Strict Confidence

by Skye Warren

  “That reminds me. Marjorie took a call for you. Seemed pretty upset about it. I was tempted to open it and read what it said, but I figure you’ll just tell me.”

  Inside there are words written in quotation marks, as if they were being transcribed exactly as they were spoken. “You’re going to ruin her life, the same way you ruined mine.”

  My heart thuds in my chest. Blood rushes in my ears. “What the fuck is this?”

  Mateo takes the note from me, but I don’t need to see it to know what’s there. There is a name scrawled beneath the words. Zoey Aldridge. She’s the one who left the message. Apparently she hates me. I probably deserve that.

  “Christ,” Mateo mutters, tossing the card aside. “She’s crazy.”

  “I dodged a bullet.”

  Mateo looks thoughtful. “Or what if you didn’t. I thought she went back to LA. What if she didn’t? What if she’s the one who set the fire?”

  Alarm runs through my veins. “She uses a private jet. We’ll find out where it is.”

  “Either way, this is a crazy fucking message.”

  “She’s right though.”

  “Don’t go there, man. Don’t let her fuck with your head.”

  “You said it yourself. I’m not the obvious kind of bad, remember? I’m the kind you don’t see in the fog until it’s too late. Except it’s not too late for Jane.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jane Mendoza

  After an hour of looking through boxes, I’ve found the little silver top hat and the wheelbarrow. The only red hotels and green houses I found have been melted out of shape. They’re charred black. Somehow the cards for Pennsylvania Railroad, Baltic Avenue, and Marvin Gardens managed to escape relatively unscathed. There’s also a handful of crumpled, fire-tinged hundred-dollar bills.

  I collect this into a sad-looking pile the way a raven would make a nest.

  We’ll never find enough pieces to make it playable, of course, but I think about framing what’s there. It will be an heirloom for Paige to keep.

  Possibly the last physical remnant of her father.

  Like the photo I had of my father.

  The boxes are stacked in the back patio of the inn, a place with a floor and a roof but no outside walls. A stiff wind would blow everything important away, but we don’t want to bring them inside. Not with the incredibly strong scent of smoke emanating from them.

  While I’m working here, Paige plays in the garden. I called the little toy shop where we bought the paints and they delivered a new set. She’s been painting the gnomes that are used liberally throughout. They were a very boring gray stone before. I hope they don’t mind too much that they’re now bright and cheerful with oranges, reds, greens, blues, and pops of pink. It’s really my job to stop her from defacing private property, but she’s had such a rough time lately, and she’s finally showing curiosity and interest, that I figure it’s worth the replacement fee.

  I’m pretty sure children aren’t allowed at the Lighthouse Inn, usually.

  Pets aren’t allowed either, but that doesn’t stop Kitten from trying to pounce on lizards. So far she’s caught zero of them. She’s definitely made to live in a cushy household like Beau Rochester’s, because she would not survive a day in the wild.

  There are piles of boxes, but something dark blue catches my eye.

  The diary. I pick it up. Somehow it escapes the fire unscathed, its pages damp from the firefighters who put out the fire. The velvet cover hasn’t even been singed.

  I flip open the pages, touching the script.

  We went on a picnic today, R, P, and me. It was nice, almost like we are a real family. Outside the house it almost seems like we love each other.

  Nestled in the pages are photographs taken with a polaroid camera, the saturated-color square set in a white border, elegant black scrawl in the space beneath. There’s a beautiful blonde woman with ice-blue eyes. She stares at the camera, glamorous and unsmiling. The man beside her wears a suit. He has Beau’s features, sharpened and refined. If Beau is the wild, craggy cliffside at the Coach House, this man is the manicured coast near the inn.

  First anniversary, the beautiful handwriting says. There’s no happiness between the two people in this photograph. The next photo shows the same couple in different clothes, just as beautiful, just as pristine, holding a young child. Paige. Her face was cherubic, her eyes blank. She wore a dress so frilly and full of lace that it makes me itch just to see. First birthday, the scrawl says.

  I flip through the journal with increasing urgency, feeling her dread rise, her insecurity over her marriage, her distance from her child increase.

  R hit me today. Actually hit me. I was too shocked to say anything.

  Oh God.

  “Jane.”

  I stand up in a rush, dumping the diary back into the box, shoving something nondescript and half-burned on top of it. Guilt rises in my throat. I should not be reading that.

  Marjorie walks out, her red hair blowing in the wind.

  “How are you?” she asks, her smile bright. I’m guessing she hasn’t seen the gnomes.

  “Hello,” I say, gesturing to the boxes as a distraction. Pretty sure this is how magicians make you miss the fact that they’re not cutting a person in half. Misdirection. “We’re doing okay. I’m looking through them now. We should be able to get them out of the way soon enough.”

  She gives a small laugh. “Oh, that’s okay. You know Beau Rochester is paying good money for the use of the property, including the patio.”

  “Right. Money.” She has what I’ve learned is the Maine accent. She says Rochester like Rochestah and property like prah-perty.

  A broken teacup sits near the top of an open box. Marjorie leans down to pick it up. “She used this set for afternoon tea. She loved formal gatherings like that.”

  “You mean Emily Rochester?” Her image flashes in my mind, the exquisite features, the perfectly curled blonde hair, the eyes that hold infinite sadness.

  She gets this faraway expression. “We were friends.”

  “I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

  “We weren’t exactly close, but it was still a blow when she died. She was so full of life.” Her pale blue gaze finds Paige in the garden. “And Paige still so young.”

  There’s a wrench in my heart. “I’m very sorry.”

  She looks at me. “I’m glad they found you. It’s almost like a little family. If I saw you with them, I would assume you were her mother. Young, of course, but still.”

  Heat floods my cheeks. I don’t want to feel pleasure at her words.

  I don’t want to hope for more, considering I’m the hired help. Not part of their family at all.

  I thought I could have this—what? This secret relationship, this sex with Beau Rochester and not fall for him. I was wrong. I mumble something about how I’m happy to help Paige through this difficult time. And I add, “I’m sorry about the gnomes.”

  A small laugh. “Rochester paid more than enough to cover them. It’s incredible really. A kid from around here—” Around he-ah. “Becoming that kind of rich.”

  “It’s wild.” Not that I would know. Sure, I live in the inn. I eat food he bought. I wear clothes paid for with his money. It’s all temporary. None of this is mine.

  “Not like us,” she says.

  My stomach clenches. I’m like her—the people Rochester pays to do what he wants. He may be generous with his money, but it’s still his. It’s still our job to keep him happy.

  To let his niece paint the garden gnomes.

  Or in my case, to let him have sex with the nanny.

  Bile rises in my throat. What if he considered the sex part of my job? What if he considered it his due for paying such a nice salary at the end?

  “Yeah,” I say, choking on the word. “Not like us.”

  Marjorie says something about good Maine hospitality. I’m supposed to let her know if I need anything, but most of all, if Paige needs anything.

 
; When she leaves, I pull out the diary again. She’s becoming a three-dimensional person to me, Emily Rochester. She’s not only Paige’s mother. Not only the woman Beau used to love. Now she’s someone with her own hopes and dreams, her own fears.

  It’s her private diary. Her thoughts. Her secrets. Not meant to be shared with anyone, but definitely not with me—a complete stranger. I shouldn’t even show this to Beau, honestly. It would probably only enrage him to find out that Rhys had hit Emily.

  I’m reading the pages faster and faster, skipping more of them every time. Going through her pregnancy and her troubled marriage and her final days…

  R guessed the truth today. He figured out that my weekend trip happened when I got pregnant. Paige looks just like him. They have the same eyes. I don’t know what made him suspicious, but he lost his temper. I’m afraid for myself. I’m almost afraid for Paige. Maybe she’s not safe from him if he knows she’s actually B’s child. He looks at us with pure venom in his eyes, like we’re the enemy. It’s always quiet in the house now. It feels like a storm is brewing.

  My heart pounds when I put the book down. That’s the last line she ever wrote in this diary. It feels like a storm is brewing. Whether she meant a figurative storm or a literal one, she decided to go out on a boat with Rhys. Her husband. Did he hurt her? Did they have an argument that ended in the worst possible way? Was she fighting for her life on that harbor?

  There’s a knot in my stomach. She’s not Beau’s niece. She’s his daughter.

  Does he know? He must know. Nine months after they slept together, a child was born. He had to have wondered. Why did he let her grow up in another man’s house?

  Why was he so reluctant to claim her?

  I don’t know why it’s hitting me so hard, the fact that Beau might be Paige’s true father. Maybe because I lost my father. Maybe because I’m not over it, I’ll never get over it. I don’t have a family. Not my father, and definitely not Beau. I’m alone, and the realization hits me like a very poorly timed tidal wave.

  I was fooling myself to think we could play house.

  The red bricks that form the back patio turn into wavy lines. I feel like I might throw up. This is bad. I don’t know if I can pretend, if I can rewind the last fifteen minutes in my mind.

  I should have been more afraid of that blue velvet diary. Not because it holds Emily Rochester’s secrets. Because it holds everyone else’s secrets, too.

  Paige runs over to me, covered in paint. I feel like I’m a robot going through the motions as I bring her inside and wash her face in the kitchen.

  “Are you okay?” Marjorie asks. “You look kind of green.”

  I’m really not okay. My breathing comes fast. I really think I might vomit. How can reading a few words change everything so much? I feel like I don’t know Beau Rochester at all. Of course I don’t know him. We had sex. It doesn’t mean anything.

  God, why did I think it meant anything?

  Then Mateo is there. He puts a hand between my shoulder blades, making gentle circles. “Hey,” he says. “You’ve been working too hard, probably. Smoke inhalation is nothing to play around with. Do you want to go upstairs and rest? I’ll watch Paige.”

  I offer a weak laugh. “I think… I think I might have eaten some bad seafood. Maybe some fresh air will clear things up. Do you think you can watch her for a few minutes?”

  “Of course. Should I get Beau?”

  “No,” I say, and then more gently. “No, I really just need fresh air.”

  I stumble out of the inn and down a gravel path. It leads to the beach. Not the rocky cliff that the Coach House had. There are sand dunes and reeds and a foamy line of water.

  Wind whips my hair around my face, making me blind.

  The water would be freezing right now, and that sounds like bliss. It would be freezing, so cold that I could be numb again. I’m already retreating inside myself, becoming who I was before I set foot in Maine. I let myself feel far too much with Beau—curiosity and desire and comfort. I let myself fall for him, and now I’m going to crash against the rocky cliffside.

  “Jane.”

  I turn, and there’s Beau, as if I conjured him with my thoughts. “Mr. Rochester.”

  His voice comes gently over the wind. “So now I’m Mr. Rochester again.”

  “You’ve always been Mr. Rochester.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I thought I could live with his coldness, with his secrets, with his guilt. As if I’m some kind of mature woman, able to handle men who are black holes. I’m not Zoey Aldridge who can walk away with her chin held high. I’m going to get sucked into him. I’ll never be part of that three percent of kids who age out of the foster care system who graduate college. I’m going to die on these cliffs. The certainty sinks into me, with equal parts fear and resignation.

  “Jane.”

  A small, hysterical laugh escapes me. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  “Freezing to death, possibly. Let’s go back inside and sit by the fire.”

  “Did you know she was your child? Paige?”

  Silence. “I knew.”

  “Why didn’t you do something before her parents—no, before Rhys died? She deserved to know who her true father was. She deserved to have both her parents.”

  “How the hell did you find this out?”

  “Emily kept a diary.” My voice is hollow. “I shouldn’t have read it.”

  “By the time I found out, she’d already had the baby. Paige was eight months old by then. She knew Rhys as her father. Emily seemed happy enough having a new baby. They were a family. Anything I would have done would have fucked it up.”

  “He was hitting her.”

  A muscle in his jaw moves.

  “Emily. Rhys hit her when he got angry.”

  “I found that out too late.”

  “The diary?”

  “I read it.” A brittle laugh. “For all the good it did her, I read it when I arrived at the house. It was in her nightstand. It tells quite a story.”

  “You didn’t know.”

  “Rhys was a bastard with me, because we were competitive and we were brothers and we hated each other just a little bit, but he would never hit a woman. He worshipped Emily. That’s why I let him keep her. At least that’s what I thought.”

  “I don’t know what he felt for Emily, but I do know that men—even otherwise good men, men who love their families in every other way—can hit them.” The secrets in the Rochester family feel like the fog, growing thicker and thicker. It’s harder to breathe.

  “I don’t even know if he hit Paige. The diary didn’t say.”

  My throat feels swollen shut. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize to me. It’s my fault she’s dead. I should have taken Emily out of that house. I should have claimed Paige as my own. I should have—”

  “No.” There are butterflies with wings made out of razor blades in my stomach. I clutch my hands around my middle as if to hold myself together. “Don’t blame yourself for that. You didn’t know what was happening in that house.”

  “She came to me, that weekend that Paige might have been conceived. She asked me to run away with her. I sensed a desperation in her, but I thought she had finally realized her mistake choosing Rhys. I thought she wanted me. I thought she wanted my money. I thought I could prove a point by fucking her and then sending her away the next morning.”

  I flinch. “You didn’t know.”

  “That’s the problem, Jane. I should have known.”

  I’m shaking my head. “Your brother is the one responsible for his actions.”

  “The only reason he pursued Emily was because I wanted her. Because of our rivalry. Any way you look at it, I’m the reason she’s dead right now.”

  “Beau.”

  “I’m not Beau whenever you want, sweetheart.”

  “Mr. Rochester. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “One woman is dead because of me. You m
ight be next.” He moves as if to touch me, and I flinch back. I can’t let him touch me again. It will feel too good. It will always feel too good, except when I face reality. That’s when it hurts. “I’m a monster who destroys everything I touch. And you and I both know I touched you. Thoroughly.”

  “Stop trying to scare me.”

  “Is it working?”

  “No, God help me. I trust you anyway.”

  “Jesus Christ. When you are going to see? I’m the boss. You’re the nanny. We’re fucking because it’s easy. It’s convenient. Like eating leftovers because they’re in the fridge.”

  I flinch. “No. You don’t mean that.”

  His face goes dark and cold, almost the way he looked when I first met him. “You thought we were going to be a couple? That we were going to get married?”

  “No, but I thought we cared about each other.”

  “You don’t give a fuck how I feel about you when I have my thumb against your clit.”

  A slightly manic laugh escapes me. “That’s true enough. I would have thought I was a strong person. A principled person. And I am, except when you touch me. Then I become someone I don’t even recognize.”

  “Is it so fucking wrong, then? Having sex?”

  “It is when I’m locked in for a year. I can’t leave, but you can fire me anytime. You told me that, remember? You can fire me anytime you want if I don’t do a good enough job.”

  “You think I’ll fire you if you don’t suck my cock?”

  I look down. “Why can’t it be more? Why can’t it be a relationship?”

  His eyes have always been unnaturally opaque. Now they look as hard as granite. “Is that what you want? A public declaration? Maybe a little article in the tabloids?”

  “I don’t give a shit about the tabloids.”

  “What about the money?”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “Everyone wants my money. That’s the one true constant.” When I make a sound of dissent, he snorts. “Even you. Do you want me to pay you the full amount right now?”

  I press my lips together. Of course I do. Except there’s no right answer here.