I Speak...Love (A Different Road #3)
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Authors: Annalisa Nicole
I Speak…Love
Book Three in:
A Different Road Series
by Annalisa Nicole
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2016 by Annalisa Nicole
This book is a written act of fiction. Any and all names, places, or similarities are coincidental. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any electronic or written form without written permission except for brief quotations for reviews or blogs. This book may only be distributed by Annalisa Nicole, the owner and author of this series.
To my Aunt Patti
The cursor on my open, blank document flashes insistently at me . . . taunting me . . . pissing me right the hell off. I can’t formulate a single coherent thought over the constant, ominous, dark, swirling lies and secrets in my head. I sit behind an extravagant, custom desk made from dark ebony in an opulent, over-the-top office that has my name elegantly engraved on the heavy wooden door, and I despise it all. I own one-third of Mason Group with my younger brother, River, and my younger sister, Kate. I flip my pen on my desk from tip-to-end in rhythm with the cursor. The tapping echoes off the walls and soon it matches my heartbeat pounding in my chest.
Since I was fifteen years old, I’ve held on to not one, but two devastating family secrets. Seventeen years is a long damn time to keep that shit bottled up. Sometimes I feel as though it’s all on the tip of my tongue and if I open my mouth, it will all come spewing out like putrid, projectile vomit, and it will destroy the lives of everyone it touches. And people wonder why I don’t talk much. I’m afraid I’ll erupt like a volcano if I do. It’s not that I’m shy or that I don’t have anything constructive to contribute, it’s actually quite the opposite. I have a lot to say, but can’t. I will say though, I think I learn more about people and situations by sitting on the sidelines unnoticed just taking it all in. The quietest people have the loudest minds, and mine screams with all its lies.
When I was fifteen, my parents had planned a mini family vacation to of all the lame, dumbass places—Legoland. It was my little sister, Kate’s, harebrained idea and whatever Princess Kate wanted, her royal highness got. That may sound like I’m bitter and heartless, but I’m not. Out of the three of us, I was always dad’s pride and joy.
I had just been invited to, what all the cool kids were “hailing” as, the party of the century, and I did
not
want to miss it. I had to think quickly to try and get out of the trip that was seriously doomed to be lame.
If only I could take back everything I did.
A few Sunday’s before my parent’s announced the trip, I was in my father’s home office searching for a notebook for a school project that was due the next day. I totally waited until the last minute to start it, but then again, I always did, and I always got straight A’s. Back then, school, girls, sports, popularity, you name it . . . it all came easily to me. I looked through his shelves and the top of his desk, but I couldn’t find a notebook anywhere. There was just one more place to look, the left-hand, lower drawer of his desk. But when I pulled on the handle, it wouldn’t open because it was locked. Curiosity got the better of me, so I stuck a letter opener in the keyhole and jimmied it open. Breaking into locked places was definitely not something new to me. I had been picking the family liquor cabinet lock for over a year and helping myself whenever my parents weren’t home.
Inside I didn’t find a notebook, but there was a small cash box full of money, all of our passports, and some old, rare coins. There were also several file folders stacked neatly behind the cash box. I thumbed through the folders, most didn’t interest me, but the one with my sister’s name on the tab did. I thought it was strange that River and I didn’t have one, so I took it out and set it on my lap.