All the Secrets We Keep (Quarry Book 2) Read online

  “Sounds like you really hammered out the details.”

  He poured himself a glass of wine and filled hers with sparkling water. It meant something, for him to remember. She and Wayne had been together for three years, and he’d asked her if she wanted a glass of wine right up until the night they’d broken it off, no matter how many times she politely or impolitely reminded him she didn’t drink. Ilya hadn’t impressed Theresa as the kind of guy to pay attention, but he had.

  It made her more honest than she’d anticipated being. For a moment she wished she’d had the wine to blame it on. Instead, all she had was a weariness about keeping secrets and the desire to take a chance she might regret.

  “I was living with someone. It ended, and he asked me to leave. Kicked me out, actually. I’d already put a lot of my stuff into storage when we were together, but he gave me a day to get my things and leave, which was more than your mother did when she booted us.”

  Ilya flinched. “Wow.”

  “He was really mad,” Theresa said mildly.

  “I didn’t know you were . . . it was a serious thing?”

  She fixed him with a look. “Yes, Ilya, it was a serious thing. He asked me to marry him, and I said no. It all went downhill after that.”

  “Shit.” Ilya rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, then laughed ruefully. “Why’d you say no?”

  “I didn’t want to marry him.” Even now, the memory of the conversation with Wayne had the power to make Theresa’s stomach squeeze and knot.

  “You didn’t love him.”

  Surprised, she shook her head. “Oh, no. I did love him. Just not enough, I guess.”

  “You dodged a bullet. Marriage is bullshit.”

  “Careful,” Theresa said with a small smile. “You’ll make me think you believe that.”

  “I didn’t know you were even with someone,” Ilya said.

  She squeezed the back of the chair. “How could you have known? And you didn’t ask. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. It’s over.”

  “But I wouldn’t have . . .” Ilya lifted his glass of wine, not finishing his sentence, although she could’ve guessed what he meant.

  That kiss.

  Theresa went to the vase that held various kitchen implements on the counter next to the oven and grabbed the pizza cutter from it. She cut, then cut again. One more time. She grabbed two gooey slices and brought them quickly to the table, sliding them onto the plates he’d put there before the cheese could drip off.

  “So Alicia let you move in here?” Ilya lifted the pizza to his mouth, biting, the cheese running in a long strand from his mouth to the slice.

  It was nowhere close to an accurate timeline, but she nodded anyway. “Yes.”

  “That’s generous of her,” Ilya said.

  She handed him a napkin. “Yes. It is. Very much, and I appreciate it.”

  She plucked a piece of pineapple from the top of the pizza and put it in her mouth, relishing the sweetness that had mixed with the saltiness of the ham. It was only a frozen pizza, but being able to buy it and put it in the freezer, then cook it for dinner . . . that was a luxury she’d no longer take for granted.

  “That story about the landlord,” he said after a few seconds. “That wasn’t true.”

  “No.”

  “Why’d you lie to me?”

  She’d been carefully avoiding his gaze, although she could feel it burning into her. She forced herself to look at him, lifting her chin, unwilling to let herself be embarrassed by this anymore. “I didn’t want to admit that I’d been sleeping in my car.”

  Ilya took a long sip of wine and tilted his head to look at her. His eyes narrowed and his mouth pursed for a second as it looked like he tried to parse what, exactly, she was saying. “You’ve been what?”

  “I’ve been sleeping in my car,” she said finally, flatly. She waited for this to feel better, or to feel worse, or to feel anything other than as if she’d just leaped off a cliff without a hint about what lay at the bottom of the drop.

  “For how long?” Ilya frowned hard enough to dig a crease between his eyes.

  “The past few months, on and off. When I could no longer ask my friends to put me up on their couches, not without feeling like an idiot, or telling everyone the truth that I was completely destitute, I had only my car. Okay, are you happy now?” She drew in a breath, then another. Waiting to feel the impact of her fall.

  “No, I’m not happy. Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?” He looked stunned, setting his glass on the table hard enough to slosh white wine all over the sides of his fingers.

  “It wasn’t any of your business!” She forced herself up from the table, pushing away hard enough to rattle the plates. “I didn’t want you to know, okay? I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I didn’t want you to think I was a failure or something.”

  Ilya was quiet.

  “Why did it matter what I thought?” he asked finally.

  “I don’t know. It shouldn’t,” she said. “Alicia was nice enough to offer me a place to stay until I could get on my feet. I took her up on it because I had no choice. Just like I accepted your mother’s offer to stay there when I had no other choice. Just like I slept on your couch because the alternative was to sleep in my car, and I just . . . couldn’t face it for another night, Ilya. This is not supposed to be my life.”

  She drew in a shaking breath.

  “No,” he said. “I guess it’s not.”

  Theresa’s fingertips skidded along the table’s surface, but she didn’t sit. Her appetite had fled. This pissed her off more than anything else—that all she’d been looking forward to was a quiet night alone, and here she was, stomach churning, heart pounding.

  She went to the oven and pulled out the challah, golden brown and smelling like home. She held up the baking sheet so Ilya could see it before she put it on the stove top. It would need time to cool before she could cut it.

  “Here,” she said. “We can share it.”

  Ilya looked away from her for a second, then sat up straight in his chair and fixed her with a steady, unwavering stare. “Fine. I’ll sign.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Stop it.” Theresa’s dark hair, still wet from her shower, had tumbled all over her shoulders and down her back in thick spiral curls that made Ilya want to tug them just to watch them spring back into shape. “That’s low.”

  “I mean it.” Ilya drank half his glass of wine. He looked at the crystal glass. It had been a wedding gift from someone on Alicia’s side. He’d never liked the pattern.

  Theresa dropped into her chair. Behind her on the stove top, a bit of steam drifted off the golden challah. “Please don’t mess with me.”

  “I’m not. Let’s say I had an epiphany. A sign.” He thought again of the shadow in the water, the push of it against him. The flash of orange and black. “Do you believe in signs?”

  “I don’t.”

  He smiled faintly. “Babulya used to do that thing with her fingers, remember that? She’d poke her fingers at you and spit to the side. Pfft, pfft, pfft. It was supposed to ward off bad luck.”

  “I don’t remember that,” Theresa said after a reluctant second. “But I believe you.”

  Ilya sat back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp before clapping both hands onto his thighs. “Do you remember Chester?”

  “The goldfish,” Theresa said at once. “The one Jenni threw into the quarry.”

  There’d been women over the years. So many he’d lost count. Not one of them would’ve known about Chester, other than Alicia. Not one of them would’ve known about Jennilynn, except perhaps maybe as a long-ago memory of a tragedy that lingered.

  “What about him?” Theresa asked, when Ilya had said nothing more.

  He studied her face. High, arched brows as dark as her hair. Had he ever known her eyes were such a clear, rich amber? Or had he only paid attention when he got her up close? The memory of kissing her pushed