Best Kept Secret (Rochester Trilogy 3)

“It’s creepy, you coming around here at night. Like you’re a ghost.”

He snorts. “You would know something like haunting people.”

Yes, I did hang around the Coach House. And then the inn. It hurt me to be away from Paige, to wonder whether she’s okay. “What are you really doing here?”

“The truth?”

“Please.”

“The truth is I was checking on you. It’s not safe for a woman to live alone in these woods. Anything can happen.”

“Nowhere is safe for me.” Not with Joe looking for me. And especially now that he probably found the plane records. It means he’ll know for sure I’m back in Eben Cape. He’s surely been hoping that I ran away to some tropical island. Or maybe that I died in the water.

“No,” Mateo agrees, his voice soft. “That beautiful old Coach House wasn’t safe for you, was it? And no one noticed. No one cared.”

My lips twist. I was the stereotypical battered woman. Afraid to run away. Afraid to be at home. I’m so freaking tired of being afraid. “So you believe me now?”

“I’ve always believed Rhys was a bastard.”

I roll my eyes. “So it’s less about believing me and more about knowing him.”

“I have sisters. I wouldn’t want them to be with a bastard like him.”

That makes me turn away. “I wish people could care about other people. Without needing to have a sister or a daughter. I wish people could believe people. No one should be slapped because they made a shitty chicken cacciatore.”

“Is that why Rhys hit you?”

Humiliation heats my cheeks. “Why am I talking about this with you?”

“Because you need someone to talk to, and I’m the only one here right now.”

“There’s the trees,” I say. “They’ve heard a lot of my secrets.”

“And they believe you?”

“They know what it’s like to be chopped down and broken into pieces and shredded until they’re nothing. They know what it’s like to endure without having a voice.”

He steps close, but I don’t turn around. My eyes close against the black night. I don’t want to see him. Or hear him. Or want him.

His heat is strangely seductive. He’s a ridiculously handsome man, but that’s not why I want him. Especially not when it’s pitch black. I can’t even see him, but he still calls to something inside me. I shouldn’t want any man. They’re all dangerous. All a risk I’ve learned not to take. This one’s worse than most. He mocks me during my most painful moments. And he didn’t believe me at the cabin. “I do believe you,” he murmurs, as if he can hear my thoughts.

Words catch in my throat. I don’t know whether it’s his trust I want, his acceptance, his comfort. Or whether I need those things, and he’s the only one here.

Then his heat fades away. Footsteps crunch through the woods.

I’m alone again.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jane Mendoza

The meeting room smells like coffee and donut glaze and sharp carpet cleaner. Beau sits next to me at a big wooden table across from the local prosecutor, whose name is Lauren Michaels. She wears a sharp gray skirt suit.

Beau’s in a suit, too.

That had been a surprise, when he came down the stairs of the inn. Even Kitten was curious about his polished shoes. I’m used to seeing him in cable-knit sweaters and thick jeans. He was sexy in those, but he’s breathtaking in a suit. I can picture him in a high-powered business meeting in California, shaking hands over a deal that would change his life. Well, I suppose this deal can change lives, too.

I put a sweater on with yoga pants, since I don’t have any business casual. Even if I did, it wouldn’t look like hers. Lauren looks comfortable in it. Beau looks more than comfortable in his.

I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my life.

Except for when Emily was pointing her gun at me. That felt pretty terrible.

Beau and I are not speaking. It was a tense, silent car ride, with him in his fancy clothes and me in my yoga pants. He looks like he’s a million miles above me in his outfit. He looks rich, and I look like I could desperately use a sugar daddy.

Emily would look right next to him. I don’t.

And I don’t know what to say about last night. Beau’s too busy stewing about it to say anything. I can feel his frustration simmering. If he wants to argue with me, he should just do it. We’ll be miserable until this is resolved.

I’ll be miserable.

“Any minute now.” Lauren checks her watch. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine,” answers Beau. “Be better for everyone if this was resolved. Paige, especially.”

“How’s she doing? Is she with your friend?”

“With Mateo, and she’s good.”

Mateo promised Paige to build the world’s biggest sandcastle this morning. A competitive gleam lit her eyes. I would give just about anything to be building a sandcastle right now.