Guilty Secrets

We all have them. Some are more… guilt-laden than others. Some you’ll admit to in the office, some in the pub after a few drinks, and others only in the privacy of your bedroom, safely tucked under the sheets with darkness around you. I’ll bet there are some that never even come out then. Those ones.

I have to have emergency chocolate in my desk at work. My secret emerged pretty quickly when a colleague opened my drawer to find a pen, and had to move the two giant bars of choccy-goodness out of the way. Now it’s a shared thing. Someone needs a choc-hit (yes, I use the word ‘need’; we have that kind of office) and it’s there for them, as long as they take a turn at replenishing my stocks. Word has even spread to other floors and most days after around three in the afternoon, there’s a steady trail of stressed colleagues making their way to my desk.

In Obsession, my characters all have guilty secrets of their own, and like any secret they are hidden for a reason. Suki is out with her friends when their conversation turns in that direction…

*

Julia paused, screwed up her lips while she thought. Then her face cleared. “Nope, I’d tell him anything. Nothing is secret.”

I grimaced, trying to cover it up with a sip of wine. Eagle-eyed Tara had spotted it though. “Suki, your turn. What wouldn’t you tell Gabe?”

Well, there was a question. How many orgasms I faked? No, that was definitely not something to share with the girls. “I guess… I wouldn’t tell him—or anyone—my greatest fear.”

Three sets of wide eyes greeted this statement. I mentally kicked myself. Trying to recover, I turned the question back. “Well go on, which of you would tell your nearest and dearest?”

“I would.” Julia of course.

“I might,” Tara was more thoughtful.

Katy was the quiet one as usual. “I wouldn’t.” She flicked a conspiratorial smile towards me. “If you tell someone what you fear most, there’s always a chance they might use it against you.”

“Precisely.” I took a sip of my drink to calm my nerves. “For instance, I met a guy who did just that. His girlfriend cheated on him and he wanted revenge. He knew she’d been in a car crash as a child and been traumatized by it, so he used his car to push hers off the road one night. She wasn’t hurt—he just nudged her onto the grass verge—but she was terrified. He described it as ‘leaving her in a gibbering heap’.” I shrugged as I looked at the shocked faces of my friends.

“Oh, no.” Tara was the first to recover. “This comes down to trust, plain and simple. What you really mean, is how much do you trust your partner? Am I right?” There was a chorus of nods around the table, and then Tara turned back to me.

“Suki. How much do you trust Gabe?”

“Implicitly. I was only joking, you know.” God, when did I become such a good liar? I summoned a grin and beamed at her, breathing an inward sigh of relief when the conversation moved on to Julia.

It was Gabe who pulled that stunt on his ex. He told me not long after we were married and I knew then, that if he was on my side, I couldn’t ask for a stronger ally. At the time, it never occurred to me that the reverse was also true. He would make a lethal enemy.

*

Now if you’re talking about that library book I claimed was lost, I might put up my hand, but as for the big ones, nu-huh. I’m keeping my mouth closed. So how about you? Would you tell your partner everything? How about your best friend? Share a secret here, in your comments, and I’ll put your name into a draw for a copy of Obsession.

Obsession is available 12 June 2013, from Time & Tide Publishing.

*

Josh Delaney is the ideal honey trap.

His charm and model good looks would be enough for most women, but coupled with his psychic ability to read their thoughts, he’s impossible to resist. Suspicious husbands employ him to test their wives, to see if they can be tempted to stray.

High profile couple Suki and Gabe Bridgewater have the perfect marriage, or at least, that’s the image they portray to the world. Behind closed doors, Gabe’s dominance in the marriage is unraveling and he decides to test Suki, using Josh as bait.

For Josh it should be just another easy job, but two things go horribly wrong.

One, Josh falls in love with Suki.

And two, Gabe refuses to let her go.

*

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Book Trailer

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Blog tours are fun to take part in, these are my stops:

• 12 June – Layne Macadam (http://laynemacadam.blogspot.co.nz/)
• 13 June – Laura Kaye (http://laurakayeauthor.blogspot.co.nz/)
• 14 June – Lissa Matthews (http://lissamatthews.com/blog/)
• 15 June – Cover Reveals website (http://coverreveals.blogspot.co.nz/)
• 16 June –Ella Frank (http://ellafrank30.wordpress.com/)
• 17 June – Allyson Lindt (http://blog.apathyshero.com/)
• 18 June – Parker Kincade (http://parkerkincade.blogspot.co.nz/)
• 20 June –Trish McCallan (http://trishmccallan.blogspot.co.nz/)
• 23 June – Silken Sheets &Seduction (http://silkensheetsandseduction.wordpress.com/)
• 26 June – Sotia Lazu (http://justsotia.blogspot.co.nz/)
• 29 June – Love Lust & Laptops (http://lovelustandlaptops.wordpress.com/)

About Author

Romance author Sofia Grey spends her days managing projects in the corporate world and her nights hanging out with wolf shifters and alpha males. She devours pretty much anything in the fiction line, but she prefers her romances to be hot, and her heroes to have hidden depths. When writing, she enjoys peeling back the layers to expose her characters’ flaws and always makes them work hard for their happy endings.

Find her at: www.sofiagrey.com and on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/sofiagrey1, or on Twitter @SofiaGreyAuthor

* images courtesy of 123rf.com