Serena

“Ms. Randall, were you expecting company?” Eudora stands in my doorway Wednesday afternoon as I page through a dreadfully boring copy of Vogue on my bed.

“No.” I climb off the bed. “Who is it?”

Eudora hesitates. “It’s . . . Mr. Rosewood.”

I peer out my window and spot his black SUV below.

“Do you have any idea what he needs?” she asks. “He was just here on Saturday.”

“We didn’t quite get the budget ironed out,” I say, recalling that I still have his pen and legal pad. And then I lie. “He mentioned he’d be coming back this week.”

Eudora sighs. “He’s waiting for you in the parlor.”

“Tell him I’ll be down shortly. Please offer him a drink while he waits.”

She leaves, pulling the door shut, and I change and freshen up, praying I don’t smell like I’ve been lying in bed all day, and then asking myself why it matters. I’m not here to impress Derek Rosewood.

* * *

“Hi.” I tuck my hair behind my ears when I see him and don’t allow myself to smile. His pen and legal pad are pressed against my chest.

Derek’s leather briefcase rests at his feet, looking fuller than usual today.

“Is there somewhere we can go to discuss a few things privately?”

I cock my head, shooting him a curious glance.

“It’s not about . . .” His voice is a whisper.

“Yes,” I say, leading him to a study at the opposite end of the house. “Follow me.”

A few minutes later, we’re seated in the study at an ancient, mahogany desk surrounded by shelf after shelf of first edition classics curated and collected by my grandmother over the years.

Derek rests his bag atop the desk and unclasps the buckles, pulling out a thin, gold computer.

“Your satellite internet will be installed tomorrow morning, between eight and ten,” he says.

“Yes, your assistant called this morning and told me.”

“I want you to use this computer.” He slides it across the table toward me. “I’ve set up a private, secure email that I’d like you to use. And we’ll set up this biometric fingerprint scanner that will give you access to this computer and everything on it. No one but you.”

“Fancy.” I smirk.

He pulls out a small scanner connected to a USB cord and plugs it in, cracking the laptop open and typing a few keystrokes.

Five minutes later, my fingerprint is scanned and recorded, and he’s shown me how to access my email.

“This is very James Bond,” I say.

“It’s very necessary.”

I practice scanning in and logging out a few times.

“How am I supposed to hide this from Eudora?” I ask.

“No need.” He leans back in the rickety chair. “She’s going to know you have internet. It’s okay for you to have a computer. She doesn’t have to know what you use it for. By all means, subscribe to Netflix. Binge watch House of Cards, for all I care. Entertain yourself. It’s not healthy for a young woman to be isolated the way you are. If she asks, tell her I allocated an entertainment budget, and this was your first purchase. We’ll bill the estate. They’ll be none the wiser.”

“This email address . . .”

“Is for you and me only. Do not give it to anyone else. It’s secure, but I don’t need anyone trying to hack into it. This is an attorney/client, confidential mode of communication. Your landline can be easily tapped. Your cellphone service is shoddy at best. This is how you’ll reach me. My emails go straight to my phone. I’ll be notified the second you send something.”

“I appreciate it. But what are we going to do about . . .” I can’t say it. We agreed not to discuss her under this roof.

“We need to go somewhere and talk. Again.” He buries his face in his hands and blows through his fingers. “But we left last time I visited. It might raise a red flag to your . . . keepers.”

I roll my eyes. Keepers. That’s exactly what they are.

Derek was right last Saturday when he said I needed to get out of here. I need to move somewhere, away from Belcourt and its cooks and housekeepers and gardeners, all of them watching my every move. Even Eudora.

Especially Eudora.

“What about this weekend?” I propose. “We can get together then. It won’t look suspicious if it’s been a week since our last drive. Maybe we can make it a regular thing—Saturday afternoon cruises in the country?”

“I have my daughter this weekend.”

My heart sinks, despite my telling it not to.

“You—you have a daughter?” My hand lifts to my necklace, toying with my anchor charm as I smile. “I never knew that. It’s just, you’re so young. But I mean that in a good way.”

“Haven was a surprise,” he says. “We weren’t planning to have children. Not then. I was in my last year of law school. We hadn’t been married very long. Anyway.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re a lovely father, and I’m sure Mrs. Rosewood is a very lucky woman.”

“Mrs. Rosewood,” he says, like it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. “Now goes by Mrs. Hodge.”

My head jerks as our gazes meet, and I cover my heart. I guess it makes sense. He did say he had his daughter for the weekend. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about.” He straightens his tie. “Now, back to business.”

“Yes. Right.” I lean forward, lowering my voice. “They came by on Tuesday. Veronica and my father. She had his medical power of attorney changed.”

“Fuck.” I slam my fist against the desk. “She knows what she’s doing.”

“How can she do that? My father is clearly in the early stages of dementia, and my situation is temporary.”

“If your father expressed his wishes and was in a coherent state with his attorney present, it’s not unheard of. More than likely, she has him on some kind of video or audio recording, proof of his state of mind. There are . . . ways of sidestepping certain protocols. Or she could have paid her doctor friend a hefty sum to get him to write a statement saying your father was of sound mind at the time.”

“He’s been calling her by my mother’s name lately. I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought she was my mother when he agreed. But of course, I wasn’t there. I’ll never know.”

“We need to move quickly on all of this,” Derek whispers. “We don’t have time to waste.”

“There’s something else,” I lower my voice and move closer. “Sunday, when they were here, I came upstairs to my room and found her assistant rifling through my dresser drawers. I caught her red-handed. She ran out of my room after I forced her to tell me what she was looking for. Evidently, Eudora knows I’m not taking my medications, and Veronica told her assistant she thinks I’m hoarding them to hurt myself.”

I roll my eyes.

“Another vicious manipulation,” I say. “More lies. Just another way for her to claim I’m not in a good state.”

Derek blows a heavy breath. “We have to get you out of here. Now. Fuck the internet. Fuck the laptop that just blew through your April entertainment budget.”

“Where am I going to go?” I shrug. “Tell me. Where?”

Derek pauses, glancing around the room, then up at the wooden chandelier that centers the ceiling. His fingertips point to a ‘v’ and his eyes come back to mine.

“You’re coming to Rixton Falls,” he says. “With me.”