Best Kept Secret (Rochester Trilogy 3)

The last bit of my resistance can’t match her eyes on mine. I want her too much. I was too worried, every second she was gone. I’m going to die if I don’t come.

“Please.”

Her eyes light up at this pathetic, grunted please, and Jane crawls over to me like a cat. This time, she’s not testing. She takes me into her mouth, and my vision darkens. There’s only the wet heat of her mouth and the pressure of her tongue and the hold she has on me. Demanding as all hell. My orgasm is like a bomb. It lights up every muscle, head to toe, and makes my heart skip a beat. Several beats. Jane swallows furiously, trying to keep up, which only makes me come harder. My toes dig into the bed.

She stays where she is until it’s over.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Beau Rochester

Emily’s staying at a friend’s cabin in the forest on the other side of town.

Mateo drives. I sit in the passenger seat and tally up the months she spent there, barely a hundred miles from her daughter. It must have killed her to be that close. That pain must have gotten to her in the end, if it sent her creeping over the cliffside at night. We pull off the main road and onto a private two-track road that’s all gravel and ruts. Trees close in behind us in moments. It’s a good place to hide, if you don’t want to be found. In the driver’s seat Mateo is silent and thoughtful.

The A-frame is so small you could blink and miss it. Mateo’s already at a crawl from the potholes, so it’s an easy turn to park the car next to one I don’t recognize. Too cheap to be a rental. The curtains over the front windows are drawn tight, but as we get out of the car, one of them flickers.

“This place isn’t built for winters,” Mateo says, almost to himself. He’s right. There’s no room in the structure for insulation. Birds call in the clearing. Their travels have been uninterrupted by our arrival. My heart twists up into a knot. I’d rather be in bed with Jane, or hell, even trying to bargain with Paige until she does her homework.

“No,” I agree. “Let’s get this over with.”

The two of us go up to the door and knock. It opens instantly and there she is.

Emily Rochester, my brother’s wife, died and come back again. “Beau,” she says, but then her eyes narrow with suspicion as they slide to Mateo. “You brought a friend.”

“We’ve met before.” Mateo sticks out his hand to shake and Emily flinches back. A subtle movement, covered by the lift of her chin. “Mateo Garza.”

The two of them shake, then Emily steps back into the half-light of the A-frame. “I’d rather not talk with the door open.”

She checks outside once, then twice, before she closes the door and turns back to us. Emily’s as beautiful as she always was, but she’s different. There’s a new wariness in her eyes. Suspicion in the set of her lips. Nothing like the girl I fell in love with all those years ago. To be honest, I expected some of that emotion to come back when I saw her again like this, face to face, but now…

It’s not nothing, what I feel. But it’s not the painful obsession I felt when I first met her, before she got together with Rhys. That belongs to someone else now.

That belongs to Jane Mendoza.

There’s a moment of heavy silence. It’s so goddamn tiring, all of this. Thinking she was dead. Finding out she was alive. Sending Jane away. Getting her back. And I still don’t understand, so we’ll start there.

“What the hell happened, Em?”

“My brother’s a dirty cop.” Her lips tremble. “You always said I spoiled him.”

“Don’t blame yourself. Whatever he did is on him.”

“Bribes. Stolen property. Money laundering. I found out the night he died.”

“The night he killed Rhys.”

She flinches. “Yes. I saw them arguing. Joe didn’t know I was there. He didn’t know I watched him shoot my husband until I screamed.”

I curse, thinking of how close she came to death that night. “Hell.”

“Why didn’t you come to me? I would have helped you.”

She shifts her weight from foot to foot, her expression softening at my tone. “Rhys is your brother. I didn’t think you’d believe me. You might even have blamed me—”

“I know what he was like.”

Mateo sticks his hands in his pockets. “You’re just going to believe her? Whatever she says?”

Emily glances at him, but Mateo keeps his focus on me. This isn’t how I want the conversation to go. He’s bristling, obviously suspicious of Emily. Obviously pissed, and I’m not having a separate discussion with him about why.

Mateo’s had front-row seats to the aftermath of losing Emily and Rhys. He should have said something on the way over if it was still bothering him this much, but now we’re here, and—