Dirtiest Secret

by J. Kenner

  I sigh deeply as the memories flood back, at the same time both welcome and disturbing.

  I remember the trips to this house with my mother, Lisa, and my birth father, Colin West. Eli Sykes and Colin had been fast friends since college, and we used to spend weeks inside these walls, the adults doing their thing, while Liam and I--and later Dallas--played and explored.

  I recall with perfect clarity the night that I overheard Archie telling Eli that Donovan, Eli's brother, was dead. Lost at sea after falling off his yacht, apparently the victim of too many pills and booze.

  And I can still smell the lemony scent of furniture polish that lingered on the sunny afternoon when I'd first seen Dallas. That was the day his strung-out mother had shoved both the boy and a paternity test at Eli. The test proved that the five-year-old boy was Eli's nephew. And Eli kept him because everything about the woman--including the needle marks on her arms--testified that she wasn't fit to raise him.

  I'd been five, too, and I'd come to Eli's house with my parents--Lisa and Colin--for one of our regular vacation weeks. I'd held on tight to both my favorite stuffed bunny and to Liam's hand as we watched the drama play out from our hiding place inside this very room's dumbwaiter.

  Mrs. Foster, Liam's mother and the live-in housekeeper, was summoned to help get Dallas settled. She ushered him out of the den, and Liam and I waited until we were sure the coast was clear to sneak out and go look for this mysterious new boy.

  We found him in the bedroom next to the one I always used when my family came for overnight visits, and although Eli had frowned when Liam and I had poked our heads in, Mrs. Foster gestured us into the room. "I know it's not my place to tell you what to do, Mr. Sykes," Helen Foster had said. "But I think some playtime with my Liam and Miss Jane may be just what this boy needs."

  Eli had considered her words, then looked earnestly at his nephew. "You'll let Liam or Jane know if you need anything? Food, a bathroom, whatever you want." He'd smoothed Dallas's hair and looked into his eyes. "This is your home now, young man. Do you understand that?"

  Dallas barely nodded, and when he looked over at me, I smiled, thinking that he was really, really brave.

  After Eli left, Liam had gone and sat on the bed, then put his arm around Dallas like a big brother, his dark skin contrasting against the pale little boy. I stood in front of them both holding Mr. Fluffles, my stuffed bunny, tight in my hands.

  "So," Liam said, "do you need anything?"

  Dallas just shook his head. He had long brown hair that hung in loose curls over his eyes. His oversize T-shirt was gray, but so was Mr. Fluffles, and I knew that both of them were supposed to be white. The boy looked out of place. Lost and terrified. But when he lifted his head and pushed his hair out of his face, I saw his green eyes and thought they were even more beautiful than my mom's emeralds.

  I don't know why I did it, but I thrust Mr. Fluffles into his hands. For a moment, he smiled, so wide and happy that sunshine lit the room. Then it faded as he passed the bunny back to me. "He's yours."

  "Friends share," I'd said.

  "Are we friends?"

  I'd glanced at Liam, and we'd both nodded. "Sure we are," Liam had said.

  "Forever," I'd added.

  Forever.

  The hollow echo of my childhood voice seems to fill this familiar, empty room.

  Forever?

  I'm not even sure what that means anymore. And I sure as hell don't know if Dallas and I are still friends.

  Honestly, I don't know what we are anymore.

  "Jane?"

  His voice banishes the last of my memories, and I realize that I'd stopped right on the threshold, neither in nor out of this room.

  "Are you coming?" He's still holding my arm, and I tug it free. The truth is that I don't want to go in--not all the way. I'm too raw here in this house so close to the man I lost. The man I could never really have.

  I plant myself by the door, my back against the bookcases that line three walls of this cozy, familiar room. "I'm fine right here," I say.

  Dallas doesn't try to urge me in farther. He must understand my hesitation, and I wonder if his thoughts have wandered to the past with mine.

  He silently closes the door, then stands in front of me. "All right," he says. "What is it you couldn't tell me out there?"

  "You're familiar with WORR, right?" I ask, grateful to get back on topic and away from my memories.

  "Of course."

  I'm not surprised. Dallas may have morphed into a guy who does nothing but party, but he's still a kidnap survivor, and I'd be shocked if he wasn't at least tangentially aware of the World Organization for Rescue and Rehabilitation.

  It's a private group that consults with and provides investigative support to the FBI, Interpol, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Unlike UNODC, which addresses all manner of crimes and terrorist activities, WORR's single-minded focus is on rescuing kidnap victims, and then helping to heal their deep emotional and mental scars.

  It's staffed by former police and FBI agents, along with attorneys and mental health professionals, among others. It's an incredibly worthwhile organization that I believe in strongly, and I'm glad to know that Dallas is at least aware of it, and that his knowledge of international events isn't limited to what's premiering this year at Cannes.

  "Bill left the US Attorneys' office about a year ago to take a top-level position there." I draw a deep breath and cut to the chase. "Anyway, they just brought a guy in for questioning about the Darcy twins' kidnapping."

  Dallas's brows draw together. "The Darcy twins?"

  "Yeah. Their kidnapping and rescue is one of the focal points of the new book I'm researching, and Bill and some of the other folks at WORR are giving me a remarkable amount of access." He looks so confused that I elaborate. "You know about the kidnapping, right? Henry Darcy's girls? Dad's done a few deals with him."

  "Of course I know the man." His voice is tight. "And I also know that the twins have been home safe for over a year. So what does WORR have to do with the Darcys?"

  I wave away the question. "The point is that WORR is working the case with Interpol and they've brought in a suspect. A guy named Ortiz--no, Ortega." I glance at Dallas and see how stiff he's become, and I'm certain he realizes that this ties in to our kidnapping. After all, why else would I be here?

  "Bill was interrogating Ortega, and the guy says he wants to cut a deal. Says if they give him immunity, he'll tell everything he knows about a secret kidnapping. A Sykes kidnapping. Dallas," I say, when he just stands there, obviously stunned, "he's one of the six guys who grabbed us, and he says he knows who's behind it all."

  I wait for the reaction that I know is coming, because it was my reaction, too. I expect to see hope. The possibility of closure. Of answers.

  But I don't see that. Remarkably, he looks angry.

  "Dallas?"

  He puts his head down and runs his fingers through his hair. "Bill knows we were kidnapped?"

  I hesitate, my cheeks burning, as he looks up. "Not we," I say. "You." I lick my lips. "You know that the press was never really satisfied with Dad's statement that you ran away from school and ended up in a hospital. Nobody guessed kidnapping back then, but after this, Bill put it together."

  "But not about you. He only knows about me. And you didn't tell him that you were there, too."

  "He was talking about you and what was said in the papers. And back then, no one paid attention to me. I went to London with the company, and supposedly that's where I stayed when I didn't return to school. And besides," I add, swallowing the bile that has risen in my throat, "they only kept me for three weeks. They held on to you for four more weeks after they let me go. So--"

  "So you were there with the family for anyone who was curious to see," he says. "Yeah, I get that," he adds. "Fuck," he says, and there's no denying the anger with which he spits out the word.

  I'm absolutely flabbergasted, and I push off from the bookcase and go to him. I start to
take his hand, but pull away at the last second. I can't do it. I can't touch him. I can't comfort him. All I can do is stand there and ask him why.

  "I don't get it," I say. "This is good news. Why don't you think this is good news?" I hear my voice rising, and hate myself for it. I've spent seventeen years working to control my emotions. To not slide into weepiness or hysteria. And I'm not about to backslide now. "What the hell is going on in your head?"

  "You really never told Bill?" he presses. "Never in all the time you were married told him that you'd been kidnapped? Not in all the time that you were researching your book?"

  "I--the book was about those kids on the bus. Not about me. I never--" I lick my lips. "I never saw any reason to tell him."

  Dallas just looks at me and nods, and I think he sees more than I want him to. I think he realizes that telling Bill would have brought the man who was legally my husband closer to my heart than I could handle. But more than that, I think Dallas knows that telling Bill would have meant acknowledging how much Dallas and I meant to each other in those cold, dark days. And that wasn't somewhere I was willing to go. Not then.

  Not even now.

  I stand straighter. "This doesn't have anything to do with what I told Bill before." My voice is firm, and I remind myself that I really don't have to defend my marriage. Especially not to Dallas. "It's about now. It's about this Ortega guy."

  "You're right. It is. What's hubby going to do?"

  His words are so harsh I have to resist the urge to storm out of the room and leave him to his stupid, confusing anger or jealousy or whatever the hell it is. But I tell myself he's in shock. I waltzed in here when he least expected me, when he'd been partying and drinking and fucking, and when he sure as hell hadn't wanted to see me.

  I've gotten in his face and laid a huge new reality on his head. Maybe I wanted him to react differently, but what I wanted or expected isn't really the issue. He's got to deal in his own way. I can handle that. I can respect it.

  I just don't get it.

  But I try. I take a deep breath and I really do try. "He wants to talk to you," I admit. "And he wants to talk to Dad. He wants to pursue it, of course. There's no statute of limitations on kidnapping. He wants to figure out who did this to you. To us," I add softly, because if this does go forward, I'm going to have to tell Bill the truth. "He wants to find the bastard and lock him away forever."

  "That's what you want?" he demands. "You want to dredge all that up again?"

  "Dredge?" I repeat. "I don't have to dredge up a goddamn thing." My voice is rising with both anger and frustration. How can he not understand this?

  "It's right there at the surface," I continue, "no dredging required. I live with it every single day." A tear escapes, but I don't swipe it away. I just look at him. I just stare, not understanding what's going through his head, this man I thought I knew. "Don't you?" I ask plaintively. "Don't you live with it, too?"

  I can't read all the emotions that flash like lightning across his face. But I see the pain, and I regret that I've pushed him.

  "Every day," he whispers. "Every minute, every hour." He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again he is looking at me honestly, and for the first time in forever I think that I'm seeing him again--the real Dallas. The man who captured my heart without even trying. The man who was my best friend. And, yes, the love of my life.

  "I miss you," he says, so softly and simply that my chest tightens and more tears spill out onto my cheeks.

  Without thinking, I step toward him. He stiffens, but he doesn't move. I can see the pain on his face, and I want to touch him--and not just to soothe. And, damn us both, it's clear that he wants to touch me, too.

  A sharp twang of anger rises through me--not aimed at him, but at myself. Because I should be able to control this desire. To push it down.

  But I can't. I've never been able to. That's why I stay away. Why our time together is limited to family functions and very rare, unavoidable occasions. And even then, we're careful around each other, as if we are porcelain dolls, each afraid of breaking the other.

  Our parents believe our distance is because of our shared pain. That being together for holidays and family events makes the ghosts come back.

  But that's not really it. I'm not haunted by pain, but by passion.

  I feel denied. I feel cheated. Because what was perfect and right and saved us in the dark is forbidden in the light.

  I steel myself against this harsh reality. There are so many things in this world I want, but cannot have.

  This man is only one of them.

  "I--I just thought you should know. But I have to go now." I turn to leave before I can change my mind. I don't make it. He takes my arm and tugs me back, so that I am right there in front of him and he is holding tight to me, his eyes filled with a wild desire, and so help me I just want to fall into him.

  Want to, but can't.

  "Jane."

  I've always thought that my name was as boring as they come, but on Dallas's lips it's a sensual feast. A caress that slides over me, firing my senses and making my skin tingle.

  He leans toward me, and for a moment I am lost, floating free on desire and possibility and the fantasy that this could be real and right. But it can't--I know it can't--and I lurch back, then try to pull my arm free, though he holds me in place. I let out a little gasp as he takes my other arm and yanks me even closer, so that there are only inches between us. So that I can feel his heat. So that I can imagine his touch.

  And then, so help me, it's there. He still clutches one arm, but with his other hand, he reaches out and brushes my lower lip. I whimper, wanting this. Hating this.

  He slides his fingers down, lightly stroking my neck and making me tremble. My breasts are heavy, my nipples tight, and right then all I want is for him to slide his hands lower and lower until he strokes between my legs and relieves the pressure that is building and building, and will undoubtedly make me explode.

  This is what I've longed for. What I've dreamed of. Fantasized about. Fought against.

  And I'm tired of fighting. I'm so damned tired. I want to surrender. I want to give in completely.

  But I can't. I won't. So long as Dallas is pushing, I have to push back. Because giving in would be a mistake. And there are some mistakes that you can't ever come back from.

  I jerk my arm, but he holds fast. "Let me go." I'm desperate now, certain that if I don't get free soon, I'll lose my resolve.

  "Why?" he demands. "Because it's wrong? Because you can't stand to be near me after what happened between us? Because it's dangerous?"

  "Danger? I welcome danger." I meet his eyes and call on all my strength to rip my arm free. I have to run. I have to go. "I just don't want you."

  It's a brutal lie, and I hate myself for telling it.

  But I hate even more the fact that I have to. Because it has to be true. I can't want this man. Forget reality. Forget desire.

  Forget the fact that I still dream of him after so much time. That I still remember the way his beard stubble scratched the soft skin of my inner thighs. That I wake up imagining him inside me, his face soft with love and wonder.

  Forget that he has never failed to make me laugh. Never failed to understand me.

  But we're star-crossed, he and I. Like a living, breathing Shakespeare play. And what I want, I can't have.

  But I don't seem to have it in me to truly want anything else.

  I'm broken, and I have been for years. It's my reality now, and I'm learning to live with it. To turn the angst and the loss around and make it work for me.

  It's not easy, though, and it's worse when we're together, which is why we're together so rarely. Which is why I shouldn't have come.

  I sigh, already dreading my great-grandfather's upcoming hundredth birthday celebration--a party for which my mother is going all out since this may well be Poppy's last.

  We're having it on Barclay Isle, a private island in the Outer Banks that has been in the Syke
s family for generations. It's a big island, but Dallas is coming as well, which means even if it were the size of Greenland, it wouldn't be big enough.

  Family gatherings are the worst for me. Seeing him. Feeling the tingle in the air from nothing more than his proximity. I attend, of course. Our family isn't that big, and I would be missed. But I go with an escape plan and I stay only as long as I can endure the tension and fight my building need.

  One time our fingers brushed at the dinner table from nothing more erotic than the passing of a bread basket, and I'd been rocked by an unexpected frisson of sensual awareness so powerful I actually gasped.

  Fortunately, I also knocked over my wine, which not only camouflaged my reaction but allowed me to escape to the restroom, ostensibly to wash out the stain on my dress. But I hadn't cared a whit about my outfit. All I'd wanted was privacy so that I could stroke myself and relieve the hot, thrumming pressure that was pounding between my legs.

  Even now, the memory is wild and vibrant, and I feel that growing, needful ache. Don't go there, I think. Just do not go there.

  Easier said than done, but I focus on blocking the past and simply getting the hell out of the house.

  I've descended the wide wooden steps to the first floor, and I pause to look back over my shoulder to see if Dallas is following me. But the door to the private hallway is still shut, and there's no sign of the man on the landing.

  Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed.

  I continue across the room, pushing past dozens upon dozens of partygoers who have meandered inside, entering through the three massive French doors that line the east-facing wall. The throng makes me tense--I don't know these people, and I don't like crowds. I keep looking over my shoulder to check my six the way Liam and all my self-defense instructors have taught me, even though I know it's stupid. No one at Dallas's party is going to hurt me. But knowing and believing are two different things, and I've gotten used to constant vigilance.

  I look around the room, finding comfort in noticing the details. The usual furniture has been moved out so as to turn this room into a dance floor with a DJ in the corner and small round tables set up around the perimeter. Hired waitstaff move through the crowd with trays of drinks, and I see dessert stations set up in all four corners of the massive room where my friends and I used to practice our middle and high school cheers.