Ellen Hartman - His Secret Past

Ellen Hartman

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover

Title Page His Secret Past Ellen Hartman www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author Ellen Hartman has been making a living as a writer since she graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and went to work for Microsoft writing documentation for Word. (In those days the company had five thousand employees, windows were glass things you opened to get a breeze and Bill Gates was still single.) She met her husband while he was living in Hoboken, New Jersey, and they lived there together as newlyweds. They share great memories of meals at Amanda’s and late nights listening to music at Maxwell’s. Currently, Ellen lives in a college town in upstate New York, where she enjoys writing romances, horrifying her husband with her musical “taste” and watching movies, old and new, with her sons.

Dedication This book is dedicated to my sister, Anne, and my best friend, Stephanie. They keep me sane, share my unhealthy eating habits (another chocolate chip cookie, anyone?) and are always willing to take to the dance floor at the first hint of “Dancing Queen.” As always, my hat’s off to my writing group, Diana, Leslie, Liz and Mary. They kept after me when Anna was eluding me and helped me find her spark. Thanks!

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Copyright

Ellen Hartmanhas been making a living as a writer since she graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and went to work for Microsoft writing documentation for Word. (In those days the company had five thousand employees, windows were glass things you opened to get a breeze and Bill Gates was still single.)

She met her husband while he was living in Hoboken, New Jersey, and they lived there together as newlyweds. They share great memories of meals at Amanda’s and late nights listening to music at Maxwell’s.

Currently, Ellen lives in a college town in upstate New York, where she enjoys writing romances, horrifying her husband with her musical “taste” and watching movies, old and new, with her sons.

This book is dedicated to my sister, Anne, and my

best friend, Stephanie. They keep me sane, share my

unhealthy eating habits (another chocolate chip cookie,

anyone?) and are always willing to take to the dance

floor at the first hint of “Dancing Queen.”

As always, my hat’s off to my writing group,

Diana, Leslie, Liz and Mary. They kept after me

when Anna was eluding me and helped me

find her spark. Thanks!

CHAPTER ONE

April 2007

GNOCCHI . ANNA shook her head as she dropped her hoodie on the arm of the sofa. Food bribes? How easy did they think she was?

Her stomach growled as she narrowed her eyes at the big pasta bowl, full and steaming on her brother’s dining-room table.

Something was up .

Anna eased the front door closed and slid the key into the pocket of her track pants. She considered the table with its cheerful centerpiece of daffodils and the wineglasses she’d bought Jake and his partner, Rob, for Christmas last year. She tugged the holder off her ponytail, freeing her curly shoulder-length hair. Someone had gone to some trouble here .

Because Rob swore that making gnocchi gave him flashbacks to his grandmother’s cooking lessons punctuated by her uncomfortably sharp tongue and handy wooden spoon, he made the pasta dumplings only on special occasions. Anna’s birthday. Jake’s birthday. The anniversary of his nonna ’s death when he washed the gnocchi down with homemade wine he bought from the Italian men’s club at the end of the rapidly gentrifying street.

Whenever he or Jake wanted to bribe Anna .

She let the aroma of Rob’s secret family recipe spaghetti sauce wrap around her, pulling her toward the kitchen.

“Honeys, I’m home,” she called out as she walked into the brightly lit room, the first Jake and Rob had remodeled since buying the dilapidated Hoboken brownstone three years ago.

Jake was leaning on a stool at the island, one leather loafer on the brass foot rail, his elbows propped on the dark soapstone counter. He turned with careful nonchalance when she came in.

Anna lifted a hand, not committing to a hello before she knew what was up. Staying with her brother and Rob had its ups and downs. On the one hand, she loved spending time with them. Eleven months out of twelve she was on location or flying back and forth to locations for Blue Maverick films, the production company she and Jake ran. If she had anything she’d call a home base, it was here with them.

On the other hand, this was their home and not hers. And because the couple were renovating the place themselves, progress on the brownstone had slowed as Jake was kept busy with the steady stream of film work. She stayed in the cramped guest room, sleeping on a foam chair that folded out into a twin-size bed. Her clothes were stowed in a footlocker Rob had had since college. She rarely bought books or CDs or clothes, or anything, really, because she didn’t have anywhere to keep them. Although she relished her skill at living light, carrying your entire life in a duffel bag had limitations.

“Gnocchi, huh?” Anna said as she propped a hip on the stool next to Jake. The two sat side by side under the cobalt-blue lamps, staring at the cherry-wood cabinets in front of them. “Where’s Rob?” she asked.

“At the gallery. He’s bringing dessert back later.”

“Dessert, too? You’re pulling out all the stops, little brother.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jake asked as he got off his stool and stretched in that maddening way little brothers who outgrew their older sisters by eight inches stretched when they wanted to make a point. Point taken . Six feet tall, sporting a reddish stubble that was a shade lighter than his dark auburn hair, thirty years old, Jake wasn’t so little anymore. But younger siblings never get the advantage, no matter how tall they grow. That was a universal truth.

“Rob made gnocchi so you can bribe me,” Anna said.

He didn’t even flinch. “You want to eat?”

“Chicken,” Anna said.

“Gnocchi,” he countered.

“ You’re a chicken. Spit it out.”

Jake sank back down onto the stool and folded his hands in front of him. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Oh God, he was actually scared to tell her whatever this was. Up to that moment she’d been fooling around. Fun over, she asked quickly, “You’re not sick, are you? Is it Rob? Jake? Say something .”

He shook his head. “I’m fine. Everything is fine. Actually, that’s the thing.”

They’d been business partners for close to nine years and siblings for thirty. Anna knew when Jake was struggling with the truth. Their perfect parents had been all about putting on a front in their shrink-wrapped Long Island home, appearing normal at all costs. That life of lies was what had driven her toward making documentaries. She liked the facts, not the spin. She and Jake had a hard rule that they wouldn’t lie to each other. But it was difficult sometimes.

“You’re scaring me and the gnocchi’s getting cold, so just say it. We’ll deal with whatever it is.”

That seemed to be the permission Jake had needed because he blurted, “Rob’s boss is selling Traction. He offered Rob the right of first refusal and he, um, we, decided to take it. The deal’s final in August.”

Anna nodded, encouraging him to go on. Rob managed Traction, a gallery on Hoboken’s main street. She knew he’d wanted more control and now he’d have it. So far she wasn’t sure what the problem was.

“I’m going to put up half the money, Anna. Not because Rob needs it, but because I want to. I’m tired of never being home, tired of the schedules and the budgets. Living other people’s lives instead of my own. I loved Blue Maverick, you know that, but I can’t live like that anymore.”

Can’t live like that anymore . Anna felt the room spin. Whatever she’d thought Jake might say this wasn’t it. He was talking about their company in the past tense . “But Blue Maverick is finally solid. The schedules and money and the crazy stuff, they won’t be as bad now. We can get an assistant full-time.”

“The only way it will be easier is if I’m less involved and I can’t do that. I can’t ‘take a step back’ and know that someone else is making decisions for my movies. I need to get all the way out. I can’t do halfway.”

Neither of them could. It was part of why Blue Maverick had come so far in such a short time. They’d started with one documentary financed with credit cards and loans from friends. They’d parlayed good reviews from that film into corporate work, political commercials and issue films for nonprofits. Another documentary in wider release had led to TV work and steadier corporate gigs. In the past two years Blue Maverick had started to feel viable.

“How can you walk away now? We can pick our next project—finally do what we want. We’ve spent the past four months brainstorming, for Pete’s sake. Were you faking that whole time?”

Jake put his hand over hers. He was the one in their family who was easy with physical affection, where she and her parents were apt to stiffen up. Came from being the baby, probably.

“Whatever this last project is, I’m in. Rob agreed to run the gallery solo so we can do one more together.”

“One more? That’s it?” Fine for Jake—he had plans for after . But what did he think she’d do? Blue Maverick had been her life ever since she graduated from college.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, Jake said, “You still love it. Living with other people, digging into their stories and then moving on. But I want to settle down. Here, with Rob. I can’t do that and Blue Maverick, too.”

She pulled her hand out from under his and stepped back. “And I can’t run Blue Maverick without you.”

“Anna,” Jake started but she stopped him with a look.

The finality of his announcement hit her. No Jake. No Blue Maverick. Everything she had worked for… She had to think. Was there a way to go on without Jake? Did she want to? “I have to get out of here before I say something I’ll regret. Tell Rob congratulations and thanks for the gnocchi.”

She spun and walked out. She grabbed her sweatshirt from the back of the couch before yanking the heavy wooden front door open. Closing it behind her, the scent of Rob’s sauce was abruptly cut off. Life would change just that quickly when Jake quit the company. Without her brother she couldn’t do what she did. And if she couldn’t make her films, what would she have left?

HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY, was one mile square. Anna had jogged the perimeter many times during her visits. Tonight she ran blindly, veering off the curb because it was easier to dodge cars in the narrow streets than pedestrians on the sidewalks.

As twilight descended, she gradually came out of her fog. Trotting tiredly past the green spaces of the Steven’s Tech campus, she became aware of the people around her again. Just up the block two boys were horsing around on the stoop of an apartment building. They wrestled over a basketball and before Anna even recognized the danger, the ball was in the street and the smaller boy darted between two cars after it. The driver of a black SUV coming down the street slammed on his brakes and his horn at the same time. The kid stopped dead and then sprinted for the sidewalk where his friend had gone still. The driver rolled down the window and yelled something at the boy before rumbling off.