Page 20 of Strict Confidence (Rochester Trilogy 2)
“You think you’re available for him?”
“I don’t know. You tell me, Mr. Rochester.”
Paige lifts a bite of pancake on her fork and holds it up to the light. Ten more seconds of Jane looking at me this way and I’ll end this, here and now, damn the consequences. I’ll tell her the truth, which is that she’s mine, and Mateo Garza, the Oscar-award-winning actor and national heartthrob, in a goddamn towel will never change that. Even if I’m wrong for her. My love is dangerous, but it’s fucking real.
“Don’t think for an instant, Jane, that you’re—”
“I’m back,” Mateo announces, having pulled a T-shirt on without drying off. The web fabric molds to his muscles. He slides onto the stool next to mine.
I force myself to relax. This tension wasn’t between him and Paige. It’s between the two of us. That’s what I feel in this room.
“How are the pancakes?” he asks.
I swallow the rest of the sentence. “Delicious,” I tell him, keeping my gaze on Jane. “Tastes better than anything I’ve ever had.”
CHAPTER NINE
Beau Rochester
The ocean rolls forward, forward, forward, ever moving over the shore but never quite reaching it. Moonlight winks across the surface. I’m sitting in the armchair again—waiting for Jane, if I’m honest. I heard the sounds of water in the pipes. Footsteps on the floorboard.
And then the entire inn quieted.
An hour passed.
Then two.
She’s not coming to visit me again, not to berate me and certainly, certainly not to have sex with me. I only have myself to blame, but it doesn’t stop the frustration. Now I have to imagine her knocking on Mateo’s door instead. It doesn’t make my cock any less hard. It’s throbbing, hungry, wanting inside a certain woman only a few yards away.
The ocean provides the rhythmic soundtrack to my desire.
Perhaps I drift to sleep. I’m woken by the sound of a cry from the hallway. My joints have stiffened in the cool night air, my leg screams in protest, but I stride across the room. There’s only one thought: Paige. She had nightmares when her parents died.
Maybe the fire started them up again.
The hallway is a startling black, like plunging into the ocean. No windows. No moonlight. I move by sense and feel. I find the paneled wood grain of her door beneath my palm. I fumble along the wallpaper until I reach the switch.
The lamp casts a yellow glow across the room.
A small form sleeps beneath the covers, very still. I step closer. Pale lashes rest against her cheek. Blonde curls sprawl across her pillow. A small hand lies half-open, unguarded in this moment. I feel a pang of protectiveness. A certainty that I would throw myself in front of a train for this child. That I would pull down the moon if she needed it.
She looks sweet, but also deeply asleep. Peaceful, even.
Did her nightmare end? Did I imagine it?
Kitten looks up from her slumber, cat eyes glowing yellow in the dark. She’s tucked against Paige’s side. The kitten looks drowsy, too. As if I’m the one who disturbed her. She would already be awake if Paige had been tossing and turning.
The cry comes again, this time louder and clearer. It wasn’t coming from this room at all. It’s from the room next door, and through the wall, I can feel the urgency. The fear. I move out of the room, careful to turn the light off and slide the door closed. Quiet, quiet.
I pause right outside Jane’s door, wondering whether I should knock, debating the appropriateness of going inside. Of course there is no debate. It’s not appropriate. I’m her boss. I have no right to enter her bedroom.
The knob turns in my hand. I push open the door, coming face-to-face with pitch black. Someone’s closed the curtains in this room. Moonlight barely penetrates the fabric. This time I don’t bother with the light. That’s not what she needs.
Instead I move across the room, letting my eyes adjust to the moonlight.
Shadows drape across the large bed. She looks larger than Paige but not by much. She’s still small and vulnerable. Jane brings out the protective instinct in me, though it’s very different with this grown woman. It feels darker. Possessive. Sexual. Except, of course, I can’t have sex with her. For her own sake. For mine. For the safety of this small, dysfunctional family.
A soft cry comes from the bed, and I drop a knee onto the mattress. It rolls her toward me. I grasp her arm and shake.
She thrashes in the bed, fighting the sheets, fighting me. Fighting invisible demons.
“Jane,” I say, shaking her harder. “Wake up.”
A fist lands on my chest. My jaw. I grunt as she manages to knee me in the stomach.
I catch her hands and pin them to the bed. “Goddamn it, wake up.”
A gasp. Then she opens her eyes wide. I can see the whites in the inky dark, the stark fear that vibrates through her body. I stare at her, holding her, willing her to know she’s safe. Relief crashes over her in a tidal wave. Her eyes flutter closed. Her body goes boneless in my arms. “Beau,” she says, her voice hoarse and intimate. It’s the sound of a woman who’s just woken up in the same bed. The sound of a woman with her lover.
