Strict Confidence

by Skye Warren

  Jane. Upstairs right now. Cheeks stained pink from how I made her come in the hallway, backed against the hall. Off-limits. Completely off-limits.

  The more times I run up against that limit, the more I want to tear it down. I’ve already blasted through it more than once. Always swearing it will be the last time.

  It’s never the last time. Even now, I’m dying for the taste of her. This kitchen seems like another world compared to the dark upstairs hallway. Compared to her bed.

  “You didn’t hear any sounds in the background that would tell you where she was? Anything at all? People in an office? At a club? The ocean? A train?”

  “No. I thought you knew who she was. She left her name.”

  “Zoey Aldridge claims she didn’t call.”

  Her pale green eyes widen. “I don’t think—”

  “Any other voices, even. Anyone trying to speak to her.” I don’t know what it would tell me even if someone had stood behind the mystery caller and whispered an address. She could be anywhere, calling from any cell phone, with anyone else on the planet.

  But any information is better than no information. I can’t live in this house knowing that I’ve left a stone unturned when it comes to figuring out who the hell is after us.

  And proving that it’s not Emily back from the grave to haunt us.

  It sounds utterly ridiculous. And somehow reasonable at the same time.

  Emily is dead. It’s why I have custody of her daughter. There’s no such thing as ghosts, but stranger things have happened in the world. They never found her body.

  But if so, why the hell would she light a fire in the house where her daughter slept? Every time I turn this around, I find another angle that doesn’t fit. The only thing that fits is the fear sinking to all the low points in my blood. It’s here to stay until I can solve this.

  “I’m not sure, Mr. Rochester. I can’t say.” Marjorie bites her bottom lip with her teeth. Her gaze glances furtively to the old-fashioned rotary phone. “I’m not sure I want to say.”

  The worry has sunk so deep in my bones that anger takes hold easily. It lances over my knuckles. First Joe Causey being an asshole over at the house, and now Marjorie, wanting to keep things from me.

  Secrets are deadly. She should know that.

  “You don’t want to say what?”

  “I don’t know anything about the woman who called.” She squares her shoulders. Lifts her chin. “The only person I know about in this situation is you.”

  “What do you know about me?” Nothing, except that I’m Rhys’s brother. Nothing, except for what the rest of the town already knows. In a place like this, it’s impossible to keep the past under wraps. I know what Marjorie’s going to say before she says it.

  “That you break hearts.” How the hell has this conversation gotten to this place? “Not just that woman’s, but Emily’s too.” The corners of her mouth turn down, and her gaze slips to the floor for a brief instant. “She loved you, and you left. If you had stayed, she never would have married your brother.” Marjorie takes a deep breath as she reaches her inevitable point. “If you had stayed, she would still be alive.”

  “I’m not the one who killed her. Blame her husband who took her out on the boat. Blame the ocean.” I keep my tone level, but she’s right. If I had stayed, Emily would still be here. I would never have had to seek out a nanny agency. I would never have met Jane. “I came for details about a disturbing message you wrote down. Not accusations.”

  I’ve made those same accusations to myself enough times. I’ve bought into the stories in the tabloids enough times. I don’t need to hear them now, when everything that matters to me in the world is in danger from an enemy who doesn’t want to show her face.

  Or his face. Joe Causey is the one who keeps showing up, time after time. To ask me about the house. To ask me about Jane.

  Marjorie looks like she wants to say more. She doesn’t. She presses her lips together, gives me a curt nod, and leaves the room. I’m across it in two long strides, opening up the cupboard above the sink. Scotch. A glass. The shift in the air happens as I pour the scotch. It makes my shoulder blades go tight.

  “How much did you hear?” I ask the empty room.

  The kitchen’s empty, but not the hall outside. I knew it as soon as Marjorie left. Jane steps into the doorway, her arms clasped around her belly. “Enough.”

  I down the scotch. “Enough for what?”

  “Enough to know why you keep pushing me away.” I could listen to her voice, calm and low, for the rest of my life. Except when I want her to moan for me. Except when I want her to make those breathy little noises that make my cock twitch. Except for then.

  “Because you’re so many years younger than me?”

  “Besides that.”

  I put my glass down on the countertop. I’ll wash the damn thing out again as soon as I’m finished with this conversation. And I hope this conversation never ends. “Because you’re employed by me, and I’m probably breaking a hundred laws just thinking about what I want to do to you right now?”

  “Besides that.”

  “Do we need another reason?”

  She comes to me, and in her dark eyes I see a sweet compassion that a man like me will never deserve. Not if I spent a hundred years making things up to her. “You’re afraid I’m going to get hurt,” Jane says softly. “I wouldn’t leave in the fire, but it’s more than that. You feel responsible for what happened to her.”

  I turn my back on her and the truth. Can’t look at her for another second. It’s too heavy a responsibility alongside everything else, and it hurts. It feels like she’s pushed a knife through my ribs. I can feel the point digging into my heart. Next I’ll hear her footsteps, retreating out of the room. Jane will go back upstairs. We won’t have to talk about this. We won’t talk about the way I’m trying to shut her out again. The kitchen furniture—a single table and four matching wooden chairs—feel like an audience. I want fifty locked doors between me and Jane and the rest of the world.

  Her body meets mine instead. Jane wraps both her arms around me from behind. It makes me shudder. It’s clean, pure desire, shot directly into my veins. I wish I could lift a car or climb a mountain. Something, anything to do with this lust. Anything but fuck Jane on the pristine countertop of this inn. It would be nothing to lift her up and angle her the way I want to. It would be nothing to push her thighs apart and stroke across her center so I could feel how she’s still wet from when I made her come. She would be. She is now. I know it.

  Jane’s hand moves over my chest, tempting and hesitant too, and the innocence of the gesture makes me harder. I can’t push the feeling away. I can’t push her away. It’s like an ocean swell. You can fight it, but you’ll tire yourself out and drown. Almost always better to let the current take you where it wants to go and wait until you’re on shore to do battle. So I ignore the warning in the back of my mind and turn in her arms to face her.

  “You’re right.” I brush my knuckles over her throat, the bones iron hard against velvety softness. Jane swallows as I do it. “I don’t want you to get hurt. And there’s someone out there who wants to kill us. Who already tried.”

  “Zoey Aldridge?” A little frown at the corners of her mouth. Jane hated when Zoey was in the house. She tried so hard not to show it. I almost wish she would have so I could have seen her blush and lift her chin, the way she’s doing now.

  “Maybe. I have people looking into her whereabouts, but her private jet flew back to Los Angeles the morning after the dinner party. She’s been in Hollywood, supposedly. If it was her, maybe she paid someone else to do it.”

  Jane frowns, as if she can’t quite believe what I’m saying. As if, after everything, she doesn’t want to believe the worst in people. But she knows better than that. Her life has taught her otherwise. “Does she hate you that much? Enough to pay someone to do that?”

  I don’t want to tell her the worst of me, so I don’t. Not now. The smile barely
makes it to my lips. “She’s not the first woman to hate me. And she probably won’t be the last. You should take it as a warning, Jane. I’m not good for you. Not good for anyone.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Beau Rochester

  I might not be good for Jane, but that doesn’t stop the night from rolling into morning. I feel pulled to the Inn. To this routine that Jane and Paige are starting to put together. Jane, who lost everything, is making something out of nothing for Paige.

  Well—not nothing. I catch Jane noticing her new clothes. I catch her enjoying them. She runs her fingertips along the hem of her shirt and brushes a palm over the smooth fabric at her stomach. Like she can’t quite believe they’re so soft.

  All morning, she and Paige are busy. They’re coloring on the back patio. Painting at the dining table. Reading books curled up on the couch together.

  Then, at lunch, Paige puts down her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “I want to play Monopoly now. You said we could.”

  The shiny new box arrived from Amazon already. It’s not the exact version that Paige had, but I suppose she’s desperate enough to play to accept it. “Right now?” Jane asks.

  This is the most animated I’ve seen Paige since the fire. She seems colorful again. Alive. “Now,” Paige says, her gaze settling on me. “I want you to play, too. I want all of us to play.”

  My instinct is to back away and let Jane and Paige inhabit the little world they’ve created. The one where they’re safe from me. But Paige looks so hopeful. I still remember her standing in the night, the tarp wrapped around her as a makeshift blanket.

  “Where are we playing?” I say, resigned.

  Paige grins at me. She scrambles down from her stool at the kitchen island and runs up the stairs two at a time. She comes back down a minute later with a series of thumps and goes to the wide coffee table in the middle of the living room.

  Marjorie keeps the space neat and clean and comfortable. I’m glad to have the whole place to ourselves. Paige needs as little friction in her life as possible right now. Letting her choose where we play and where we sit without outside interference is good for everybody.

  Jane puts the plates into the sink and follows her, and I follow Jane, my hands aching to touch her. Paige stands at the coffee table, the game in her hands, peering suspiciously at the set. “This isn’t right,” she says.

  “Let’s open it up and see.” Jane takes the game from Paige, opens the plastic wrap with a fingernail, and puts the box on the edge of the table.

  Paige slides the top off and purses her lips at the piece. “It still doesn’t look right.”

  “It’s not the same set as you had before,” Jane agrees. “It will be different. But the rules will stay the same.”

  “What if they’re not the same?” Paige frets as Jane sets out the board and unwraps the stacks of cards from their plastic. “What if they changed the rules and changed everything about it?”

  “They didn’t change everything about it,” Jane says. She sits down on her footstool and picks up the first piece. “See? Here’s the shoe and the top hat.”

  Paige tests them in the palm of her hand. “They don’t feel right.” Her cheeks get red, and Jane puts a hand on her elbow. “They don’t feel right at all. I think they’re different. They’re too different. Look at this, there’s a dinosaur. There shouldn’t be a dinosaur in Monopoly.”

  “It’s hard when things aren’t the way we expected,” Jane says. “You wanted the pieces to be the same, but this isn’t your old game. This one’s new, and it has different parts. But the rules are still the same. We’ll still have a fun time playing together.”

  “I don’t want it like this,” Paige says, but her voice stays quiet. She’s not preparing to scream. Instead she takes a breath in through her nose and lets it out through her mouth. “The pieces are different.”

  Jane smiles at her, pride shining on her face. “But the rules are still the same.”

  “Okay,” Paige says. “Okay.” She puts the shoe and the top hat on the board and looks over the cards, seeming to take comfort in the familiar colors and names of the properties.

  I take a seat on the couch and Jane pulls up a footstool to the other side of the table. Paige stands at one end, and we set up the board. Paige is the banker, naturally. And the little silver top hat. She decides that I’ll manage the real estate cards. That leaves Jane to control the little green houses and red hotels. I pick the battleship and Jane picks the cat. She nudges the dinosaur out of sight. Paige has had enough change for the time being.

  Paige rolls the dice on her first turn. “This is what families do,” she says, her voice carefully nonchalant. “They play games together. We’re like a family.”

  Jane’s eyes meet mine from across the table, and then she’s looking back at Paige. “It is kind of like a family. How do you feel about that?”

  “I like it,” Paige admits, and my heart clenches.

  The truth is I like it, too. More than is safe for me to admit.

  Paige rolls first. She lands on Chance. The orange card allows her to advance to the nearest railroad. That puts her on Pennsylvania Avenue. “I don’t know,” she muses. “Railroads are tough because there’s no way to build houses even if you get a monopoly.”

  “You could pass,” Jane says.

  “I’d buy it,” I say because I’m more comfortable spending this bright paper money. I’m also more comfortable spending real green money. Jane’s much more nervous about spending. And Paige? She’s strategic. She focuses on building monopolies.

  Jane rolls next. She lands on Oriental Avenue, where she pauses to look at her money and consider the cost, but ultimately decides to buy it.

  “Are we a family?” Paige asks.

  Jane’s hand freezes on its way to take the card with the pale blue strip for Oriental Avenue then keeps going. “Beau’s your family,” she says, keeping her tone light.

  Kitten chooses this moment to run across the room and hop up onto the table in the middle of the board, knocking my battleship over. Jane picks the kitten up and deposits her back on the floor while I put my piece upright again.

  On the outside, I probably look calm.

  On the inside, I’m reeling.

  Are we a family? I’m struck that Paige would ask the question. And I’m struck by how strong my desire is to say yes.

  “What about you?” Paige looks between the two of us. “Are you like a mom and dad?”

  Jane swallows. “We both take care of you. You can trust us and ask for help. That’s something we have in common with moms and dads.”

  Her questions hit a deeper nerve.

  Something I try to keep at the very back of my mind.

  Paige might be my daughter. I might be her father. I’ve always known it was possible, based on when Emily visited me. When we slept together. Regardless, I thought she was better growing up with a real family—with Rhys and Emily. Sitting here with her now, I could convince myself that she’s mine. She looks a little like me. She has a temper like me.

  She’s good with money like me, even if it’s Monopoly money.

  I roll double fives, which puts me in the “Just Visiting” part of jail.

  Paige watches my every move. If it were true, what would it even mean? Should I get a DNA test? Would it matter, since I’m already her guardian?

  Even if I had the hard evidence, I could never tell Paige.

  She always knew Rhys as her father. I won’t take that away from her.

  It would hurt her, and the thought of causing her any more pain makes my chest ache. Having to witness her grief at losing her mom and dad was the hardest thing I’ve had to see. To find out Rhys wasn’t even her father would rival that. It would be like losing him twice.

  “You’re like my replacement dad,” Paige says.

  “I am.” There’s not really much point in denying it. I’m the closest thing to a father she’ll ever have now that Rhys is gone. Would it be so wrong to lean in
to that idea?

  Becoming her guardian terrified me at first. Kept me up at night. How the hell was I supposed to know what to do? It kept me up at night, how badly I failed her in the beginning. I’m not sure I’m succeeding now, but there have been improvements.

  Jane has been an improvement.

  Paige plays with the dice in her hand. “There are supposed to be two parents.”

  “Not always,” Jane points out. “Some people have single parents. Or live with only one parent. Every family is different, but the important thing is that there are people who love you.”

  “What if I wanted two parents? Would you stay?”

  Jane’s sweet brown gaze meets mine. She looks helpless, warmed by Paige’s words, somehow hurt by them as well, because she thinks it isn’t possible.

  “Jane has her own dreams,” I say, keeping my voice casual. “She’s going to college. She’s going to become a social worker to help kids who need it.”

  “She could be a social worker here,” Paige says.

  She’s stubborn. I’m sure she gets that from our side of the family. “Jane is only here temporarily. We talked about this when she got here, remember? How she’d stay with us for a year?”

  Paige gives me a disappointed nod and the tension fades.

  With a flourish, she rolls the dice. She lands on New York Avenue and buys it. We continue playing for a few rounds, buying up properties when we land on them.

  Paige takes an early lead in the game. I’m not surprised.

  She’s damn good at the game.

  What does surprise me is how much I want to be in this moment with her, and with Jane. It’s easy to slip into this fantasy of thinking Paige is really my daughter.

  It feels… warm to think about her like that. Right. And complicated.

  Maybe my love doesn’t have to be dangerous.

  Having Paige with me has shone a light on all the pieces of me that are still bent or broken. The parts that still don’t know what to do with all the complexity of the world. There’s a certain guilt that comes with knowing I can’t be perfect for her.