Prologue
Georgie
“Are you almost done packing?” Darcy asks from the doorway at the top of the stairs.
“Go on ahead. I’ve got a couple of boxes to go through.” We’re moving out of my parents’ house because they’re selling it and relocating to Florida without us. Lydia just graduated from college, so we’ve gotten a three-bedroom apartment on the south side of Chicago near the Orange Line train station. I’m in the basement, gathering the last of the boxes with my name on them.
“Do you need any help?” she calls down.
“No. I’ve got this,” I mutter, opening a smaller accordion file folder with my name on it.
“Are you sure?”
Rolling my eyes, I answer, “I’m positive. Besides, I’m not in the mood to get another lecture right now.”
“Fine. I love you,” she adds, closing the door. My sisters are wonderful and everything perfect, too perfect if anyone asks, and can do no wrong in my parents’ eyes. I, on the other hand, feel like the proverbial middle child, the forgotten one, and worse—unloved.
The old elastic on the clasp breaks, crumbling from age. I wonder if this hasn’t been opened since it’s been put in here. I slide out multiple documents and see more than I care for. One by one, I read them. Line by line, my life becomes a lie—or rather, the truth revealed. Pain stabs me in the chest. A birth certificate, a lie. Georgiana Elizabeth Moore.
Georgiana Elizabeth James doesn’t even exist. I look through the rest of the documents and see the death certificate for my birth father, and I have a hundred questions.
“Georgiana James, get your butt up here now or we’re leaving without you,” my mother shouts.
“Don’t you mean Georgiana Moore?” There is no record of adoption or name change on any documentation, so I’m not sure how or where it is, but from the gasp and the slam of the door, she understood my meaning.
Two minutes later, I hear them pull out of the driveway, and I go on looking through the documents of the lie that is my life.
Chapter One
Sean
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I slam my computer shut, running my hands through my short hair and down to my short scruff. I need a shave, but I usually don’t bother unless I have to do a press conference. It looks like I’ll have to call a special one soon.
Every morning, I work out and shower before sitting down with my coffee and checking on my clients’ social media pages. I have two dozen at the present moment, and they keep me on my toes. As a literary agent and publicist, I have to be on top of everything that could damage their reputation and fix it before it ruins their careers. People slip up and say something that isn’t in vogue today but was great yesterday and it’s a shit storm of fake apologies, but this fucker takes the cake.
Opening the damn thing again, I read the heading in front of me.
According to model, Bennett Lake has been rumored to have kidnapped her.
I read the article, which is not only poorly written but also full of mistakes and lies. I know Bennett, and the man’s a fucking saint if there ever was one. Although all of his books are thrillers, the man doesn’t do anything that isn’t a hundred and ten percent moral, so there’s no way in hell he’s kidnapped a woman. After all, he’s too busy writing in his cabin at the present moment.
Who the fuck would start this kind of bullshit gossip? I’m going to have a blast suing the pants off these papers and the person responsible once I get my hands on the truth. I need to do some more digging.
Spending the next hour on my computer, I find that the press is having a field day with this. Authors don’t get this type of press unless they’re as big as Bennett, but he’s never the kind that would want anyone in his business for any reason that doesn’t have to do with the actual book itself. The man prefers his life as simple and unbothered as humanly possible, and he seems to truly be a grumpy bastard.
Tabloid rags sometimes print totally bullshit stories to drive authors’ sales, but this is a whole new level of reporting. It’s criminal if it’s true, so I need to make sure that it’s all squared away before I destroy some people.
Still, I call Bennett’s cell, which goes straight to voicemail. What a prick. He still hasn’t turned it on. First thing I need to do is call the sheriff’s department to see if I can get some information before I get on a plane and fly to Colorado and pound pavement to get the answers I need.
Calling the police station is useless as hell because they give me the fucking runaround and claim they don’t talk to reporters. “I’m not a fucking reporter. I’m his agent, and he’s not answering his cell phone.”