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  Hidden Devotion

  The Trinity Masters, Book Five

  Lila Dubois and Mari Carr

  Published by:

  Farm Boy Press,

  Los Angeles,

  California,

  United States of America.

  First electronic edition May 2015

  Copyright © 2015 Lila Dubois and Mari Carr, all rights reserved

  Cover by Valerie Tibbs (www.tibbsdesign.com)

  Edited by Kelli Collins (www.kellicollins.com)

  Book formatted by Farm Boy Press ([email protected])

  ISBN: 978-1-941641-06-4

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s note:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

  Hidden Devotion

  The Trinity Masters Book Five

  There’s power and passion in three

  Juliette Adams has spent her life running…from her father, from her arranged marriage, from her Trinity Masters legacy. Until the day everything changed and she became Grand Master—a position she was never meant to hold.

  Devon Asher has more than a few secrets, the least of which is his desperate love for Juliette, which shouldn’t be a problem since they were betrothed as children. Now that she’s Grand Master, his secrets aren’t safe.

  Franco Garcia Santiago always assumed the tales of the Trinity Masters were fantastical yarns spun by his grandfather, until Juliette appears at his door. Together they delve into the organization’s secrets, unaware of the impending danger.

  Juliette must decide if she’ll turn her back on her destiny or embrace the role of Grand Master, and if she’ll use her power to discontinue the trinity marriages she grew up despising, or follow her heart, which tells her happiness lies with both Devon and Franco.

  From the Authors

  This book is being published much later than anticipated. Thank you for your patience with this series, and with us, but we had a baby!

  Mari: Uh, what do you mean “we”? You had a baby.

  Lila: I figure if I say “we” then it won’t be weird when I leave the baby on your doorstep.

  Mari: Yea, I don’t think so.

  Lila: But she doesn’t sleep! Why won’t she sleep?

  Mari: *hysterical laughter* Good luck!

  Lila: *sobs*

  In summary, it turns out that being pregnant and then having a baby seriously detracts from one’s writing time.

  But the baby is cute.

  Dedication

  To OUR baby

  Table of Contents

  Hidden Devotion

  Cover

  Title Page

  Synopsis

  From the Authors

  Dedication

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Connect with Lila and Mari

  Red Ribbon by Lila Dubois

  Triple Beat by Mari Carr

  The Trinity Masters by Mari Carr and Lila Dubois

  About the Authors

  Additional Titles by Lila Dubois

  Additional Titles by Mari Carr

  Prologue

  She pulled the scarf over her hair out of habit. Her mind was thousands of miles away from the sun-warm streets of Istanbul, her thoughts of home, of Boston.

  She held up a small laminated badge, skirting the line and the admission fee for the Aya Sophia. Called the Hagia Sophia by westerners, the museum was one of her favorite places in the world. Though hundreds of thousands of people visited the church-turned-mosque-turned-museum every day, it was far more than it seemed. Aya Sophia’s secrets were right there, waiting to be uncovered—hiding in plain sight.

  The same could be said of Juliette, and of the man she’d come here to meet.

  Sebastian Stewart was waiting for her on the second floor. The crowd in the gallery was an eclectic mix of people and styles of dress. From the back, with his dark hair, jeans and long-sleeved button-down dress shirt, Sebastian could have passed for a variety of ethnicities. Rather than tap him on the shoulder—though in this heavily trafficked place, in the less-than-strict Istanbul, she doubted anyone would have taken offense—Juliette stood beside him, close enough that he’d notice her.

  They stood in silence for a moment, a silence that was anything but tense. Sebastian was one of her oldest friends. The kind of friend who knew all her secrets.

  “It always awes me that this wasn’t destroyed.” Sebastian gestured to the Deesis mosaic of Christ, which had been preserved under Islamic decoration and calligraphy when the church was converted to a mosque and uncovered during restoration in the twentieth century.

  “It’s nice when history preserves rather than destroys,” she added.

  Their conversation paused as a Japanese tour group stopped just behind them, the guide gesturing to the gold-and-blue image of Jesus, quickly explaining his importance to the Christian faith before moving on to the subject of the restoration and the technicalities involved in uncovering this and other mosaics.

  “Chai?” Seb asked.

  “Actually, I’m hungry.”

  Juliette followed her friend out then took the lead. Moving away from the tourist areas surrounding the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, she headed for a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, ordering two spiced-lamb flatbreads. A boy with thick black lashes brought them lahmacun and cans of Coke.

  Juliette ripped hers in half then took a bite of the soft middle section. Her thoughts drifted back to Boston and her stomach clenched.

  “Are we going to talk about it?” Sebastian asked.

  She looked up to see his meal mostly gone, while she’d had only a few bites.

  “My brother called.”

  Sebastian froze, can halfway to his lips. “Harrison called? Why?”

  Juliette pulled her scarf off, the fabric she’d wound around her neck and over her head suddenly suffocating.

  “It seems my oh-so-proper brother made a mistake.”

  “The Grand Master doesn’t make mistakes.” He said it the way one states a fact—the sun rises in the east, the sky is blue, the Grand Master of the Trinity Masters doesn’t make mistakes.

  “He hadn’t joined a trinity.”

  Sebastian sat back. “I hadn’t realized he was that old.”

  Juliette nodded. At forty-five, her brother Harrison was twenty years older than Juliette. Not surprising, since her mother had been nearly fifteen years younger tha
n Juliette’s father, the Grand Master before Harrison, while Harrison’s mother had been the same age as their father.

  “Well, it seemed that Harrison did make a mistake—and not just failing to join a trinity.”

  “Oh?”

  “He fell in love with a woman who wasn’t in the Trinity Masters.”

  Sebastian whistled.

  “Better than that. She was offered membership but refused.”

  Sebastian blinked.

  “And he was willing to quit to be with her.”

  Shock froze Sebastian in place, and Juliette took advantage of the moment to take a few bites. Talking about it—and seeing Sebastian’s reaction—was making her feel better.

  Sebastian understood in a way that very few people would. They’d grown up together, children who were taught not to be truthful and honest, but how to keep secrets and avoid questions about their parents and home lives.

  Juliette and Sebastian were legacies of the Trinity Masters, America’s oldest and most powerful secret society. The society had been established as the country was born. Members were given unparalleled access to the resources and support of other members. Joining was a guarantee of success, and members excelled in every type of industry, from politics to art and science. The founders had seen the potential to strengthen the foundation of the new republic by taking the best and brightest Americans and having them support each other.

  But there was more to it than a vague idea of support. Members had to agree to an arranged marriage—the price of security and success was their choice in who they’d marry.

  And marriages between members of the Trinity Masters weren’t arranged between two people, but three.

  Sebastian had finally found his voice. “Are we talking about the same Harrison?”

  “Apparently he’d been in love with this woman forever and was willing to risk it all to be with her.”

  “Is he…I mean, have his councilors…” Sebastian had lowered his voice, and the skin around his eyes was tight with concern.

  Breaking any of the laws of the Trinity Masters was very risky. Harsh punishments were meted out to any who disobeyed. One of those laws was that once the Grand Master had assigned someone to a trinity—usually in their late twenties or early thirties—they had thirty days to marry, even if they’d never met their partners before. Since the Grand Master was the one person who could choose his own trinity, there was an age limit by which he had to marry. Other rules included no divorce unless necessary for secrecy’s sake or other political reasons, and no discussing the Trinity Masters with outsiders.

  Disobedience was almost unheard of. Juliette had grown up trading whispered stories about what had happened to people who broke the rules—framed for hideous crimes and locked up for life, scandals created that ruined careers, bank accounts drained, and spouses and children forbidden from ever speaking to the offenders again. They were the Trinity Masters’ version of the boogeyman tales.

  To break a rule was nearly unheard of. For the Grand Master to do so was…inconceivable.

  “The woman joined. He’s married now. To one of his councilors, Michael, and Alexis—she’s a doctor.”

  “She joined?”

  “Yes.”

  “But?” Sebastian gestured for her to continue. He knew that couldn’t be the end of the story.

  “But his other councilors forced him to step down as Grand Master.”

  “Holy fuck.” He went on in several languages, not true cursing but using amusing, if vulgar expressions of astonishment.

  Juliette snorted out a laugh. “Bastian, such language.”

  Sebastian glared at her. He hated the nickname. “My apologies, Ms. Adams.”

  Juliette bared her teeth. She hated her last name because it reminded her of her father, of who she’d grown up as—the daughter of the Grand Master.

  The brief moment of amusement disappeared. Everything she’d told Sebastian was background information. The really shocking bit she had yet to say out loud.

  “Does everyone know?” Sebastian asked.

  Juliette shook her head. “They’re trying to keep it quiet.”

  “That’s safer; if anyone thought there was a power—” Sebastian’s teeth snapped together as he stopped speaking abruptly. His gaze met Juliette’s.

  “Jules,” he whispered, using an old childhood nickname, “who is the new Grand Master?”

  Juliette Adams took a deep breath. “I am.”

  Chapter One

  Boston was cold in the winter. The terminal doors opened, allowing a blast of freezing air to flood the otherwise warm building. Juliette stopped in her tracks, hunching her shoulders and wishing she was wearing more than a loose sweater and thin scarf.

  She’d lived here until she was eighteen but in the seven years since, Juliette had spent most of her time in Europe, South America and the Middle East. Except for a semester at St. Andrew’s in Scotland, she’d been in temperate climates. She no longer had the constitution for a New England winter.

  Gritting her teeth, she dashed out, quickly spotting the cab she’d called for while still in line to clear customs.

  “You need a coat.” The driver, who looked to be about Juliette’s age, turned to examine her shivering in the backseat.

  “It’s been a while since I was in Boston.”

  “I’ll turn up the heat. Where are you headed?”

  “Charlestown.” For a horrible second Juliette couldn’t remember the address, it had been so long since she’d used it, but then the information popped into her head and she rattled it off.

  The trip was slow due to the slushy roads and Boston’s world famous traffic. The driver updated her on the weather forecast—for Bostonians, talking about the weather was not a matter of idle chatter but life-or-death information, and for a moment she felt like she was home.

  They pulled up outside a three-story red-brick building not far from Winthrop Square.

  “Here?” The driver peered at her in the rearview mirror then glanced at the expensive address in one of Boston’s oldest neighborhoods. The travel-rumpled woman with her hair in a messy braid and a battered duffle bag did not fit the picture of the type of person who lived in a home like this.

  “Yes. Thanks.” Juliette made the payment with her smartphone—which was now several models old and battered from being hauled all over the world—and slid out of the cab, tugging her bag with her.

  A keypad at the entrance required a ten-digit code plus a fingerprint. It unlocked with a discreet click, and Juliette pulled the heavy front door open. The lights were on but the heat wasn’t, which more than likely meant no one else was staying here, but she called out, “Hello?”

  Her voice echoed in the two-story foyer, tastefully decorated with antique furnishings and expensive art. It looked like any other upscale home in the neighborhood, but she doubted any of those other homes had nicknames like this one. It had been called the “frat house,” the “fortress of solitude” and the “legacy halfway house.”

  There was no response to her voice, so she used a second keypad just inside the door to turn on the house systems, which were monitored remotely by a property management company. She felt the first waves of warm air when she reached the second-floor landing and the door to her room. There were six bedrooms and several dens. She, Sebastian and five other legacy kids from some of the oldest Trinity Masters’ families had gotten together to purchase the property as a home base in Boston. For her and Sebastian, who had careers that kept them overseas, it served as a permanent address and a place to store things, like designer clothes appropriate for Trinity Masters’ events, and winter clothes they didn’t need anywhere else.

  Juliette could have kept a room in her father’s house, but even in high school she’d wanted nothing more than to distance herself from her family and its secrets and responsibilities. As far as the public knew, she was the only child of a famous actress, her paternity unknown. After her father had died, she’d politely declined Har
rison’s offer to keep a room for her. She’d had no choice but to live in the Grand Master’s home when she’d visited her father. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell she’d continue to live in the Grand Master’s house if she had other options.

  Her room was both elegant and sparse—a bare mattress under a protective plastic sheet sat on a four-poster wood frame. Stacked storage boxes were neatly arranged against the far wall, and the clothes in the closet were hidden in hanging garment bags.

  Juliette dropped her duffle and considered just curling up in her clothes on the mattress, but she’d traveled enough to know that she’d feel better tomorrow if she put in some effort now.

  She pulled out clean sheets and made the bed then jumped into a quick shower. It wasn’t until she’d dropped onto the bed wearing a pair of flannel pajamas pulled from a neatly labeled bin that she realized she’d forgotten a pillow. Too tired to care, she propped her head on one arm and for the first time since she’d landed, opened her email.

  The message she expected was there.

  Juliette,

  Please let me know when you reach Boston. We need to discuss next steps. I’d like for you to meet Alexis.

  Safe travels.

  Harrison

  She dropped the phone to the mattress and took several deep breaths, giving herself time to sort out what she was feeling. Shock had kept her numb from the time Harrison had called until she’d met with Sebastian in Istanbul. An afternoon spent talking to Seb had pushed her past shock over hearing about her too-proper brother’s out-of-character actions, to growing horror and anger over the reality of what becoming Grand Master would do to her life. She’d boarded the plane with jaw clenched—long-buried anger and resentment resurfacing.

  That anger, dulled by travel, came roaring back as soon as she saw her brother’s name.

  Harrison,

  Let’s postpone the reunion. I’m in Boston and can meet with you and any councilors tomorrow after noon.