Best Kept Secret (Rochester Trilogy 3)

“I’m scared that’s what it means,” I whisper. “You have to admit—”

Beau slams his palm down on the tabletop and turns to face me, his eyes burning into mine. “If you want me to be your sugar daddy, fine. If you don’t, I’ll give away the fucking money. Goddamn it, Jane. Go to college. Don’t go to college. Use my money. Don’t. I don’t care about the money. I just want to be with you.”

“Why?” I ask, almost pleading, desperate.

“Because I love you.”

A ringing silence descends upon the table.

Because I love you. He just said that in the prosecutor’s meeting room.

Everyone is staring at us. I’ve never heard him sound this angry, but it doesn’t matter if he’s angry, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter if Lauren the prosecutor stands up and says the meeting is over due to terrible behavior on the part of Beau Rochester. She probably wouldn’t do that, because she’s not a judge, but I don’t know, and I don’t care.

Tears gather in the corners of my eyes. “You love me?”

“Yes,” he snaps, sounding furious.

I’m trembling in the creaky wood and cloth chair. Part of me wants to deny it. The old insecurities surfacing. And then confidence overtakes me. Certainty. Love.

I lean toward him.

As soon as my lips brush against his, I feel all the tension in him. It was a long night for us both. Some of it escapes on a sigh. “I don’t care about the money,” he says again, his voice low and intimate even at this meeting table. “I’ll give it all away.”

“Keep me.” That’s all I want. I want to have a place in Beau’s life even if I’m not Lauren Michaels or Emily Rochester. I’ll never be those people. Even if I go to college and marry Beau and move back to this town with him, I’ll always be Jane Mendoza. Myself.

“I will,” he says, and it’s a solemn promise. I can hear the bang bang of a soda can falling down vending machine somewhere in a nearby break room. We’re in the middle of the courthouse. This isn’t the place to make those kinds of promises… Or maybe it’s exactly the right place. I cling to him, and he drags me close enough that it hurts.

It hurts perfectly.

I lean forward again. First he lets me kiss him. It’s a passive thing, which is strange for Beau. He accepts it, maybe to prove something. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t last long. His hand curves around the back of my neck. He holds me still as his mouth turns aggressive. Lips press against mine. Tongue invades. He’s commanding with every stroke, and I obey. It’s explicit, this kiss. We aren’t touching anywhere except our mouths and his hand behind my neck, but it feels like sex. It feels like we’re having sex in the space of one heartbeat. And two. And three. It feels like we’re finding completion in the stroke of his tongue against mine.

Someone clears their throat.

I don’t want to let go of him. I’d rather climb into his lap and let him carry me back to the inn. I’m not naive enough to think this one kiss has solved everything, but I feel a sense of hope.

Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together.

Someone coughs.

Beau breaks the kiss but presses his forehead against mine. Our breaths mingle. The air in our lungs is the same. The molecules we inhabit are the same.

Our beating hearts are the same.

“Okay,” Shane from internal affairs says. Right. The next thing we’ll face is all the people who just watched us fight and kiss. “What do you guys think? Are we good to keep going? Or do you guys want to make out a little more?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jane Mendoza

Noah’s staying at the cheapest possible motel in town. Technically, I’m not sure it is in town. It’s out on the highway directly across from the “entering Eben Cape” sign. I don’t know whether that means it’s in town or the nearby township. Either way, it’s scary. A gravel driveway skims a beat-up sidewalk. There are eight rooms, plus a small lobby with an apartment above it.

“You sure you want to stop here?” the Uber driver asks me. It’s the same man who dropped me off at Coach House.

“I’ll be okay.”

He hesitates, but eventually drives off.

Looking at this hotel makes me feel twisted inside. This is where I came from. A run-down collection of rooms with scuffs on every door. They’ve all weathered a fight between someone on the inside and someone on the outside. Without Beau’s money, this is all I can afford too. With Beau, I feel like a princess. We used to daydream about lives like mine when we were in the foster home.

“A person just to cook for you,” Noah would whisper, late at night.