Sophie's Secret. Tara Quinn Taylor

you won a scholarship to one of the nation’s most prestigious universities, from which you graduated with honors. And in a few short years, you’ve made a name for yourself in an industry that is almost predominantly male. Your net worth has got to be more than most middle-class couples when they retire.”

      Sophie didn’t discuss her income with anyone—including Duane. But Annie was in the business. She knew what kind of money was involved in production. And she knew how many shows Sophie did.

      What she didn’t know was that a good portion of Sophie’s income went to organizations that provided older, sibling-type companions to troubled or lonely kids. And provided after-school facilities to them, as well.

      “Have you and Duane talked about any of this?” Annie asked, after too long a silence.

      “Some.” The age difference. Her past reputation, which he’d have learned from his friend Will Parsons. And the politics.

      “And?”

      “He asked me to marry him.”

      Chapter Three

      “HE ASKED YOU TO MARRY HIM?” Annie squealed, but not so loudly that other patrons looked over at them, thank goodness. “See, he’s not worried at all.”

      Sophie didn’t share her friend’s excitement. “He’s asked before.”

      “How many times?”

      “I don’t know. Maybe six. Or seven. He knows I’m going to say no.”

      But he didn’t know her middle name. And she hadn’t asked his.

      She hadn’t asked to see his condo, either.

      Duane had his place in her life. Nice. Neat. Clean. Controlled.

      “And?” Annie asked again, as their waitress refilled their glasses of tea.

      “He’s always relieved when I do.”

      “He is? You sure about that?”

      “Of course. I’m not alone in my fears, Annie. Duane feels them, too. Why do you think we’ve been seeing each other for two years and you’re only now hearing about him? Other than Will Parsons, he hasn’t told any of his friends, either. And he wouldn’t have told Will except that we see each other in Shelter Valley, which meant Will was going to hear about it anyway.”

      “He’s been keeping you a secret?” Annie’s words held accusation.

      “We decided together to keep quiet about our friendship.” No one would understand. But their choices suited them. Until they didn’t.

      “Do Matt and Phyllis know?”

      Like Sophie, Annie had taken several classes with Matt Sheffield—the Montford Performing Arts Center director and instructor who Sophie had once tried to sleep with. Annie knew his wife, Phyllis, too.

      “Of course.”

      Phyllis, a psychology professor at Montford, had been largely responsible for Sophie’s chance at a healthy life. While Sophie had been busy convincing herself that Matt was in love with her, Phyllis had been diagnosing Sophie’s bulimia.

      “So you’re still seeing them as much?”

      “Mmm-hmm. We go back and forth with each other almost every day when I’m home. I can’t seem to go much longer than that without seeing the twins.”

      “You’ve been here two weeks and haven’t even mentioned Calvin and Clarissa. How are they?”

      “Good,” she said, wondering how soon she could excuse herself and go back to her hotel room. She had some serious business to attend to. A head to get under control. Immediately.

      And maybe a decision to make? Was her relationship with Duane coming to an end? They’d both known it would have to happen eventually.

      Hadn’t they?

      “They’re six and a half now, can you believe that?” Sophie said, to continue the innocuous conversation.

      “No way!” Annie’s surprise mirrored Sophie’s own. Even seeing the kids so often, it was hard to believe how quickly they were growing up. How quickly life passed. Phyllis had just found out she was pregnant when Sophie had first met her.

      Sophie grabbed her digital camera from her purse, clicked in view mode and scrolled through the photos. “Here,” she said, handing the camera to her friend. “That was taken Christmas afternoon.” Only a few weeks ago. The kids, with Sophie in between them, were standing in front of their Christmas tree.

      “Clarissa’s a looker already, with those big brown eyes and that long hair.”

      “Yeah, she turns heads everywhere she goes. A real princess, but you wouldn’t know it by talking to her,” Sophie said, not that she was proud of the kids or anything. “Phyllis has them both in karate.”

      “I’m not surprised after everything Calvin went through.” The boy had been abducted when he was two—by another ex-student of Matt’s. “What happened to that girl? Shelly was her name, right?”

      “Yeah, Shelly Monroe.” Sophie had never met the girl, but had a love-hate relationship with her. In some ways, she’d been a clone of the girl—clinging to Matt for security in the aftermath of an abusive childhood. But thankfully, that was where their resemblance ended. “She’s in prison, doing twenty years for an assortment of charges. I missed the day of sentencing so I’m not sure what she was convicted of.”

      “Her twelve-year-old son had been killed in a gang shooting, right?”

      “Apparently, she was living in a pretty rough area and somehow blamed Matt for all of her unhappiness because he hadn’t saved her from herself. She figured he owed her, and took Matt’s son to replace the one she lost.”

      There’d been a car wreck as she’d fled. But other than bruises and a broken arm, Calvin had been okay.

      “What about Phyllis’s newfound twin sister—Caroline, wasn’t it? Is she still around?”

      “Oh yeah, she and John were over for Christmas dinner along with their three-year-old daughter, Sara, and Caroline’s son, Jesse. He’s twenty and just graduated from Harvard.” When Sophie had told Duane about him later that evening, during their own private holiday celebration at her house, he’d asked too many questions, stopped just short of making an accusation that would have changed the tenor of their relationship. Hard to imagine he’d been jealous of a twenty-year-old kid.

      Sophie didn’t want to think about that right now. “Caroline’s this really shy woman from Kentucky, and I thought she was going to melt to the floor when she heard her three-year-old ask for more presents.”

      “Kind of like the girl I knew who wanted to sink beneath a front porch one Christmas day after the older man she’d just publicly confessed her love to confessed his love to their pregnant hostess?”

      Annie was referring to Sophie and Matt and Phyllis Sheffield before they’d been married. Almost eight years ago. The worst—and best—day of Sophie’s life.

      They caught her throwing up the Christmas dinner Phyllis had prepared and Sophie had consumed in humongous quantities.

      “Until tonight I hadn’t thrown up once since then,” she said now, softly.

      “And you’ve been friends with Duane for two years,” Annie said. “So why now?”

      Sophie wasn’t sure. Or didn’t want to be. But she had learned a lot of painful lessons on her road to recovery. The first and foremost being you didn’t hide from anything. Didn’t push anything away. Because issues, problems, really didn’t go. They stayed buried inside you where they could attack from the inside out.

      “Duane’s said a few things…I don’t know. I just get the idea he’s worried that if there are hard