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  GAVIN: LIES

  Book 1

  ANNA ANTONIA

  DelSin Publishing, LLC 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by Anna Antonia

  All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from DelSin Publishing, LLC. DelSin Publishing, LLC and the author assume no liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by:

  DelSin Publishing, LLC

  www.delsinpublishing.com

  Cover Credits: [email protected]

  Cover Design: CGM Web Designs

  Table of Contents

  GAVIN LIES

  Copyright © 2018 by Anna Antonia

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  GAVIN LUST SNEAK PEEK

  MORE ANNA ANTONIA

  ABOUT ANNA ANTONIA

  ONE

  Paige

  No one thought they were a villain, especially in their own love story.

  But I knew. I’d always known.

  Just as I knew this beautiful love of mine wasn’t going to last.

  As soon as Gavin Hawthorne found out who I really was? I’d lose him.

  All my plans to stitch our lives together, all my hopes for something better than what I had, all of it was for naught.

  Forty-three nights of lying in bed, feeling Gavin’s strong arms around me and the way his breath softly tickled the tiny hairs on the back of my neck, were over. I mourned that they would only continue to exist in my memories.

  I was devastated but not surprised.

  I’d been living on borrowed time. I knew it but still I tried to keep him, to make Gavin mine for just one more day.

  One more week. One more month. One more lifetime.

  And it almost happened.

  Standing there in my wedding finery, dainty satin pumps on my feet and dark hair curling softly around my bare shoulders, I wanted to weep with how close I came to having all my youthful dreams come true.

  We’d only been minutes away from eloping when the weight of my silence finally came crashing down in the form of one thunderous knock at the door.

  Even now when my whole world was ripping apart at the seams, I couldn’t help but fixate on Gavin. My stepmother’s desperate shrieks flapped around us. My father’s bellows shook the earth.

  They didn’t matter.

  The only thing that mattered was Gavin.

  I watched in morbid fascination as his achingly beautiful face cycled through the emotions of shock, disbelief, and sadness before settling on terrible blankness. His hazel eyes had never looked as empty to me as they did in that moment.

  A tiny sliver of pain broke free from my compressed lips.

  The man who’d given me a thousand kisses would never love me like he had before I’d opened the door and seen how deep the silence of my betrayal ran.

  Patrick Brookstone, my father, stabbed the air once with his thick finger. His hateful stream of words blasted both of us. I should’ve spoken up then, told him that Gavin was blameless.

  As always in his domineering presence, my words remained stuck uselessly in my throat. It was yet another piece of proof that I didn’t deserve to be with someone as wonderful as Gavin.

  “I told you to stay away from anything about Gavin! Didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you that you had no right to him? Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I?”

  Melissa Rice-Brookstone, my stepmother, pleaded in a tone that could crack glass.

  I understood her desperation. She wanted my father to know she’d discouraged me from my wicked ways and that she wasn’t to blame. Only that discouragement first came when I was thirteen and Gavin was nineteen.

  Back when I was a painfully-shy, gawky teenager out to lunch with my stepmother and happened to see a picture of her secret son, the one I, nor anyone in our tiny yet illustrious social circle, never even knew she had.

  It was obvious Melissa wanted to talk about him, this beautiful boy that didn’t exist in her privileged world.

  So I listened.

  I listened to her go on and on about how clever Gavin was, how sweet a boy he’d been, and how his life in New York was more than she could ever want for him. His family’s wealth exceeded ours and how lucky was he to never go without?

  Yet materialism couldn’t change the fact she abandoned him.

  Gavin and I were the same—let down by women who should’ve loved us the most. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel so alone.

  Something in my gaze that afternoon must have triggered Melissa because she’d quickly shoved the picture back into her Birkin bag and whispered, “Don’t tell your father about this. It’ll upset him. Just leave it, okay?”

  I didn’t say a word.

  Instead, I simply wrapped all my hopes, dreams, and ambitions into being someone better than who I’d been. Someone beautiful, clever, and sweet.

  Someone worthy enough of being like Gavin Hawthorne.

  Someone who’d rise above the knocks life handed her and make something of herself. Someone who wasn’t afraid of sudden movement or who allowed unkind words to sink her into oblivion.

  And I’d succeeded.

  At least with creating the shell of that magnificent person. Underneath I was still me.

  Scared and scarred.

  Even now, despite my fixation on the man I loved more than myself, I felt the edges of my composure wilt.

  I wanted Gavin Hawthorne so badly and I got him. I lost him just as quickly.

  Worse, I deserved it.

  I’d set Gavin up by withholding my identity. I’d taken away his choice as thoughtlessly as only a desperate, pitiful Paige Brookstone could.

  Now my shell shattered, leaving me open to destruction.

  I’d played a character in order to get the guy and if all the world’s a stage, then this was my final act and I truly was getting my just desserts.

  It’d been worth it though.

  For the first time in my life, I’d found true happiness and a place to belong. And it was all thanks to Gavin. The memory of my perfect life with him would have to be enough to sustain me in the upcoming years, because the villain never got a happy ending.

  Especially not one like me.

  TWO

  Two Months Earlier

  Butterflies reigned supreme in my belly.

  After three interviews, and a battery of aptitude tests, I was finally
going to have a meeting with the man himself—Gavin Hawthorne. Excited and with a smile stretching wide across my face, I looked up at the building and wondered how the next hour of my life was going to go.

  Good. Better than good I hoped.

  Gavin Hawthorne’s company occupied two floors on the 76th and 77th levels. I’d walked by the impressive structure twice a day, every day, for the last year while on my way to work.

  I’d even seen Gavin once.

  We’d only been maybe twenty feet apart. His tall figure had cut an impressive swath through the never-ending stream of people as he walked from the entrance to the curb and got into his chauffeured vehicle. The gleaming SUV eased into traffic another moment later. I stared after him an indecent amount of time once he was gone.

  His striking features were simply perfection. Masculine yet beautiful with a strong jaw, full lips, aquiline nose, and large hazel eyes. Even in that too-quick look I could see that his body was incredibly strong with a broad back and a trim waist.

  I’d quickly stomped down my awareness of him as a man. My family background was already twisted enough without me adding to it by falling in lust with Melissa’s secret son.

  That was the hard line I drew in the sand and one I was determined to keep. Gavin was the beacon of all I strove to be. A mentor—even if he didn’t know it.

  Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d imagined the weak-in-the-knees and mile-a-minute-heartbeat reaction I’d had that day just from seeing Gavin for only a few seconds.

  What would it be like when I sat across a desk from him? Would Gavin’s staggeringly handsome looks knock me silly?

  I’d find out sooner versus later because I was just minutes away from talking to him for my final interview. I’d already gone through his CIO, CFO, and AVP. Perhaps a bit of overkill considering the job was only temporary, but it wasn’t just any position.

  It was as his assistant.

  No wonder the screening process and competition was fierce. A job with Axis 3 was tantamount to writing your own ticket in this industry.

  I’d cleared the hurdles and now it was down to four candidates, including myself. The only person that could get in my way was me. It was my job to guarantee that didn’t happen.

  Making my way inside, I wondered for the thousandth time what I could possibly be thinking to have left my stable, if somewhat boring job, for a temporary position with a man who most likely would never acknowledge me in public much less welcome me into his office if he knew who I really was.

  Actually, I was surprised I hadn’t been cut from the list by name alone.

  I assumed a background check was typical when you worked in this kind of high-tech environment. I may have used my mother’s maiden name of Winters instead of my birth name once I left my father’s house, but that could easily be found out.

  Part of me fully expected to be confronted once I came face-to-face with the remarkable Gavin Hawthorne.

  Yeah, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’ll worry about it then.

  I passed through security without a hitch. Before I knew it, I was there in the hive. Filled with a healthy mix of fresh-faced college graduates, older mid-level management, and even older executives, I could see Gavin’s Axis 3 was a stable, upwardly mobile kind of place.

  They were deep into app development for a variety of markets, but mainly entertainment. Apparently there was a lot of money to be had in curing people of their momentary boredom.

  Even without the lure of my curiosity, I would’ve welcomed the opportunity to test my wits and skills. Yet, I couldn’t deny a significant part of why I was here was solely because of my curiosity for Gavin Hawthorne.

  Maybe it was a deep-seated defiance or the yearning for a brother-figure, but I’d been fascinated by Gavin from the first moment I’d seen his picture in my stepmother Melissa’s purse.

  Frankly, I was shocked to have discovered that she’d had a child before marrying my father, Patrick Brookstone. He was so possessive of Melissa that I could barely imagine she once had an existence separate and apart from being his wife.

  Sharing more in common with my father I would’ve liked, I kept tabs on Gavin throughout the years. I also had to admit I built him up in mind. When I was younger I liked to pretend that he was a benevolent force over my shoulder, encouraging me when I was down and cheering me on when I succeeded.

  Now that I was out of girlhood, I realized that for all I knew Gavin would’ve been the type of stepbrother who called me an ugly brat and threw me out of his room anytime I dropped by to hang out with him.

  The perfect Gavin I know in my mind would never be such a jerk. He would’ve been sweet. He would’ve protected me.

  Okay, maybe I wasn’t quite ready to let that Gavin go.

  What I did know for sure was that Gavin Hawthorne was intensely private but he was ambitious, independent, and most of all, fair. He sponsored several charities, including those dedicated to foster children. He wasn’t a serial dater, but the relationships that made a blip were long-term.

  Which meant he knew how to commit.

  Everything I’d found confirmed he was as far from an asshole as possible. Distilled even further, Gavin Hawthorne was everything I wasn’t but always wanted to be.

  So when the opportunity came to work right with him, I couldn’t help myself. I had to go for it. I did what I always did when confronted with new situations. I researched and left no digital stone unturned in order to learn who I needed to be.

  I studied the company’s culture, reading every article on Axis 3. I learned all the C-Level executive names. I bought every available app released from their inception and used them until I knew each one inside and out. I stalked their social media accounts and reverse-engineered any employees I could access.

  It wasn’t just about fitting into this company. It was about fitting into Gavin’s working life.

  One thing I gleaned from reading precious little about the notoriously private CEO was that he admired many things, but individuality and independence above all. How was I going to stand out in place where everyone saw themselves as the ultimate ambassador of those traits?

  That was rub of it. I didn’t know until after my first interview, but once I settled on my course I was there all the way.

  It was in my wrapping.

  Everyone at Axis 3 wore over-sized glasses, ironic t-shirts, and jeans or leggings if they were under 30. Those under 40 seemed to wear the same but paired it with a blazer and contacts instead of glasses. The others over 40 were confident in their skin and didn’t play up to current trends. They wore more formal clothes consisting of trousers, dress shirts, and the occasional tie.

  I noticed that despite his age, Gavin favored that end of the spectrum.

  So would I.

  In fact, I was going to turn it up a notch and let my uniform be one of impeccably tailored clothes that required me to be aware of every inch of my posture and bearing, all of which was aided by rigid undergarments. I lost the caramel highlights I’d favored for the last two years, cut several inches off, and dyed my hair darker.

  My matte makeup gave me a sophistication and an edge of age I generally lacked when fresh-faced. I’d always eschewed polish at my last job and kept my nails clipped. Now I was familiar with shades like “First Blush,” “Midnight,” “Scarlet Flame,” and “Moody Mauve”.

  Groomed, waxed, and plucked to an inch of my life, I looked like a woman whose casual Friday meant wearing flats instead of heels. I’d spent the last week studying myself in the mirror, trying on new expressions to match the immaculate stranger staring back at me. I practiced my speech, making sure not to let my naturally soft voice make too much of an appearance.

  My shell had to be perfect.

  Which also meant I’d cut myself completely out of the life I led before. I shed my social circle. Only one person seemed to notice, a sensitive and kind girl named Juliette Romano. We kept in touch via text, but eventually she’d drift away.

 
They always did.

  Checking in with the receptionist and exchanging appropriate friendly small talk, I sat down in the empty waiting area. Nervousness dampened my palms. My legs felt warm beneath their nude silk stockings.

  I was confident that my outfit was tasteful, but did I miscalculate?

  I wore a pinstriped pencil skirt paired with a black silk shirt and a crimson slim belt. My feet were encased in 3 inch heels and I left my hair down but pinned back with a sparkly repurposed broach.

  Would Gavin find it hopelessly stuffy or would he see it as a sign of high maintenance?

  It was entirely possible I was completely wrong in my approach. Gavin may have been formal and self-contained, according to the scant reports I uncovered, but that didn’t mean he wanted to work with a mirror image.

  It was too late to second-guess myself. Especially when I heard my name being called.

  “Ms. Winters?”

  I looked up. Gavin had come to fetch me himself. I hadn’t even heard him come in, but I wasn’t just surprised.

  I was knocked silly.

  Not only was Gavin insanely handsome up close, but he had a soft but deep voice that flowed over every one of my senses and alternately excited and soothed them.

  And just with two words.

  My name. The one thing that could make this all stop.

  THREE

  Bowled over, I had to remember the line I’d drawn between us. I didn’t come here to pick up Melissa’s son.

  Really, I didn’t.

  What I wouldn’t give for this to be anything other than an interview...

  Caught off-guard by my visceral reaction, but knowing how to mask my true emotions flawlessly, I stood up and took Gavin’s proffered hand.

  “Thank you so much for seeing me today, Mr. Hawthorne.”

  His smile, tiny as it may have been, thrilled me. Logic surfaced to aid my chaotic thoughts. Surely I shouldn’t have been surprised by my reaction. I’d admired this man from afar since I was thirteen, almost half my life as a matter of fact.

  Still, I couldn’t shake off the feel of his skin against mine and how much I wanted to touch him again. It was electric. So much so that I still imagined I could feel the imprint of Gavin’s palm against mine long after our handshake ended.