Secrets and Lies

  Secrets and Lies

  The first book in The Secrets and Lies Trilogy

  By Joanne Clancy

  Copyright 2012 Joanne Clancy. All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition

  This book is also available in paperback at Amazon.

  Discover books by Joanne Clancy:

  Unforgettable Embrace

  The Wedding Day

  My Love

  The Secrets & Lies Trilogy:

  Secrets & Lies, Book 1

  Aftermath, Book 2

  Redemption, Book 3

  The Unfaithful Series:

  Unfaithfully Yours, Book 1

  Revenge, Book 2

  Web of Deceit, Book 3

  Click here to purchase Joanne Clancy’s books

  Praise for Secrets and Lies

  Secrets & Lies was a wonderful story. It kept building momentum as the stories of Kerry's and Hope's lives unfolded. The author described the characters in vivid detail and you felt as though you knew them by the end of the novel. There are also hints as to their lives possibly intersecting in the following sequels which promise to be very interesting considering the cliffhanger of an ending! I feel compelled to read Aftermath to see exactly what lies ahead for these characters...

  ~ Michele H ~ Amazon

  Having read a few previous books by this author, which I'd also enjoyed. I have to say that Joanne Clancy just gets better and better every time and as a result this is a polished and well thought-out, intriguing story. It follows the lives of a couple of female main characters. Kerry who's married to Conor and Hope who's married to Niall and it sure makes you wonder how these two, very different ladies are connected and I don't want to spoil anything, but could it be their husbands?

  The sex scenes were handled really well as I've come to expect, for Joanne Clancy has a knack of making them downright sexy without being 'cringey' which is a major skill in itself. I got stuck into this novel right from the start and raced to finish it, seeing as I was carried away on a simple basis of wanting to find out what happens next. In fact, it's such a page-turner that I nearly missed my doctor’s appointment when they'd called out my name, but I was so engrossed in reading it that I didn't hear them until the nurse tapped me on the shoulder and I nearly dropped my Kindle. I can't wait for the second book in this trilogy to be produced and if you read it too then you'll understand, why!~ Maureen Reil ~ Amazon

  Kerry Darcy is not just "settled" - she is blissfully settled. She has two children, plenty of disposable income and a thriving career as an author to keep her busy while the love of her life, her husband, Conor, is off on business trip after business trip, only able to stay home for short periods of time.

  It appears, then, that she would have little in common with young, bubbly Hope Kennedy who is a childless, aspiring actress. But, Hope understands the loneliness Kerry feels because her husband, Niall, is also only able to stay home for short periods of time while he takes business trip after business trip.

  Fortunately, in March of 2011 the Darcys finally manage time for a family vacation on the fascinating island of Japan. On March 11, Conor goes off for a little sightseeing when an undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Tohoku. From the moment the size of the 9.0 earthquake was recognized, it took Japan only three minutes to issue a tsunami warning. However it took only 29 minutes for the first waves to reach Japan. Ultimately, over 15,000 were killed, with several thousand more injured. As Kerry and her daughter, Saoirse, fight frantically to escape their crashing hotel, fear mounts as Hope Kennedy cannot reach her husband, who coincidentally is in Japan for yet another business trip.

  As an avid reader, even though this book was superbly written, I actually found the plot a little predictable. However, the characters were so well-crafted that I felt drawn into their lives - their families. Author Joanne Clancy did a superb job of making me care what happened to these women and I anxiously await the second book to discover if Kerry and Saoirse are all right. Even more, I am impatient to discover how Connor and Niall have fared. This is one book where you'll be eager to get your hands on the sequel! ~ M. Walker ~ Amazon

  Prologue

  Kerry Darcy's life, as she knew it, ended just before three o’ clock on Friday, the eleventh of March 2011.

  The Great East Japan earthquake was one of the most powerful earthquakes that the modern world had ever known. The earthquake battered coastal communities with waves of up to forty metres tall. It triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the Japanese coast and the aftershock could be felt as far away as Russia, the west coast of America and even in the Antarctic where the tsunami destroyed icebergs that were the same size as Manhattan Island.

  It killed more than fifteen thousand people and injured over twenty six thousand. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history and was the fifth largest earthquake ever measured, causing the entire planet to shift on its axis by up to twenty five centimetres. The energy released on the earth's surface was equivalent to more than one thousand five hundred times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

  Saoirse Darcy, a young student, had studied tsunamis in geography at school and recognised the telltale signs of the receding ocean and frothing bubbles. She warned the others on the beach about the impending killer wave and they were evacuated to safety just in time, before the tsunami struck its deadly blow, wreaking havoc on so many unsuspecting lives.

  Giant forces that had been building up deep in the Earth for hundreds of years were explosively released on that fateful day in March, shaking the ground violently and unleashing a series of killer waves that raced across the Pacific Ocean at the speed of a jet airliner. Hours later, deadly waves radiating from the earthquake zone slammed into the coastline of Pacific countries; snatching people out to sea, drowning others in their homes or on beaches, and demolishing property from Japan to America and beyond.

  Along a stretch of coastline equivalent to the distance from London to Edinburgh, a tower of water reaching up to twelve metres tall burst over reinforced sea barriers, destroying sixteen towns and ninety-five thousand buildings. It travelled six miles inland, in some areas, before dragging millions of homes, possessions and vehicles back into the open sea.

  The earthquake had the largest duration of faulting ever observed, lasting between eight and ten minutes; the most devastating minutes of Kerry Darcy's life. Kerry could hear the screaming and crying of the people all around her. Everyone was clinging to whatever piece of debris they could find, watching the waves spread out in vast tentacles as it reached further and further in all directions.

  The killer wave had taken its fateful hold on time and place. It had ruptured the present, warped the future, replaced order with confusion, confidence with trepidation and control with powerlessness. Lives were ended for some, changed forever for others and a most significant chain of events was about to unfold with catastrophic results.

  Chapter 1

  “You are the most wonderful husband in the whole wide world and I love you so much!” Kerry Darcy flung her arms around Conor, her husband of twenty years and almost sent everything on their restaurant table flying to the floor in her eagerness to hug him.

  “Steady on sweetheart, the manager will have us removed for causing such a commotion,” Conor laughed.

  “I don't care,” she said. “I'm so very happy right now and I don't care who knows it. I love you.” She planted a big kiss on his lips and gazed lovingly into his intelligent blue eyes.

  “I love you too, darling,” Conor laughed again and hugged her tightly in return. “Everyone's staring at us,” he whispered eventually.

  Kerry reluctantly disentangled herself from her husband's muscular arms and glanced around the packed restaurant. It was e
ight o' clock on Saturday evening, the busiest night of the week, and quite a few people were staring in amusement at them. It seemed they'd caused quite a scene. Kerry smiled in embarrassment and hastily retreated to her seat where she tried to regain her composure.

  “I can't believe you've planned such an amazing surprise and I didn't have a clue what were you up to all this time! It must have taken you months to organise the trip.”

  “I can be mysterious when necessary,” her husband teased, arching an eyebrow. “You might know me better than most people, but I can keep a secret when necessary.”

  “Can you really?” Kerry looked quizzically at him. “What could be more surprising than the holiday of a lifetime to Japan? I've always wanted to go there. It's been a lifelong dream of mine and you're going to make it come true.”

  “You can call me Mr. Dream Maker,” Conor grinned at her as he refilled their wine glasses. “I'm being a touch selfish too, you know. I booked the holiday as much for myself as for you.”

  “Oh, that's right!” Kerry exclaimed. “It'll be your forty- fifth birthday on March twenty first.”

  “Exactly,” Conor winked at her. “I wanted to do something special and we've opened a new hotel in Tohoku so I got us great rates for a few nights.”

  “What about the children?” Kerry asked, a flicker of worry suddenly passing across her pretty face. Kerry was forty two years old with dark auburn hair which fell in soft waves around her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were sky-blue and her lips, even without lipstick, were a full rosebud red. Her looks were almost perfect apart from her slightly crooked nose, a result of having fallen downstairs as a young child and breaking it rather dramatically. She still shuddered at the memory of the gushing blood and how badly her nose had swollen.

  She had a petite figure which she kept trim and toned by running five miles every day and she stood just five feet one inch tall, that one inch was very important to her. She possessed a deep, throaty voice and an even raspier, filthy laugh which is what Conor claimed made him fall in love with her all those years ago.

  “Darling, our children are old enough to take care of themselves for a few weeks, don't you think? Emer is nineteen and Saoirse is almost thirteen.”

  “I know their ages, darling,” Kerry replied disparagingly. “I just worry about them, that's all. It's the first time we'll both be away from them for such a long period of time. Three whole weeks is quite a while for them to be home alone.”

  “They won't be alone, darling. Your sister has promised to keep an eye on them while we're gone and she only lives next door! Saoirse practically lives with her Auntie Maura most of the time anyway; whenever she's off school she's over at Maura's house and we hardly ever see Emer since she started college. They adore each other and anyway, Emer has grown into a very capable, responsible young woman. She's told me that she'll take good care of Soairse, not that Saoirse is difficult in any way. I trust them both implicitly, they'll be absolutely fine.”

  “Are you sure?” Kerry sounded doubtful.

  “I'm absolutely positive and anyway we can take them with us if you’d prefer. Now I would like to make a toast to my gorgeous wife, who I must say is looking particularly ravishing tonight.”

  Kerry blushed at her husband's compliment as he raised his glass in a toast to her.

  “How did I get so lucky?” she whispered, reaching across the table for his hand.

  “I'm the lucky one, darling,” Conor smiled indulgently at her.

  They were rudely interrupted by the shrill ringing of Conor's mobile phone.

  “Damn!” he swore under his breath. “I thought I'd turned the bloody thing off.” He frowned in annoyance at the phone, as if he was willing it to stop ringing.

  “Aren't you going to answer it?” Kerry asked gently.

  “No, it'll probably be someone from work and they can wait until Monday. I specifically said that I didn't want to be disturbed tonight.”

  The phone rang again. “It must be important, you should answer it. I really don't mind,” Kerry insisted.

  “I won't be long,” Conor smiled apologetically at his wife and hurriedly made his way to the restaurant's foyer where he could speak in privacy.

  Kerry gazed at the picturesque landscape before her and slowly sipped her red wine. The restaurant's floor- to-ceiling windows had been flung open to take advantage of the unseasonably warm, sunny weather. Summer that year had been particularly lovely; it had arrived early and stayed late. It was September already and the days were perfect shades of green and gold. Kerry watched the soft twilight settle over the garden and listened to the sounds of the river in the background; the hooting of river boats, the partying pleasure boats and the occasional cries of the birds overhead. It was an idyllic scene.

  I'm the luckiest woman in the world, she thought. She often said to her friends that her life was just too good to be true and they readily agreed with her. She was married to her first and only love and they still adored each other, even after twenty years of marriage.

  “If you two weren't such decent people I'd be sick with jealousy,” her sister, Maura, sometimes joked. “You both still act like love's young dream.”

  Conor was a wonderfully attentive and supportive husband, in spite of his hectic job. He was managing director of the Imperial Hotel Group, which was an exclusive international hotel chain. It was a role which required him to be away on business quite often for long stretches at a time, but he was never more than a telephone call away. He'd insisted that Kerry had full-time help with the children when they were very young and this allowed her to continue her career as a writer and illustrator of children's books. It was a job which she thoroughly enjoyed and one which made her quite well-renowned in artistic and literary circles.

  She was happy to have something of her own, that was just hers, outside of her husband and children. It gave her a sense of independence and allowed her to maintain her own identity as an individual, not just as Kerry the wife, mother and sister, but as Kerry the woman. Conor recognised his wife's need to retain some part of her individualism and he did everything he possibly could to encourage her.

  Emer and Saoirse were the best children that any mother could ever wish for; they were healthy, loving, kind and hardworking, in spite of their parents' wealth. Emer had worked part-time since she was twelve years old; first delivering the local newspapers and now working Saturdays at the local grocery store. She was studying to be a vet, something that she had wanted to pursue since her childhood love affair with animals. Saoirse was following in her older sister's steps and had just started her own paper-round a few weeks previously.

  Money was no object to the Darcys; Conor's job was very well-paid and Kerry had inherited a large estate when she was twenty-five from her late parents who had died tragically when she was a baby. Her beloved Auntie Aisling and Uncle Sean had raised Kerry and her sister, Maura from infancy and treated them as their own children. Kerry and Maura saw them as being their parents because they were the only mom and dad they'd ever known.

  The Darcys owned several luxurious houses around the world including a restored villa in the South of France, a chalet in Zurich, Switzerland and a large apartment in London. Life was good and they had everything that money could buy.

  Kerry knew her life was blessed. Some of her friends had rich husbands who rarely wanted to spend any time with them, fobbing them off, instead, with expensive gifts and an unlimited bank account. They lived separate lives for the most part, something which Kerry would have hated. She often said to Conor that she'd rather be rich in love than poor in worldly possessions, but she was lucky enough to have both.

  She appreciated that she had an absolute treasure in her husband and was still deeply in love. Their daughters completely adored him too. Although he had a stressful, high-powered job, he was always in an upbeat mood. He was never annoyed or snappy with his wife or children, no matter how tired or stressed he felt from work. He made time for them and his family truly b
elieved that they were the most important people in his life.

  Conor had presented Kerry with a sparkling diamond ring that morning. She'd woken to breakfast in bed and before she'd had time to rub the sleep from her tired eyes, he'd popped the stunning ring on her finger. She was so overwhelmed that she'd promptly burst into tears.

  Kerry smiled to herself at her memory of the first time she'd met Conor. It was Christmas time and shortly after her twentieth birthday. Even now, so many years later, memories of the night they first met were still vivid in her mind. A week before Christmas, she and her sister, Maura, decided to let their hair down and dropped into their local pub for a few festive drinks. They'd been studying hard for their final university exams and were relieved that the holidays were fast approaching.

  Everyone was singing along to the holiday favourite, the Andy Williams' classic, “It's the most Wonderful Time of the Year” and in the helter-skelter of the bustling pub, Kerry lost Maura in the crowd. After a quick search, she was told by a fresh-faced Conor that Maura had left with his friend.

  Conor and Kerry started chatting and eventually he offered to walk her home.

  “You'll do no such thing,” Kerry remembered she'd strongly protested, although secretly she'd known that she'd met her Mr. Right.

  They'd spent the evening talking and talking. Conor was full of plans for the future and Kerry felt that she would die if she didn't get to share his plans and dreams.

  “I'm going to marry that guy,” Kerry told her sister on the way home in the taxi, later that night.

  She'd never been particularly attracted to anyone until she met Conor. She'd certainly vaguely liked a few boys in school but she'd fallen madly in love with Conor from the moment they'd met. He was kind, generous, thoughtful, and was full of life. Of course, it didn't hurt that he was handsome with a wonderfully lean body and that she thought he was incredibly sexy. Her whole body would tingle at his lightest touch and the wonderful thing was that he seemed just as crazy n love with her as she was with him. He made her feel like she was the only woman in the world and he still made her feel like that today.