Best Kept Secret (Rochester Trilogy 3)

I didn’t want Emily. I wanted the idea of Emily. I wanted everything Emily represented. Money. Success. Stability. I got those things without her, and they still weren’t enough. Nothing was enough until I met Jane Mendoza.

Jane, who isn’t answering her phone. She needs to know that Emily is alive. She needs to be on the lookout. Emily’s not going to go to Houston—she’s been in Eben Cape all this time, and there’s no way she skips town to go that far. But I won’t keep another secret from Jane. The Rochester secrets have already been too deadly.

Paige sits silently on the sofa at the inn, staring at the TV with no discernible expression. I know I should talk to her. I should sit down next to her and ask simple questions about whatever the hell she’s watching until she opens up to me. How do people live like this, constantly torn between expressing their love for one person or another?

I love Jane, and it’s dangerous. It’s always been dangerous. When Rhys was alive, loving anyone meant bringing them close to the volatile toxicity that defined our relationship. Now that he’s dead, the secrets that surrounded him—and me—are impossible to escape. I love her anyway.

Beyond that, I have a duty to keep her safe. It’s why I made her get into that car in the first place. I fired her from the job and paid her full salary to keep her away from the inevitability of me wrecking her life. That’s what always happens.

My jaw clenches. My teeth are going to be ground to stubs by the time she answers. Answer, Jane. Christ. Pick up the phone before I lose my mind.

I dial again.

Voicemail. Kitten pads through the kitchen, winds through my feet, and leaves again.

Hearing her voice drives a dull knife through my heart. She even sounds optimistic in her recorded message. I dial her number again.

“Hi!” Jane says. “You’ve reached Jane Mendoza. Sorry I missed you. Leave your name and number, and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

It kills me to hear it. Jane’s voice in this recording is warm and hopeful and it makes me think of her, everything about her—her dark hair, her dark eyes, the way she flushed whenever I touched her. The sound of her moans. Goddamn, I want her. And I want her here, where she recorded this message. It’s the new phone I bought her after the fire. She spoke these words outside with the rush of the ocean in the background. When she says number, Paige says, Jane, look in the distance.

I hang up.

Dial again.

It rings.

I go for the front bay window and search the street, my heart pounding. One ring. Two. She’s not out there. No car pulling up. I didn’t think there would be, but it’s a way to hide my face from Paige. If this call goes to voicemail now—

“Hello?”

Jane. It’s her. Her tone isn’t bright and warm the way it is in her voicemail greeting. It’s cautious. Tentative. Brave, like it was the first night she came to Coach House. She was soaking wet from the rain, terrified and pretending not to be. Jane arrived after dark. It must have looked like a horror movie with the rain coming down around her. With the cliffs and the house looming above her.

And me.

I loomed over her, too. Pissed off and frustrated. Acting like an asshole. One look at her was all I needed to know that her dark eyes would be my undoing. Bracing one hand on the windowsill keeps me from collapsing under my relief.

“Jane.” Come back. I want to write that on her body. C O M E B A C K T O M E. “Are you okay?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line as she weighs the question. “Yeah? Why do you ask?”

“Where—” It doesn’t matter where she is. I don’t need the address; I just need her safe. “Is your front door locked? Does your bedroom have a lock on it?”

“Of course it’s locked.” Now she sounds like she’s trying to soothe me. It’s how she’d speak to Paige when her frustration ramped up and threatened to get the better of her. “My bedroom has a lock on it.”

“Make sure it locks.”

There’s a noise in the background like she’s jiggling the knob. “It does. Why do you want to know about this?”

Damn it. I can hear in her voice that she’s tired. She’s been crying. Probably about leaving Paige. I know better than to think the connection between them wasn’t real. I know better than to think I’m not hurting her by placing this call. No amount of rationalization will change that truth. I’ve had to hurt her to keep her safe. I’m having to do it again now.