Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Ava Steel isn’t the typical member of her famous family. She colors her hair pink, practices the tarot, and runs her bakery in town without any help from her family’s financial fortune. She’s content in her life, and she knows who she is…until she receives a cryptic text from a mysterious stranger.
Bar-owner Brendan Murphy inadvertently became entwined with the Steel family when he dug up timeworn documents under his floorboards. When he and Ava—who, despite their age difference, he’s been crushing on for a while—receive identical enigmatic messages, they’re thrown together for more than just fun between the sheets.
Ava revels in her new and unexpected relationship with Brendan, but deep down, she fears her family is keeping secrets—secrets that could make her question everything she thought she knew about them…and herself.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
AVA
My mother and father got married on Thanksgiving twenty-five years ago.
Twenty-five years with the same person.
It’s unimaginable to me.
I’m a Steel by birth, but I’ve never felt like a Steel.
I don’t want my family’s money. I like being on my own. I opened my bakery and sandwich shop with my own money—money that I earned, not money from my gigantic trust fund, which, even though I gained control of it when I turned twenty-one three years ago, I’ve never touched.
I’ll never touch it if I can avoid it.
Don’t get me wrong.
I love my family. All of them, without condition.
I just don’t want their money.
I’m kind of the black sheep of the Steel family. Or rather, the pink sheep, if my hair color makes me who I am. So I like pink hair. Sue me. I can pull it off.
My little sister, Gina, thinks I’m crazy. She’s gorgeous, of course. Looks just like our father, Ryan Steel, who’s the pretty boy of the Steel family. Gina has his dark hair and light-brown eyes that are fringed with those ridiculously long lashes.
I look more like our mother, Ruby Lee Steel. I have her brown hair, lighter than Dad’s, but of course I color it. I also have her blue eyes. That’s where our similarities end, though. I’m not nearly as pretty as Mom is.
I’m just me.
Ava.
Simply Ava, who loves to bake, and who’s damned good at it, if I do say so myself.
I learned at an early age from my aunt Marjorie, who’s a trained chef. I’m supposed to be meeting with her now, as we’re planning Mom and Dad’s twenty-fifth anniversary party.
It will be huge and lavish and at the main house, where Uncle Talon and Aunt Jade live.
Just like all the Steel parties.
And man, we Steels love to give parties.
I’m running late, of course, because I got sucked into a tarot reading with some of my online pals.
Gina rolls her eyes at me whenever I pull out the tarot deck, but that’s fine. I don’t think of it as fortune-telling or witchcraft or anything. I simply use it to tap into my own intuition. Plus, I enjoy it.
I’m about ready to log off when my phone dings with a text.
Darth Morgen is alive.
Huh?
I wrinkle my forehead and check the number. I don’t recognize it.
Darth Morgen? Is this some kind of Star Wars reference?
Who is this?
No reply, until—
Darth Morgen is alive.
O…kay. Whoever sent this message probably mistyped a number. It’s not meant for me. Still, I’m curious, and I want some guidance.
I shuffle my deck and pull a single card.
The hierophant.
I jerk slightly.
Not because the hierophant represents anything that concerns me, but because in the ten years I’ve experimented with the tarot, I’ve never drawn this card in a reading for myself. Others, of course, but not myself, which always made sense. The hierophant can represent conformity and group identification.
That’s not me. Not Ava Steel.
I’m the Steel who didn’t use her sizable trust fund to open my bakery in town. I’m the Steel who colors her hair and wears a lip ring.
Definitely not a conformist.
But…a hierophant is also someone who interprets secret knowledge and seeks a deeper meaning.
Darth Morgen is alive.
Secret knowledge? A deeper meaning?
Was this message meant for me after all?
CHAPTER ONE
AVA
I’m still staring at the strange text when a new one comes in from Aunt Marjorie.
Where are you? Everything okay?
Right. Mom and Dad’s twenty-fifth anniversary party. A Steel grand occasion can be put on hold for nothing or no one—especially not some bizarre message that may not have been meant for me anyway.
I text back quickly.
On my way.
A half hour later, I arrive at Aunt Marj’s home.
Her husband, Uncle Bryce, is the chief financial officer for the family company. I don’t concern myself much with what goes on with our finances. It’s not that I don’t care, because I love my family. It’s just that it doesn’t really affect my life. I live by my own means, and I’m proud of it.
I give the door a quick knock, and I walk in, giving some head scratches to their black labs, Thad and Gary.
“Ava, is that you?” Aunt Marj calls from the kitchen.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Great. Come on back.”
I’m on my way through the foyer when Uncle Bryce, Uncle Joe, and my cousin Brock walk toward me, clearly having come from Uncle Bryce’s office. Brock is Uncle Joe in miniature—except Brock is hardly miniature. But for Uncle Joe’s graying temples, they could be twins with their strong builds, dark hair, and dark eyes. Uncle Bryce is silver-haired with bright-blue eyes and also nearly as tall as Brock and Uncle Joe.
“Hey, Ava,” Brock says. “What are you doing over here?”
“I’m helping Aunt Marj plan the big shindig for my mom and dad.”
“Right, the anniversary.” Brock nods. “Have fun.”
“What are you guys all doing here?”