Deveraux - Secrets

SECRETS

BY

JUDE DEVERAUX

Jude Deveraux Secrets

Prologue

Cassie had heard that drowning was the easiest form of death. She had no idea how anyone

could know that, since whoever said it had lived, but as she drifted down in the deep end of

the pool, she decided they were right. She could feel her long hair floating upward, and all

weight left her twelve-year-old body. She wasn't trying to kill herself. No, she was just

waiting for him to rescue her. But dying was interesting to think about. What if this really were the end? Smiling, she let her body relax into her thoughts. Never again would she have

to hear her mother declare how easy Cassie's life had been while her mother's had been so

difficult. "We stopped a war!" her mother, Margaret Madden, loved to say, referring to Vietnam. "No one else in history has ever done that!" Until she was ten, Cassie believed that her mother had single-handedly made the president of the United States remove the troops

from the war that was never declared to be a war.

But when Cassie was ten, an old college friend of her mother had visited them, and when

she'd heard Margaret bawling out her daughter, the friend started laughing. "Maggie," she said, and Cassie looked up in wonder because no one ever dared to call her mother "Maggie".

"You never left your classes and you told us all that we were idiots to sit around on the grass smoking pot and protesting."

Needless to say, that was the end of that friendship, but it had been an enlightening experience for Cassie. That was when she found out that not every word that came out of her mother's

mouth was the truth. She learned that just because someone delivered a statement with force

and volume, didn't make it a fact. From that time on, she began to see her mother for what she

was: a bully and a tyrant who believed that there was only one way to do anything, and that

was the way she had done everything. To her mind, if her daughter wanted to grow up to be a successful person, then she had to conduct herself exactly as Margaret Madden had. That

meant going to a top school, getting the best grades, then working her way up to the head of

some mega corporation.

One time Cassie asked, "What about a husband and children?"

"Don't get me started," Margaret said, then said nothing else. But she had piqued Cassie's curiosity, so she began to secretly listen in on her mother's conversations. Most of the

discussions revealed nothing of interest, but one day Cassie had the horror of hearing her

mother say that her daughter had been conceived from a one-night stand with a man she

hardly knew while she was on a business trip to Hong Kong. "Defective condom," Margaret had said without a hint of sentimentality. She was so disciplined that she hadn't realized she

was pregnant until she was nearly five months along and it was too late for an abortion.

Margaret said she'd done her best to ignore the pregnancy, and that she'd meant to turn the

baby over to a childless colleague, but then her boss the person she most admired had

said he was glad Margaret was going to be raising a child. It made her seem more human.

When he gave her a sterling silver rattle from Tiffany, she decided to keep the kid.

Jude Deveraux Secrets

As she did with all things, Margaret planned it carefully. She bought a house in upstate New

York, hired a live-in housekeeper and a nanny, then turned the child over to them while she

stayed in the city and clawed her way to the top.

Cassie saw her mother only on alternate weekends, and had spent most of her life terrified of

her.

It was when her mother had been invited to a weeklong seminar at Kingsmill Resort in

Williamsburg, Virginia, that Cassie's life changed. She knew about her mother's career

because Margaret Madden thought it was her duty to inform her daughter how to get ahead in

the world. Margaret loved to tell how she had been raised in a middle-class household full of

"morons" but that she had "risen above" them. She'd put herself through college, studying business administration, then got a job as a junior manager with a big office supply chain. In

her sixth year there, the company was bought by a fledgling computer business, and Margaret

was one of only three upper-employees kept. Within four rears she was at the top of that

company.

By the time she'd been out of college for fifteen years, she'd been in five corporations and had moved near the head of each one. She was creative and dedicated, and every waking second

of her life was given to the company where she worked.

The trip to Williamsburg was to be pivotal. The company where she was second in command

was about to be bought by an enormous conglomerate, and at the end of the week she was

either going to be jobless or made executive vice president.

The only problem had been that Cassie's latest nanny had broken her ankle and the

housekeeper was on vacation, so there was no one to take care of the child. Margaret had used

the inconvenience to her advantage when she'd called her boss and said she so rarely got to

see her beloved daughter, could she please take the child with her? The man had been

pleasantly impressed and agreed readily.

Cassie and her mother were given one of the many pretty, two-bedroom guest condos, and

Cassie had been left on her own. Her mother was busy "making contacts" as she called it, never friends, never anything just for pleasure, so she was unaware of where her daughter

was.

It was the first time Cassie had really seen her mother's colleagues, and for a whole day she'd been fascinated. There were over three hundred people at the conference and within hours

they had assembled themselves into little groups where they put their heads together and

whispered. When Cassie got near them, she heard "Madden," then they broke apart. It was as if they thought the girl had been brought there to spy for her mother.

Cassie spent her time wandering about the beautiful resort and watching and listening,

something she was good at.

By the second day, she saw that there was one person who seemed to be different from the

others. He was a tall young man with blue eyes, black hair, and a tiny cleft in his chin. She

didn't know who he was or what he did, but he seemed to run the place. The CEOs of the two

merging corporations both talked to him. He'd listen, then go away, and later he'd nod toward

someone that something had been done.

Jude Deveraux Secrets

Cassie thought he was the quiet in the eye of the storm. Tempers were high that week. There

were big negotiations of who was going to stay and in what position, and who was leaving.

Little cliques of men and women were everywhere, plotting and planning.

In the midst of it all was this young man, who was very calm. She watched him step into the

middle of angry people, and within seconds, whatever he said to them made them quit

shouting. Maybe it was a reaction to her hyper mother, who was always living in the future,

constantly scheming about the next product that would sell millions, the next takeover, the

next position up the ladder, but Cassie really liked this quiet man who could settle others

down.

By the third day, Cassie began to study the young man. As much as possible, wherever he

went, whatever he did, she was there. When he spoke, she put herself close enough to listen.

Several times he turned quickly and winked at her, but he never once addressed her directly,

and she was glad. She had no idea what she'd say if he did speak to her. What she liked the