rather than later. I was already running behind on everything else—meeting my new, albeit temporary roommate, getting the rest of my textbooks, coordinating with the movers my mother hired to bring the rest of my belongings. I was a substantial mess and I needed to get my life in order. Looking down at my phone, I made sure that the little blue dot was still headed in the right direction. That was when I bumped into something, or rather, someone. My phone tumbled out of my hand and I grasped at air as I tried to catch it while stumbling backward. I was preparing myself for the blow, but wasn’t prepared for a shattered phone. I finally caught the phone in mid-air, and the blow never came.
Just as I thought my ass was about to meet the ground, hands reached out and caught me, straightening me upright. I held on to muscled forearms, blinking up at a cutting jaw and sharp green eyes that looked like they were slicing through me. He had the kind of skin people who liked to sunbathe lusted over, the perfect shade of golden brown, but he didn’t strike me as someone who would lay out in the sun. He didn’t strike me as someone who liked much at all, with the way he was scowling at me and holding my shoulders as if I was contagious.
“I am so—"
“Maybe you should reconsider those heels.” He looked pointedly at my shoes.
“Maybe you should reconsider your manners.” I frowned, stepping back, out of his grasp. “I didn’t bump into you on purpose, you know?”
“But you bumped into me nonetheless and I’m running late.”
“So am I.” I threw a hand up and started walking past him. I needed to get there before they shut down for the day and this conversation was going nowhere quick.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he shouted.
I had half a mind to stick my middle finger up, but I just kept walking, refusing to acknowledge him any further. If he was in such a hurry, he shouldn’t be bothered with what I was doing or what kind of shoes I was wearing, though I had to say, my feet were killing me. I’d swapped out my flats for the heels when I was on my way over here, not realizing how much I’d have to walk to get here.
When I finally arrived at the building that housed the newspaper office, I paused up front. The campus in its entirety felt like a mixture of progress and history. Even though a portion of the campus had been built in the 1800s, most of the buildings I’d been to today were sleek and modern. I’d envisioned the newspaper to be in one of those. This building was quaint, made of brown bricks and white doors, with green ivy that clung to the face of it like a wet toga.
Because it looked more like a house than a place of business, I paused at the door, wondering if I should knock or just make my way inside. I decided on the latter. A few people were walking by from left to right and right to left, none bothering to take their eyes off the pages in their hands to acknowledge their new intruder. I walked around, hoping to catch someone’s attention. Finally, a woman in a navy pantsuit walked from the back of the building and greeted me.
“May I help you?”
“I… yes… hi. I just transferred here and was wondering if there were any openings in the paper. I was going to apply online, but I was in the area so I figured I’d just drop by. I’m a double major, Business and English and worked for the Duke paper for the last three years, so I have experience.” I paused, aware that I was speaking too fast for most people to follow. “So, yeah. That’s why I’m here. My name is Amelia by the way. Amelia Bastón.”
“Any association to Felipe Bastón?”
“Um.” I hesitated. “Maybe.”
“Maybe.” The woman smiled wryly. “That’s definitely a Bastón answer. Felipe was my boyfriend for a short time while we were here. Great human being, lousy boyfriend. He left me for his current wife and they’re still married, so I guess maybe he was just a lousy boyfriend to me.”
“Yep. That’s my dad. Sorry. The Bastón men can be real bastards.” A weak laugh escaped me.
“So you’re Amelia.” She assessed me a little longer, tilting her head as she looked at me, as if trying to decide what to do with me. “You do resemble your mother when she was young. I only met her briefly when we were here. As much as it killed me to admit back then, she was stunning. The kind of beauty that made you stop and stare.”
“Uh. Thanks?”
“You’re here for a job,” she said. “We should get to that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ella Valentine.” She waved me off. “Call me Ella or Elle. Definitely not ma’am.”
“Ella then.”
“Follow me to my office. I’ll see what we can do.”
I let out a breath, walking down the corridor and past the students walking in and out of cubicles. There was a constant chatter here that I was used to. In my old university’s newsroom, it was the kind of thing that made chasing a story worthwhile. It was the buzz that made my palms sweat and blood pump a little faster. When we reached her office, Ella shut the door behind us. I looked around and took in the plaques on the wall hanging beside her degrees. When she sat behind her desk, I helped myself to the seat across from her.
“What year are you?”
>
“Senior.”
Her brows rose. “And you just transferred in?”
“Yes, I know how that looks,” I said. “My goal was to start last spring, but I had to wait until this fall. I was accepted and was supposed to attend here originally, but decided to follow my boyfriend to Duke instead.”
“Your father must have been thrilled.”
“That’s an understatement.” I bit back a smile. “He was definitely a lot happier when I told him I would come here.”
“And you’re closer to home.”
“Yeah.”
“How’s he doing? I hope you don’t mind me asking. I can’t remember the last time I saw him.” She pursed her lips as she thought it over. “I did see your mother while I was out to dinner with my daughter a few months ago. She was with one of your brothers, who looked like he was in bad shape, I’m assuming from the accident.”
“He’s doing well. They’re all doing well,” I said quickly.
If I liked the idea of being a reporter, it was because I didn’t want to be reported on. Years of my older brothers appearing on Page Six headlines and getting reprimanded for it ruined that for me.
“Please send them my regards.” She put her elbows on the desk and clasped her hands together. “I take it there’s no longer a boyfriend in the picture?”
“No. We broke up.”
“And you said you were working in the paper down in Carolina? What kind of stories were you working on?”
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