Read On Her Master's Secret Service for Free Online

with everything he was carrying, but she didn’t offer to help again. He would just say no. He would rather drop everything than admit he needed help. She sighed and turned to Liam.
    Twenty minutes later, Eve looked at Avery and wondered if she’d ever been that young and in love. Though Avery was only ten years younger, that was just a number. Avery’s innocence couldn’t be measured by years. It went deep into her soul. Avery had lost everything at a young age and still her eyes were bright as she turned to her husband.
    She often wondered how Avery would have handled being in Eve’s position. Avery wouldn’t have broken the way Eve had. Avery likely would have walked away with a bruised body, but with her heart still capable of love. Avery, it seemed to Eve, was indestructible.
    Eve was deeply aware of how fragile her own soul was.
    “I want pancakes.” Avery set down the menu she’d been studying.
    “You always want pancakes, girl. Ya never try anything else. Why do you waste your time looking at the menu?” Liam’s voice was gruff, but his eyes were lit with laughter. He loved his wife. The connection between them was a palpable thing. Li winked Eve’s way as he set down his own menu. “What about you, love? Are you trying something different?”
    She never tried anything different. “No. I’ll stick with what I know.”
    Half a grapefruit, two scrambled egg whites, whole-wheat toast, no butter. No indulgences for Eve St. James. Discipline. It was what her life had become. And now she could fit into those designer dresses that had been out of reach all those years ago because Alex liked to stuff her with chocolate and rich foods. He used to order in from the most decadent of restaurants and feed her while she sat in his lap and they cuddled.
    “Order for me, will you?” Liam was pulling out his phone, checking the screen. “I have to take this. And for god’s sake, woman, order your own bacon this time. You always say you won’t eat it and then you steal mine.”
    He brushed his lips across his wife’s as he scooted from the booth.
    The waitress chose that moment to take the orders and refresh their coffee. When she was gone, Eve forced a smile on her face. Coffee. Her only real indulgence, well, besides all the BDSM and the soulless sex.
    “How are you feeling?”
    Avery smiled. “Good. This is actually a far easier pregnancy than my Maddie .”
    Eve froze. Madison. Avery’s child. The one who died.
    Avery’s hand came out, covering Eve’s. “It’s all right.”
    That summed up Avery to a T . Avery had lost a child and she reached out to comfort Eve. Eve pulled back, reaching for her coffee mug. “I’m sorry. I’m always a little shocked that you can speak about her so easily.”
    Loss was something to be hidden. God, she was glad she wasn’t her own patient.
    Avery just gave her a gentle smile. “I miss my baby every day, but it would be wrong to pretend she didn’t exist. Do you know what Liam gave me as a housewarming gift when we bought our place here?”
    She hadn’t been to their big house in North Dallas. She hated that part of town because it reminded her so much of the sleepy, upscale Virginia neighborhood she and Alex had moved into once they could afford it. Those houses were all lovely, with signs of life and children on every lawn. An overturned bike here, a massive fort there, a man washing his prized car in the driveway.
    Her apartment was sterile. Lovely, but sterile. Rather like herself.
    She shook her head. “No, but I suspect it wasn’t a houseplant.”
    Avery’s eyes teared up. “He had a painter do a portrait of Madison from her baby pictures. Of Maddie and Brandon. He put it up next to the pictures of us from our wedding. He said it was because they were a part of our family, and he never wanted this baby to forget that he or she had a big sister once. And I cry when I look at that picture. I do. I cry when I think how I lost Maddie and my first husband, but I