The Secret Read online

  The Secret

  Arranged Book Two

  Stella Gray

  Copyright © 2019 by Stella Gray

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  About This Book

  Also by Stella Gray

  Prologue

  1. Tori

  2. Tori

  3. Tori

  4. Tori

  5. Tori

  6. Tori

  7. Tori

  8. Stefan

  9. Tori

  10. Tori

  11. Tori

  12. Tori

  13. Tori

  14. Tori

  15. Tori

  16. Tori

  17. Stefan

  18. Tori

  19. Tori

  20. Tori

  21. Tori

  22. Tori

  23. Tori

  24. Stefan

  25. Tori

  26. Tori

  27. Tori

  28. Stefan

  29. Tori

  30. Tori

  Also by Stella Gray

  About Stella Gray

  About This Book

  On the day I was married, I promised to love, honor, and obey my husband Stefan.

  * * *

  Little did I know how literally I would mean obeying.

  * * *

  Stefan tells me what to do, and I do it. There are questions asked, but I always submit in the end.

  * * *

  It would hurt less if I hadn’t started falling for him.

  * * *

  It was supposed to be pretend. But the secrets we now share are too real, and they’re crumbling every piece of who I thought I was.

  * * *

  If only Stefan was the man I thought he was.

  * * *

  If only I weren’t so powerless.

  * * *

  But there’s one thing I have that he wants.

  * * *

  My body.

  * * *

  And I’ll do anything it takes to right the wrongs I’ve discovered.

  Also by Stella Gray

  Arranged Series

  The Deal

  The Secret

  The Choice

  * * *

  Convenience Series

  The Sham - June 2020

  The Contract - July 2020

  The Ruin - August 2020

  Prologue

  Stefan

  I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of Anja’s heavy breathing, the now-familiar distressed moans escaping from her lips. Another nightmare.

  “Anja,” I whispered, reaching for her shoulder. I tucked her lithe, naked body into mine, curling around her protectively from behind.

  She gasped for air and turned to face me in the bed. I could see her fearful expression in the glow of the streetlight coming from outside, her eyelids fluttering rapidly as she glanced around my room and struggled to get her bearings.

  “Shh. It’s me,” I said.

  Her hands reached up to frame the strong lines of my jaw. “Stefan.” Her exotic Romanian accent never failed to send a shock of lust through me, even at times like this.

  “You’re safe,” I soothed her, kissing each palm. “You’re with me. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  “I know,” she said, but I could still feel her heart pounding as her chest pressed against mine.

  I had no idea what the nightmares were about; Anja refused to give me any details. She said there were certain things about her history that I was better off not knowing. I respected this need for privacy, but I also fucking hated it. Whoever had hurt her, I’d give anything to hunt them down. To make sure nobody else ever touched my girl again.

  But now she was climbing on top of me, her lips hungrily seeking mine. That long black hair falling like a sheet of silk against my chest, my fingers instinctively reaching for the soft curves of her breasts. We’d fucked for hours earlier, before falling exhausted into bed, but our bodies were like magnets and I was hard and ready for another round as she straddled me.

  “You sure you want to go again?” I teased, nudging my cock against her. “Pretty sure if I make you scream as loud as you did earlier, you’re not gonna have a voice tomorrow.”

  “Who needs one?” She leaned back, spreading her thighs, and looked down at me with a smirk. “I don’t have the kind of job where it pays to have a voice.”

  Despite her smile, the words had an edge that sent a chill through me. I pulled her mouth down onto mine, wishing my lips could make her pain go away. As we kissed I rolled us over, pinning her to the bed. She reached for my cock.

  “Wait. We need to talk first,” I said. My adrenaline was pumping at the thought of telling her my plan, but it was now or never.

  She pouted. “Talk is boring.”

  I laughed. “I hope what I have to say won’t bore you.”

  I’d met Anja Borjan in the fall, at a fashion show in Paris where the models had been painted in gold leaf. Even still, Anja had glowed like no one else on that runway. Her eyes, the bluish-green color of an ocean during a storm, had locked onto mine as she’d pouted her sultry way down the catwalk. I knew in that moment: I had to have her. I soon found out she was one of the up-and-coming new talents recruited by my father for his agency, KZ Modeling, and had quickly become a favorite among his clients. All of his clients.

  But as the son of KZM’s owner, I was used to getting what I wanted.

  Within a week she had been in my bed, and in the months since, she’d barely gone more than a few nights at a time without returning—even if she sometimes texted me after 2 am so I could sneak down to the lobby of our luxury apartment building and let her in. And to my surprise, I’d become addicted to her. I hadn’t grown tired of Anja as I had with other women.

  And I didn’t think I ever would. Something about her anchored me, made me see a future where we were happy together. It didn’t matter that I was seventeen and she was in her twenties, or that her career was on fire and mine hadn’t even begun yet, or that she was so much more worldly than I was (despite my money and my travels and my experiences with women). We just…fit.

  My mother had died when I was six, and my father was a lifelong workaholic. Anja had immediately nodded with understanding when I told her how I’d had to grow up fast. My younger siblings and I had been brought up by a series of nannies but they’d always seemed to take little interest in me, probably because I was such a strong-willed, independent child. In many ways, I’d raised myself.

  I’d been sleeping with the models from KZM since I was thirteen. As far as I was concerned, it was the best way to gain maturity and life experience, to learn about pleasure and beauty. The talent my father employed were experts in both, and I made it a point to seek out their expertise. Especially in the bedroom. Anyone who didn’t return my interest, though few and far between, was politely passed over in favor of someone who was more attracted to what I had to offer. With my father so focused on running the business, there was no one around to dissuade my particular form of sexual education. It had always been fun. And easy.

  But everything had changed with Anja. I’d found myself opening up to her. I trusted her.

  What we had going on, though—it wasn’t enough for me anymore. The sneaking around, the incognito coffee dates on the other side of town, these little sexual interludes in between the various jobs she was sent on. I wanted more of her. I wanted all of her.

  I was in love and I was going to marry her.

  I’d even picked out a ring and ever
ything. Right now it was burning a hole in my bedside table—it was set with a huge, heart-shaped diamond that would sparkle on her finger. I was ready to make her mine, to take our relationship out of the shadows and into the light. I wanted to stop hiding and make things official. She loved me too. I was certain.

  She’d said the words, yes, but it was more than that. I could tell how she felt by the way she looked at me, the way she melted into my arms, the way she kissed me…the way she relaxed at the sound of my voice whenever she woke from her nightmares. She wanted this, too. Something permanent. Something safe. Something…real.

  I cleared my throat, checked my nerves, and looked down into those stormy eyes.

  “I’ll be graduating from high school soon,” I began, my tone serious.

  Anja’s hand froze mid-grope. “I know this…”

  I nodded, unable to read her neutral expression. “So. So I’ve been thinking that…that the timing is right, now, for us to start thinking about the future. What’s ahead of us—”

  “You are saying you are ready to move on from this?” She was frowning now.

  I couldn’t help myself; I laughed. “No! God, no. Anja, I—I love you.” I stroked her cheek, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “And I love you,” she said. She wrapped her legs around me and propped herself up on her elbows to drop kisses down my throat, along my collarbone, moving toward my chest. My cock jumped against her thigh eagerly, but I gently pushed her away. I needed to focus.

  “Anja,” I said.

  She looked up at me, her angelic face wearing a frown of confusion.

  “You don’t want to—?” she gestured to my cock.

  I did. I really did, but I took her hand in mine instead.

  “I love you,” I said again, slowly, “and I want to marry you.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. We’d spoken about it before, in passing—I had made my intentions clear—but for some reason this was still a surprise to her.

  “But—what is wrong with what we have?” she asked. “Are you not happy?”

  “I am happy,” I said. “What we have is amazing. But…I want more. Don’t you?”

  “Stefan.” She laughed softly. “You can’t be serious.”

  I looked into her eyes. “I am. I want to be with you. I want to marry you.”

  She gently pushed me aside and wriggled out from beneath me. Before I fully realized what was happening, she was getting out of bed, pulling on her clothes.

  I leapt to my feet, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. She stilled but didn’t turn toward me. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “I can take care of you. You wouldn’t even have to keep modeling if you didn’t want to, or you could stay focused on your career as long as you want. Either way, we’d get on a good path—together. Build a life of our own.”

  Anja finally looked back at me. “You are a wonderful boy. But you know we cannot.”

  That word, “boy,” stung. But I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “This can work. My trust fund has enough money to live off of for years, and once I have my MBA I can provide for us even better. If you don’t want to come with me to U Penn, maybe we can—”

  “Your father would never allow me to stop working for him,” she cut me off.

  I was confused. “You don’t have to stop. You can keep modeling.”

  Her shoulders slumped under my touch. “I am not referring to the modeling,” she said.

  Of course.

  I knew that my father employed his models for more than just print work and runway shows, that some of the clients who came to him expected the women to work in the bedroom as well. I’d always known this. As someone who was naturally curious and expected to take over KZM when I was older, I’d made it my business from a young age to learn everything about how the agency operated. And I did. I knew where to recruit models, how to woo them, what their contracts looked like, how to entice new clients into the fold and keep the established ones. I had no illusions; I knew exactly how our company was run. Including all the things my father kept out of the press. The sex work was just another part of the business. A part that we never discussed, that was kept secret from most of the world, but a part of KZ Modeling nonetheless.

  I never judged the models that supplemented their income this way. After all, I had been the grateful recipient of many of the tricks and treats they had doled out while earning additional money. They could live their lives as they saw fit.

  And even though I knew it wasn’t entirely legal, I didn’t judge that either. Everyone was making more money, everyone was having a good time, everyone was gaining something. As far as I was concerned, it was a win-win situation. My father made more profits and connections this way, and the models earned more to send home to their families, as most of them were supporting their relatives overseas.

  But if Anja and I got married, she wouldn’t need to make that extra income. She would be part of the Zoric family, and all the wealth and perks that that included.

  “You don’t need to keep doing that kind of work once we’re married,” I told her. “I meant what I said. I’ll take care of both of us. Of your family, too.”

  She pulled away and resumed dressing, zipping her jeans and reaching for her T-shirt.

  “That’s not how it works,” she said, her voice quiet.

  I didn’t understand her stubbornness, but I wasn’t going to let Anja’s hesitation stand in the way of our happiness. It was a problem I could fix. She just didn’t realize it.

  “Don’t you love me?” I asked.

  “Just because I love you, it doesn’t mean we can be together. Not like you’re asking. Even though it sounds like a fairytale.” Her voice caught in her throat, and I could see her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

  I felt triumphant. She did want to be with me. “If you love me, then trust that I will find a way to make this work,” I said. “Can you do that? Can you just…trust me?”

  Finally, her eyes locked on mine. I saw the glimmer of hope there, and felt a surge of emotion go through me, my chest swelling.

  “I trust you,” she said. “But…I need some time. Okay?”

  I swept her into my arms and kissed her, holding her tightly. I never wanted to let her go.

  And if I had my way, I wouldn’t have to.

  When she left a few hours later, she had agreed to think about my proposal, just as I had promised to fix whatever problems she was afraid of encountering. I was on top of the world. My whole life was ahead of me, my future bright, and now I’d have Anja at my side.

  I still felt that way when I got a text from her a few days later saying we needed to talk. I was certain she was ready to officially say yes, so I rushed over after school, making a stop at home first to grab the engagement ring I was eager to slide onto her finger.

  But when I arrived at the apartment KZ Modeling had set her up in, I found it empty. Completely stripped bare. Besides the sparse modern furniture that had been there when she moved in, I found none of her books, no clothes, not even a toothbrush. Even the many vases of fresh flowers that I had delivered to her place each week—which she never threw away—were gone. It was as if she’d never been there at all. None of the other models who lived in the building or on her floor could tell me anything. None of them knew where she had gone.

  I texted her and called her, but there was no response.

  Unsure of what to do, my adrenaline pumping hard, I got in a cab to go see the one man who had the power to fix anything—and everything. My father.

  When I arrived at his office in the KZM building, it was almost as if he’d been waiting for me.

  “Anja Borjan is missing,” I said, not caring that I was out of breath. “And everything of hers is gone from her apartment. Something’s not right. I talked to a few of the other girls, but nobody knows where she went.”

  “Yes, I know,” my father said disinterestedly.

  He had never been a warm man. Never
been especially kind or fatherly, but the coldness in his voice at that moment stopped me in my tracks.

  “Wait—you knew about this? So where is she?”

  He glanced down at the paperwork on his desk, barely paying any attention to me.

  “She’s been deported.”

  It felt like the ground had dropped out from under me. I sank down in a chair, my knees failing me.

  “How? Why? We need to get her back,” I told him.

  My father shook his head. “She was here illegally. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “But I’m in love with her,” I said, the words coming out of me in a rush. It wasn’t how I had envisioned telling my father about our relationship, but there wasn’t time for that now. “I’m in love with her and I’m going to marry her, so her immigration status won’t be a problem. She’ll be a full citizen.”

  My father looked up at me, his gaze hard as diamonds. “You think I didn’t know about your little tryst?” he asked. “You think I haven’t known about every single one of my models you’ve fucked around with?”

  I flinched at his words. “This is different,” I said. “Anja is different. I need you to get her back.”