Best Kept Secret (Rochester Trilogy 3)

Emily shifts to lean her head on her hand. Unlike me, she doesn’t seem out of place here. Emily Rochester is the kind of woman who belongs on private planes. Beautiful. Sophisticated. Even on the run for her life, she looks classy.

Meanwhile I’m wearing jeans and an old hoodie.

The difference between us is so striking that it makes me dizzy. Not a great sign when you’re about to fly. I focus on the open window behind her until I don’t feel like I’m tipping forward off the edge of the earth. “With the money Rhys hid.”

“Hid from who?”

She sighs, resting her hand over her eyes for a second before she drops it back down to her lap. Emily’s tired. “Scary people. His accounting firm did well, but not well enough to make that kind of money. I should have known. Why didn’t I know?”

The question seems rhetorical, so I don’t bother answering.

“Rhys wanted more. He always wanted more.”

In the neighborhood Noah and I lived in, people killed each other for money.

It always came down to that. Who had borrowed and who needed to pay. We imagined that if we had enough money, we wouldn’t have to worry anymore. The more I exist in Beau’s world, though, the more I realize that’s not the case.

Even people with money die trying to get more.

“Who did he cross?”

A grim smile. “My brother.”

The man who showed up in my hospital room after the fire. The one who accused me of using Beau for money. Only later did I learn he was Paige’s uncle. “He…killed your husband?”

She swallows hard. “Shot him in the head and pushed him in the water. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it happen. Unfortunately, no one else would believe me either. He’s a respected policeman. I’m just a woman they’ve seen on domestic disturbance calls.”

I know from firsthand experience how people don’t believe the victims. How, too often, they blame the victims. As if it makes them feel safer, pretending we’re liars. Pretending we deserve whatever happened to us. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s why I need you,” she says softly. “They put women in two categories, you know. The Madonna and the whore. You’re the virginal nanny who Beau fell in love with. I’m the crazy wife in the attic.”

“You’re not crazy.”

“No one else will believe me. Even Beau turned me away.”

“He’ll believe you this time,” I promise, even though I can’t know that for sure.

“He will,” she says. “Because he’ll believe you.”

I shake my head, but I don’t argue with her. Beau doesn’t love me. He sent me away. And there’s a very real chance that he always loved Emily. That he’ll jump at the chance to be with her once he knows she’s alive. His brother’s out of the picture now.

They can be together.

I lean back in the plush leather chair as the plane begins to move. The pilot’s voice comes over the intercom. “It’s an honor to have you aboard today. Weather’s clear, and you’re flying today on a Gulfstream G-100. Wheels up as soon as the airstair is disengaged, and we’ll be landing in Maine in a little under five hours.”

Emily’s eyes are closed again. Her head rests on the cushion. To an outsider, it might seem like she’s asleep. I know different. I can feel her focus radiate from her body. I doubt she’s slept much since she jumped off that boat.

My chair is easily a hundred times more comfortable than the one I sat in on the way to Houston. It’s probably more plush than first-class seats. Meanwhile I sat in coach. “What’s your plan when we get there? Are we both going to show up at the inn?”

“You’ll go there.” Her voice breaks. “I don’t want to let Paige see me until I’m sure I can come home. I don’t want to get her hopes up.”

I let out a sigh. “As an orphan, I can assure you that her hopes are already up. They never really go away. I always dream of having parents.”

She pushes herself fully upright, straightening her back. “Then help me fix this.”

“How?” I ask, stress bleeding into my voice.

“Beau cares about you more than he wants to. I saw the way he looked at you.”

I shiver. I can’t help it. “How long were you watching us?”

“I’ve been watching Coach House all along.” A flash of lighting in her blue-sky eyes. “I had to make sure Paige was okay. That she was taken care of. So I’ve been watching. It wasn’t really a surprise that Beau delegated that to a nanny. The surprising part was that he was still involved. That the three of you became a family.”

I can hear the hollowness in her voice. “Hey. Beau was there for Paige when she needed him, but he will never replace you. You’re her mother. No one can replace you.”