Skye Warren is the New York Times bestselling author of dangerous romance.
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CHAPTER 1

A GUST OF Wind rocks the Toyota Prius.

I clench my teeth together. I'm pretty sure this compact eco-friendly car wasn't designed to travel up a mountain. Rain falls in sheets, heavy on the thin roof. Through the window a half moon reveals an endless climb. I cling to the plastic handle, shivering against the worn fabric of the seat.

They didn't have mountains this high in Houston. I thought the plane ride was scary, but this hour and a half drive is worse. Much worse. I knew Eben Cape was on the coast, but I pictured something sandy with gentle waves.

Not steep cliffs that drop into nothing.

"Do you come this way often?" I ask.

"Nope."

Not a talkative one, my driver. He had a low rating on the app, but that's what you get for an economy ride share. The pounding of rain unnerves me. As does the slope on the road. Water will make it slippery. I'd almost ask him to turn around, except that seems more dangerous on this narrow road. The only way left is forward. And up.

My ears do that strange hollow feeling I got when the airplane took off. I can't see much in the dark, can't hear anything. It's a surreal sensation, like floating through space.

I look down at my phone. Its light almost blinds me.

No signal.

If I lost signal, then maybe the driver did, too. "Do you still see the map?"

"Only one place this leads," he says, almost shouting to be heard over the storm. "The Coach House. Nothing to do but keep going now."

The Coach House. That sounds comforting. A lot better than the number and street address I punched into the app. I'm picturing something with sturdy bricks and a birdbath. I close my eyes and hold the image in my mind, clutching my phone so tight it hurts.

I know precious little about the family I'm going to work for. Only that a man recently got custody of his niece. I wonder if he's a fisherman. Maybe he catches lobsters out in that wild ocean spray. He'd wear rubber boots and have a white beard.

The car jerks suddenly, pulling out of its endless turn, the whole frame rocking on the tires as we reach some pinnacle. I let out a squeak that's swallowed by the gales of wind.

Shadows shift through the windshield. Something looms ahead of us-large like another mountain to climb. Except it's not mountain. It's a house. No, more than that. It's a mansion. Don't stop, I think. Don't stop here. There's something forbidden about this place. I'm too practical to believe in ghosts, but this place feels somehow haunted.

The car skids to a stop, the brakes pumping in some automated fashion to stop the slide. The man already has his blinker on, ready to turn around in the small space as soon as I'm out the door. I peer through my window at the mass of slick night-blackened stone.

"Listen," I say, my hands shaking as I pull up my phone. It still has no signal. The map of Maine has no little dot to show where I am. It only spins and spins. "Are you sure this is the right place? I don't see a street number written anywhere."

"This is the Coach House," he says, impatient now. He still doesn't turn. I'm talking to the back of his head. To the side of his shoulder.

"Okay. Okay." He doesn't want to talk to me anymore, and maybe that doesn't matter. It's not really for him. I'm pumping myself up. For someone who never set foot outside Harris County her whole life, this trip has been like shaking up a goldfish in a bag. "I can do this."

No answer to that.

"I'm going to walk in that house. And work there. And live there. For a year."

He turns the radio on. The Weeknd vibrates through the tinny speakers. It's not precisely reassuring, the way the music fights with the storm for dominance and loses. I open the door. Wind tries to keep it closed, but I use my body weight to half-step, halffall onto the soggy grass. I drag the carry-on luggage I picked up from Walmart last week with me.

The car inches forward, the door hanging open, rain pooling on the dark fabric, and I jump forward to slam the door so he doesn't end up driving down the mountain that way.

Tires slide against wet ground. Mud flings against me in a hard splatter.

Great.

I head to the front door, which naturally does not have much of an overhang. Rain slicks my clothes to my body as I ring the electronic doorbell, trying to school my expression to one of calmness in case anyone's watching with their phone. A bong reverberates from inside, but no one answers the door. I count to twenty in my head. Then thirty. Then sixty.

I ring again. Nothing.

The cold and wet has numbed me almost to my core, but worry begins to seep in. What if there's no one here? What if I'm at the wrong house? What if the entire upscale nanny agency was a setup, and I'm being filmed on some kind of terrible Netflix mockumentary about how desperate poor people are to find a job?

No. Listen, I tell myself. They probably can't hear the doorbell over the storm.

This time I knock, but the heavy wood seems to stifle the vibration. It might as well be made from the same stone as the rest of the house for all the sound it makes.

I try to shield my phone from the rain with my body. I don't have the latest fancy waterproof Apple device. Mine is the freewith-twelve-month-contract phone. With no signal. Don't panic, Janey girl. That's what Dad used to call me. I can still hear it sometimes, even if the voice is probably made up and sounds nothing like him.

If I'm in the wrong place, with no lights for miles around me, high in a mountain, and no phone signal, I would sit down in the sludge and cry.

Therefore, that can't be happening.

I have to believe that the Rochester family of two is inside this house.

It's only a matter of getting to them.

Four floors rise above the tallest point of the mountain. There isn't a strong light to let me know that someone's home, but that doesn't mean it's empty anyway. The house has a sort of melancholy presence that makes me feel like someone's inside.

I head for the side of the mansion, dragging my suitcase behind me. If no one's answering the front door, there's probably someone in the back.

As soon as I round the corner, I realize exactly how massive the structure is. It stretches along the cliffs in rows of dark windows across a pale stone face. The farther away I get from the gravel road, the more rocky the terrain becomes. I squint down at my feet, trying to make sure I stand on grass or rock. The mud itself is too slippery.

That's what I'm doing when I hear the roar of an engine.

I jump back as white lights blind me, moving in wild arcs across my body, across the building. It's a car. It's a car! And it's coming for me. I scream and back up against the wall as if it can somehow protect me from the careening vehicle.

Lights flash and flicker. The stone is freezing cold through my clothes.

And then stillness.

As suddenly as the headlights appeared, they stop moving.

I'm still pinned against the mansion like a butterfly in a frame, but at least I'm still alive. A car door slams, and then there's a large shadow looming over me.

"What the fuck are you doing? You could have been killed," says the shadow.

Somehow his voice booms over the rain, as if it's above ordinary things like the weather. I open my mouth to reply, but pinned butterflies can't speak. Everyone knows this. Shock holds my throat tight even as my heart pounds out of my chest.

"You don't belong here. This is private property."

I swallow hard. "I'm Jane Mendoza. The new nanny. Today is my first day."

There's silence from the shadow. In the stretching silence he turns into a man. A large one who seems impervious to the cold. "Jane," he says, testing my name. "Mendoza."

He says it with this northeastern accent I recognize from the Uber driver. Mend-ohhh-sah. In Texas, most people were used to Mexican last names. I'm wondering if that will be different in Maine. Maybe I would do a better job of defending myself if I weren't about to get hypothermia, if I hadn't just traveled two thousand miles for the first time in my life.

All I can hear are the words you don't belong here.

I've never belonged anywhere, but definitely not on this cliffside. "I work here. I'm telling the truth. You can ask inside. If we can get inside, I'm sure Mr. Rochester will tell you."

"He will."

I can't tell if it's disbelief in his tone. "Yes, he knows I'm coming. The Bassett Agency sent me. They told him I'm coming. He's probably waiting inside for me right now."

"No," he says. "I'm not."

My stomach sinks. "You're Mr. Rochester."

"Beau Rochester." He sounds grim. "I didn't get an email, but I haven't checked lately. I've been busy with... other things."

I fumble with my phone, which is incurably wet at this point. "I can show you. They sent my resume. And then the contract? Well, that's what they told me anyway-"

He's not listening. He turns around and circles back to the driver's side of the vehicle, which I can see now isn't a car, but is instead some kind of rough-terrain four-wheel thing. There are apparently no windows, only metal bars forming a crude frame. The kind of thing a rancher might use to move around his property or a good old boy might use for recreation.

I have no idea why this particular man has one, or is out using it tonight, until he turns off the lights. The engine goes quiet. He returns to me holding something small and shivering beneath his jacket. He shoves it into my freezing hands, and I fumble with my phone before pushing it into my jeans pocket.

"Here," he says. "You're good at taking care of things, right?"

There's a spark of fur covering tiny bones. It takes me a second of curling it close to my body to realize that it's a kitten. It mews, more movement than sound, its small mouth opening to show small white teeth. "Why do you have your kitten outside in the storm?"

"It's not mine. I saw it walking along the cliffs from my window when it started raining. Then it slipped and fell over the side. It took me this long to go down and search for him."

Shock roots me to the ground. "The kitten fell off a cliff?"

"Consider this your interview. You keep the small animal alive. You get the job."

I cuddle the poor kitten close, though I'm sure my body provides precious little heat. He and I are both soaked through. "He just fell off a cliff. He needs a vet, not a bedtime story."

The man. Beau. No, I can't call him by his first name. Mr. Rochester. He makes a sweeping motion with his hand toward the vehicle. "You can take the ATV anywhere on the cape. I seriously doubt you're going to find a vet open right now."

He doesn't wait to see what my answer will be. He stalks toward the house. My suitcase lolls in a particularly large puddle.

Probably everything is soaked inside. He picks it up like it weighs nothing and carries it with him. I'm left following behind, as be- draggled and lost as the kitten I'm holding. It sinks its claws into me, apparently deciding I'm the safest bet in the storm.

Mr. Rochester presses numbers on a keypad, and the door swings open.

CHAPTER TWO

APPARENTLY HE WAS serious about this being an interview.

He leans back against the granite counter and folds his arms, watching me with a critical eye. Everything in here gleams in a hardwood and dark metal kind of way. It makes my scruffy, muddy appearance even more obvious as it's reflected back off a hun- dred surfaces. Mr. Rochester himself looks coldly handsome. It isn't right for a man so hard to look almost beautiful. The kitchen lights reveal piercing brown eyes and thick brows. His nose is long and flat on the top. His mouth is pressed into a thin line of displeasure.

I hold the drenched kitten away from me, trying to see if anything is broken. Not that I would know what to do about it if it were. It wriggles in what seems to be a normal kitten fashion? I have very little experience with pets. My life is divided into two halves. The before and after. Before, my dad was allergic to pets but he always promised that when I got older I could get a puppy. After he died, I bounced through foster homes. Occasionally there'd be a dog. Or two. Or three. In the last house there was an en- tire pack of them who roamed the house and the woods nearby as if they were the same thing. They weren't exactly domesticated. Mr. Rochester lifts an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed with my nanny abilities.

"I've never had a cat," I say, though it comes out more like a question.

"Then act like it's a baby." His dark hair will turn brown when it dries. It's a stark contrast to my black curls, which stay the same color wet. Now that we're inside I can see that he's tall, built, and white. A green sweater hugs a broad chest and narrow waist. Wet denim cling to muscled thighs and drips onto the marble tile.

"You know, I already signed a yearlong contract with the agency for this position. We had multiple rounds of interviews, in- cluding one that was videotaped for you."

He shrugs, unimpressed with this. "You're locked in for a year. I'm not. I can fire you anytime I want if you don't do a good enough job."

Great. Holding the kitten in one arm like a football, I search through the drawers and cabinets for something marked Emergency Pack for Stray Kittens.

All I end up with is a large metal mixing bowl and a stack of flour sack dish towels.

I take him to a white ceramic sink and fill the bowl with warm water. Without any actual training in animal care, I'm working under the knowledge that a hot bath sounds amazing to me right now. It's the only thing I can think of that would work this chill from my bones.

When the water's the right temperature I fill the bowl only a few inches and then settle the kitten inside. She responds with a small, broken meow that hurts my heart.

"I know," I murmur to her, my back turned to Mr. Rochester. It feels like me and the kitten are in this thing together. Sure, the guy saved the kitten's life, but he doesn't seem very invested in her survival. He stands there watching me like we're a television show. Like a survival reality show where they throw a girl and a kitten in the ocean to see if they live. "I know you're cold right now. And probably freaked out. This place is scary, but you'll be okay."

"Are you planning to cook him for dinner?" Mr. Rochester asks amiably.

"Listen." I carefully lift the kitten from the water and dry her off using the dish towels, one by one. I try to move quick so she'll get warm, but I also have to be careful. She feels like she's made of toothpicks. One wrong move, and she'll snap. "There's no busi- ness underneath, so I think we can assume she's a girl. And you could be helpful by getting some warm milk or whatever it is cats like to eat instead of just criticizing what I'm doing."

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could take them back.

I don't have a ton of experience with job interviews. I worked at the diner near my foster home and as a cashier at a grocery store when I moved out, but those weren't really interviews. I filled out an application and got a call back. The nanny agency inter- viewed me several times, but they seemed okay with my rambling answers about taking care of my foster siblings and babysitting and volunteering at the food bank. Despite my relative inexperience with interviews, I feel like talking back and asking him to get a bowl of milk is probably not the best thing to say.

But when I turn around, he's already reaching inside the wide stainless steel fridge. Even in this quick glimpse I can see that it's mostly empty. He does find a carton of milk, half full. In a few moments he's found a saucer that he pours into.

"Thanks," I murmur, accepting the saucer from him. I wrap the kitten like a burrito using the last dry dish towel and then set her down in front of the milk.

She shoves her face into the liquid, making her nose white.

I can't help it. It makes me laugh, but then I catch Mr. Rochester's eye. He has a strange expression. Strange because it's less se- vere and judgy than the one he'd had a minute before. As soon as he sees me looking at him, he grabs the milk and stows it back in the fridge.

Once the kitten understands the way milk works, she laps it up.

I'm going to have to find some cat food and probably google a million pages about caring for kittens, but I think she's doing okay. I have to hope that if a bone were broken, I'd be able to tell. Maybe it's true what they say about cats having nine lives. She probably used up a couple of them falling off that massive cliff.

"Sorry," I say without looking up. I'm sitting with one leg under me, the other curled up beneath my chin, watching the kitten. "About saying you should be helpful."

I read the fine print in the contract. Enough to know that the penalty for breaking it early would be severe... for me. I only get paid the bulk of it after the year is over. And I don't get that if I leave before then. Of course the strictness only works one way. He can fire me anytime. I just didn't think he'd consider doing it on the first night.

"Don't worry about it."

"I just wasn't expecting the whole kitten interview thing."

"You can keep the job. For now."

I let out a huff of exhausted laughter. "Thanks."

"Come on," he says. "I'll show you to your room. You can share with the kitten."

Great. My suitcase has been dripping onto the marble floor this whole time. I grab the warm bundle of fur and the suitcase and follow him down the hallway. We pass a series of rooms with sofas and dining tables and pianos and then more sofas. The place is massive. It's more like a hotel lobby where hundreds of people could pass through, instead of a house for two people.

Everything looks expensive and even comfortable, but it doesn't feel like a home.

A full wall of windows exposes the storm in all its glory. Maybe some people like watching nature use the earth like a drum, but after being out in it I'm still shivering. There's a trail of muddy water behind me that I'll probably have to clean up tomorrow. Right now I'm just desperate for a chance to get into some dry clothes.

He turns a corner and we head down a long hallway with a series of closed doors. Like the windows outside, they're dark and nondescript and innately full of secrets.

A small gesture. His voice is low in the dark hallway. "That's her bedroom. Paige. The reason for your position. You'll meet her tomorrow."

The reason for your position. There's no warmth in his voice, even though he's talking about a six-year-old little girl. "You're her uncle?"

Copyright: Skye Warren