skin, the roughness of a day-old beard beneath my lips, and the warmth of him. And I felt something at the core of me clench with wanting.
When I stepped back, his expression was blank surprise, and for a moment I thought I had made a horrible mistake, and the butterflies in my stomach intensified to the point of queasiness. But then his mouth widened into a broad grin, and he bent, and kissed me back, very gently, his lips warm and very soft against my cheek.
“Good night, Rowan. You’re sure you’ll be all right now? You don’t need me to . . . stay?”
There was an infinitesimal pause before the last word.
“I’m sure.”
He nodded. And then he turned and left by the utility room door.
I locked it after him, the key turning with a reassuring clunk, and then I tucked the key back into its resting place and stood, watching his silhouette against the light streaming from the stable windows as he walked back to his little flat. As he mounted the stairs to his front door he turned and lifted a hand in farewell, and even though I was not sure he would be able to see me in the darkness, I raised mine in return.
Then he was gone, the door closed behind him, and the outside light clicked off, leaving a shocking, inky darkness in its wake. And I was left standing in there, my skin shivering, and fighting the urge to touch the place on my cheek where his lips had been with the tips of my fingers.
I did not know what he had meant when he offered to stay. What he had been hoping, expecting.
But I knew what I had wanted. And I knew that I had come very close to saying yes.
I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Wrexham. None of this is helping my case. And that’s what Mr. Gates thought too.
Because we know where this leads, you and I, don’t we?
To me, slipping out of the house on a rainy summer night, baby monitor in one hand, running across the courtyard and up the stairs to the stable-block flat.
And to a child’s body, lying— But no. I can’t think about that, or I’ll start crying again. And if you lose it in here, you really lose it, I know that now. I never knew there were so many ways to deal with pain so unbearable that it cannot be endured, but in here I have seen them all. The women who cut their skin, and tear out their hair, and smear their cells with blood and shit and piss. The ones who snort and shoot and smoke their way to oblivion. The ones who sleep and sleep and sleep and never get out of bed, not even for meals, until they’re nothing but bones and grayish skin and despair.
But I have to be honest with you, that’s what Mr. Gates didn’t—couldn’t—understand. It was acting a part that got me here in the first place. Rowan the Perfect Nanny with her buttoned-up cardigans, her pasted-on smile, and her perfect CV—she never existed, and you know it. Behind that neat, cheerful facade was someone very different—a woman who smoked and drank and swore, and whose hand itched to slap on more than one occasion. I tried to cover her up—to neatly fold my T-shirts when my instinct was to throw them on the floor, to smile and nod when I wanted to tell the Elincourts to fuck off. And when the police took me in for questioning, Mr. Gates wanted me to keep on pretending, keep on hiding the real me. But where did that pretense get me? Here.
I have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Because to leave out these parts would be less than the whole truth. To tell you only the parts that exonerate me would make me slip back into the old, old trap. Because it was the lies that got me here in the first place. And I have to believe that it’s the truth that will get me out.
* * *
I had forgotten what day it was when I awoke. When my alarm went off I listened blearily for the sound of childish voices, and then, when only silence greeted me, I hit snooze and went back to sleep. It recurred ten minutes later, and this time I thought I could hear a noise coming from downstairs. After lying there for another ten minutes,