Sinful Vows: Julia

Four years ago, my father called Jake Brenner to Detroit because there was a problem he needed handled quietly. No one ever told me what Jake did, only that afterward he disappeared from our lives as completely as the trouble he’d been hired to erase.

Now he’s back, sitting at my father’s table as though four years mean nothing, older, colder, and still carrying the kind of reputation that makes powerful men lower their voices when they say his name. Jake knows my family too well, knows exactly which questions I should never ask, and somehow manages to look at me as if I’m the one secret in this house he hasn’t figured out yet.

I should be more interested in whatever brought him back to Detroit. Instead, I keep finding reasons to be near him, following conversations long past the point where they’re safe, letting him kiss me between bookstore shelves and take me upstairs to his penthouse even though every instinct I have says Jake Brenner is hiding something that could destroy far more than my good judgment.

The trouble is, I’ve spent my whole life surrounded by men who lie for power, money, loyalty, and survival, so I know exactly what deception looks like when it’s dressed in a tailored suit and delivered with a calm voice. Jake knows I’m hiding things too, and somewhere between my father’s secrets, his unfinished business, and the attraction neither of us has any intention of resisting, we stop pretending this is harmless.

Because whatever happened four years ago is still between us.

And this time, I intend to find out why Jake Brenner came back.