Sophie's Secret. Tara Quinn Taylor

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       “Welcome home, babe.”

      With knees gone uncharacteristically weak, Sophie managed to take the two steps to reach Duane and leaned forward to kiss him.

      Long.

      And again.

      Her mouth opened, her tongue meeting his, and she didn’t want to let go, to break away from this perfect moment.

      Time, society, ages, past mistakes and bulimia all faded away, leaving only what mattered most, what would go with her into the next life – her heart. And the heart to which hers was irrevocably attached.

      “I missed you,” she said, finally pulling back far enough to reconnect with those deep chocolate eyes that could look at her with such warmth.

      “Here.” Duane held out her glass, the smile on his lips completely genuine. “Here’s to you coming home to me.”

      Sophie’s Secret

      By

      Tara Taylor Quinn

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      About the Author

      With more than forty-five original novels, published in more than twenty languages, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with over six million copies sold. She is known for delivering deeply emotional and psychologically astute novels. Ms Quinn is a three-time finalist for the RWA RITA® Award, a multiple finalist for the National Reader’s Choice Award, the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award and the Holt Medallion. Ms Quinn recently married her college sweetheart and the couple currently lives in Ohio with two very demanding and spoiled bosses: four-pound Taylor Marie and fifteen-pound rescue mutt/cockapoo Jerry. When she’s not writing or fulfilling speaking engagements, Ms Quinn loves to travel with her husband, stopping wherever the spirit takes them. They’ve been spotted in casinos and quaint little small-town antiques shops all across the country.

       Available in August 2010from Mills & Boon®Special Moments™

      Daddy on Demand by Helen R Myers & Déjà You by Lynda Sandoval

      A Father for Danny by Janice Carter & Baby Be Mine by Eve Gaddy

      The Mummy Makeover by Kristi Gold & Mummy for Hire by Cathy Gillen Thacker

      The Pregnant Bride Wore White by Susan Crosby

      Sophie’s Secret by Tara Taylor Quinn

      Her So-Called Fiancé by Abby Gaines

      Diagnosis: Daddy by Gina Wilkins

      For the three penguins:

      we know who we are and we know what we do.

      In this life and beyond.

      Chapter One

      “GO, 344. GO 345.” Sophie Curtis spoke sotto voce into the microphone protruding from the headpiece she wore. She stood in the pitch-black area left of stage, reading the sheet on the podium by a penlight. Just three more cues and…

      “Fade lights. Go curtain.” The heavy, velveteen drape slid quickly down.

      Dancers, singers and actors scrambled, bumping into each other, cursing, mumbling, then, three seconds later, fell into place, a perfect shape of bodies and colors, all smiles and glitter and…

      “Go lights. Go curtain.”

      Applause thundered through the large, Midwestern university theater, the crowd at this January fund-raiser growing louder with each carefully choreographed bow. The sound rumbled inside her. Like bilious waves on a rocky sea.

      The applause reached excruciating heights when Damon Adrian, off Broadway’s newest heartthrob—a sure star for the silver screen—stepped forward.

      One minute. Two. And then…

      “Go curtain. Go house lights.”

      Sophie pulled off her headset, dropped it on the podium, then desperately pushed her way through the throng of moving bodies high on adrenaline. Pushed all the way through the dancers’ dressing room, to the restroom then to the farthest stall.

      Where she promptly threw up.

      FUNNY HOW BATHROOM TILE all looked the same. Did the world have an agreement—everyone use the same tile so people would immediately recognize the place for what it was? Feel at home there? Or was it simply the cheapest flooring material that could withstand public use?

      This stuff needed to be re-grouted. But then—

      “Soph?”

      Recognizing her friend’s voice, Sophie grabbed some toilet paper, wiped her mouth again—then pulled another wad for her eyes—and stood. Prayed she was done.

      “Yeah?”

      “Hey.” There was a tap on the stall door. Annie’s bluetipped tennis shoes, her strong dancer’s ankles, were planted on the other side. “You okay?”

      “Yeah.” Sophie swallowed. “I’m fine.”

      But she wasn’t. She was scared to death. And as soon as Annie saw her face, she’d know it.

      “Soph? Open the door.”

      Déjà vu. Like old times. Sophie had thought she was done with all that. Had confidently told Annie so just the night before.

      “Sophie…”

      How concern and authority could blend so painfully in one word, Sophie didn’t know. Had never known.

      But she recognized the tone as though she was still that twenty-year-old undergrad at Montford University in Shelter Valley, Arizona, rather than the twenty-eight-year-old successful theatrical producer she’d become.

      Like that twenty-year-old she’d once been, she opened the door. And couldn’t meet her friend’s eyes.

      How many times, during those years of doing shows together—Annie as a dance major and Sophie majoring in theater production—had she had to face her friend on the other side of a stall door?

      “Oh, Soph. You said you were done with all that. That it had been years—”

      She glanced up. “It has been.”

      “Show me your finger.”

      Sophie’s long nails were legendary, though they were shorter now than they had been in college, and the bold colors they used to be adorned with had toned down to pale pinks. She held out her right palm—middle finger extended straight up.

      “It’s not broken off.” For years the nail of that finger had been a short stub necessitated by Sophie’s addiction to sticking it down her throat. Tonight, it was even with the rest—an eighth of an inch beyond her fingertip.

      “I know.”

      “So…”

      “I didn’t consciously do it,” Sophie said, fighting panic—and myriad other emotions that were what got her into trouble in the first place. And every place after that, as well.

      If she could keep the different parts of herself neatly packed away in their respective compartments, she’d be fine. It was only when the emotions took over, spilled over, that she had problems.

      They hadn’t spilled over in years.

      “I…really…I didn’t know what was happening.” At least not that she’d been able to acknowledge to herself.

      She