Page 29 of Strict Confidence (Rochester Trilogy 2)
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.
