Page 48 of Never Let You Go

“My bedroom. Used to be the grand room. For entertaining.”

Right. Heat creeps up from my middle.

“The staircase is locked from the inside. From my side. But, if that makes you uncomfortable, I can nail you—I mean, nail it shut.” He turns his back to me and rinses out his coffee mug.

My brain strives to gloss over his slip, while my body disagrees, and my cheeks burn. I whisper scream so Emma can’t hear. She might be deep in her numbers, but I’m sure she’s not losing one word of this conversation. “You mean it’s still in working order?” Yeah right. Pretend like you’re just interested in architectural details.

He stacks the mail and stands. Then leans over me on his way back to the bakeshop. “Perfectly functional.”

His scent lingers around me, and I fall into a dreamy daze.

I’m fantasizing on all the possibilities. The scenarios. I wonder if someone before used this staircase for illicit encounters.

Am I crazy?

The existence of this hidden passage is an invitation to use it, right? A permanent what if. What if he came up the hidden stairs? What if he knocked on this door instead of the main one? What if I answered that door? What if I left the door open the next night?

God. I need to snap out of it.

“So you’re the one,” Emma says, effectively pulling me out of my inappropriate fantasies.

“Sorry—what?” I take a few steps to get closer to her.

“You’re the apprentice Chris got from that foundation. For…”

She trails off, takes a sip of her latte, her pink lips leaving a trace of lipstick on the sheep mug.

“I’m not following.”

She pulls her eyes from her laptop and latches them onto me. She has the most beautiful, deep blue eyes, bordered by thick, long lashes to die for—and they’re all natural. No mascara. No eyeliner. Full mane of curly blond hair, and she doesn’t even need to play with it to make you notice it. She’s wearing a sweater that molds her without being obvious. Slim jeans that move with her.

She’s the kind of woman who runs for Miss Small Town America and the whole country falls in love with her.

She takes another, thoughtful sip of her coffee, and I realize the sheep on the mug have something to do with counting. I wonder who gave her that mug. If she brought it here herself, with her frother, or if it was a gift from Christopher, to make her feel at home.

That last thought sits uneasy in my stomach.

She smiles at me but doesn’t show me her perfect row of pearly white teeth. That smile, she reserves for Christopher. But still, she smiles at me and says, “Never mind. I see he didn’t tell you. I overstepped.” And she ducks back behind her laptop, taking cute little laps of her homemade latte with her perfect pink, plump lips.

Now, an accountant is like a lawyer. They don’t overstep. They know they can’t share much, if anything, about their clients.

That right there was not a professional accidentally oversharing and hoping we can pretend this never happened.

I spent my tweens and teens in all-girls private boarding schools. And 99 percent of the girls there were gold. Tight-knit, stick together, to death kind of friends.

And then you had that one girl. It never failed, year after year, grade after grade.

There was always one girl who couldn’t leave well enough alone. Who had to dig up dirt. Who spent her year trying to sully friendships. I never figured out why they did it, but I learned to recognize their MO.

Innuendos.

Seemingly innocent questions.

Half revelations.

What is Emma’s problem?

The door to the bakeshop swings up. “Alexandra.” Christopher looks between Emma and me. “I need you back there.”

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