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Back A Small Affair Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. Part Two
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 4
  26. 5
  27. 6
  28. 7
  29. 8
  30. 9
  31. 10
  32. 11
  33. 12
  34. 13
  35. 14
  36. 15
  37. 16
  38. 17
  39. 18
  40. 19
  41. Part Three
  42. 1
  43. 2
  44. 3
  45. 4
  46. 5
  47. 6
  48. 7
  49. 8
  50. 9
  51. 10
  52. EPILOGUE
  53. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  54. Booklist

She reminds me of Peri, that unabashed confidence that seems to ooze out of those tiny pictures into the palm of my hand as I hold my phone. But I can’t think about those similarities. I can’t think about her, especially since I never heard back.

But Vera, Vera MacDonald, she’s the second most self-assured person I’ve come across since her. I wish it were contagious. God, I wish I could skin her and wear her, Vera. I want to meet her. I want us to be friends. But not yet, not now. I need to play a long game. I have to learn how to be her. Be more like that. God knows I tried all those years ago. But this time I won’t fuck up and get distracted. This time I’ll get what I want. I’ll have the gumption to infiltrate Vera’s world. By the time I offer my friendship to her, I’ll be an entirely different person. She’ll be enthralled. That’s my promise to myself.

8

VERA

Present day

Quinn had tried every tool in his kit. He’d attempted every journalistic trick up his sleeve in his quest for more info about Thelma. Peri. Whoever she is. He’d engaged a private investigator, a professional hacker, barely legal maneuvers. She wasn’t on Google. She’d had her name basically wiped from everywhere, any remnants of her past erased like she’d never existed at all.

There had been a point, Quinn said, where he thought he was truly losing it, when he had looked at that despicable picture so many times, he thought he’d merged with it, his face showing up in corners of it. He began to wonder if Peri existed at all anymore, if she’d died somehow along with Tom and Odilie.

But he’d found her. Nothing much. Just that she was married to Darius Tanner, that they lived somewhere near Atlanta. No mention of children or images of sprawling estates. She was private, Persephone. Darius, the Tanner heir, was private, too.

But Quinn, he was giddy. A picture of a billionaire with a dead rich person, brutally inflicting sexual pain on a third? It was too good, the story too juicy. This would make Quinn’s career. This would establish a sordid pattern of abuse from Tom, exonerate me, show him for the psychopath he truly was.