and Cassie bit her lip at the additional delay.
Zane shouted again, and she realized with a sick feeling that he would reach her in a few moments. He’d turn on the charm and beg her for a chance to talk, reassure Cassie that it would only take a minute for him to say what he needed in private. His aim, she knew from experience, would be to get her away and alone. And then the charm would vanish.
“Who’s that guy?” Jess asked curiously. “Is he looking for you?”
“He’s my ex-boyfriend,” Cassie muttered. “I’ve been trying to avoid him. I don’t want him causing trouble before I leave.”
“But he’s already causing trouble!” Jess whirled round, irate.
“Security!” she screamed. “Help us! Somebody stop that man!”
Galvanized by Jess’s cries, one of the passengers grabbed Zane’s jacket as he pushed past. He slipped on the tiles, arms flailing, dragging one of the posts down with him as he fell.
“Hold him,” Jess appealed. “Security, quick!”
With a surge of relief, Cassie saw that security had indeed been alerted. Two airport police were rushing over to the line. They were going to reach it in time, before Zane could get to her, or even run away.
“I came to say goodbye to my girlfriend, officers,” Zane gabbled, but his attempts at charm were lost on the duo.
“Cassie,” he called, as the taller officer grasped his arm. “Au revoir.”
Reluctantly she turned to face him.
“Au revoir! It’s not goodbye,” he shouted, as the officers marched him away. “I’m gonna see you again. Sooner than you think. You better take care.”
She recognized the warning in Zane’s last words—but for now, they were empty threats.
“Thank you so much,” she said to Jess, overwhelmed with gratitude for her gutsy action.
“I also had a toxic boyfriend,” Jess sympathized. “I know how possessive they can be, they stick like freaking Velcro. It was a pleasure to be able to stop him.”
“Let’s go through passport control before he can find a way back in. I owe you a drink. What would you like—coffee, beer, or wine?”
“Wine, for sure,” Jess said, as they headed through the gates.
“So, where in France are you headed to?” Cassie asked, after they had ordered the wine.
“This time, I’m going to a family in Versailles. Close to where the palace is, I believe. I hope I’ll have a chance to go and see it when I have a day off.”
“You said this time? Have you been on an assignment before?”
“I have, but it didn’t work out well.” Jess dropped an ice cube in her glass. “The family was dreadful. In fact, they put me off using Maureen’s Au Pairs ever again. I went with a different agency this time. But don’t worry,” she added hurriedly, “I’m sure you will be fine. Maureen must have some good clients on her books.”
Cassie’s mouth felt suddenly dry. She took a big gulp of wine.
“I thought she was reputable. I mean, her slogan is The Premier European Agency.”
Jess laughed. “Well, that’s just marketing. Other people told me differently.”
“What happened to you?” Cassie asked. “Please tell me.”
“Well, the assignment sounded OK, although some of Maureen’s interview questions worried me. They were so weird that I started wondering if there were problems with the family, because none of my au pair friends were asked similar questions during their interview. And when I arrived—well, the situation wasn’t as advertised.”
“Why not?” Cassie felt cold inside. She’d found Maureen’s questioning strange, too. She’d assumed at the time that every applicant was asked the same questions; that it was a test of your abilities. And maybe it was… but not for the reasons she’d imagined.
“The family was super-toxic,” Jess said. “They were disrespectful and demeaning. The work I had to do was way outside of the scope of my job; they didn’t care and refused to change. And when I said I was leaving—that was when it really became a war zone.”
Cassie bit her lip. She’d had that experience growing up. She remembered raised voices behind closed doors, muttered arguments in the car, a tightrope sense of tension. She had always wondered what her mother—so quiet, subdued, beaten down—could possibly have found to argue about with her bombastic, aggressive father. It had only been after her mother’s death in a car crash that she’d realized the arguments were all about keeping the peace, managing the situation, protecting Cassie and her sister from the aggression that flared unpredictably, and for no good reason. Without her mother’s presence, the simmering conflict had boiled over into full-blown war.
She’d imagined one of the benefits of being an au pair would be that she could become part of the happy family she’d never had. Now she feared the opposite would be true. She’d never been able to keep the peace at home. Could she ever manage a volatile situation the same way her mother had done?
“I’m worried about my family,” Cassie confessed. “I also had odd questions during the interview, and their previous au pair left early. What will happen if I have to do the same? I don’t want to stay around if things are going to turn nasty.”
“Don’t leave unless it’s an emergency,” Jess warned. “It causes massive conflict, and you hemorrhage money; you’ll be liable for a lot of additional expenses. That nearly put me off trying again. I was very cautious about accepting this assignment. I wouldn’t have been able to afford it if my dad hadn’t paid for everything this time around.”
She put her wine glass down.
“Shall we go to the gate? We’re near the back of the plane, so we’ll be in the first group to board.”
The excitement of boarding the plane distracted Cassie from what Jess had said, and once they were seated, they chatted about other topics. When the plane took off, she felt her spirits lift with it, because she’d done it. She had left the country, she’d escaped Zane, and she was airborne, heading for a new start in a foreign land.
It was only after dinner, when she started thinking harder about the details of her assignment, and the warnings Jess had given her, that her misgivings crept back again.
Every family couldn’t be bad, right?
But what if one particular agency had a reputation for accepting difficult families? Well, then, the chances would be greater.
Cassie tried to read for a while, but found she wasn’t focusing on the words, and her thoughts were racing as she worried about what lay ahead.
She glanced at Jess. After making sure she was engrossed in watching her movie, Cassie discreetly took the bottle of pills from her purse and swallowed one down with the last of her Diet Coke. If she couldn’t read, she might as well try to sleep. She switched off her light and reclined her seat.
Cassie found herself in her drafty upstairs bedroom, huddling under her bed with her back against
