“I had you investigated, Mr. Wolff.” Her cheeks were pink, and he was pretty sure his implied compliment had flustered her.
“I’ve got no problem there. You need to be able to trust who’s doing your security work.”
“Why is your firm called Leland Security? I would think using the Wolff family name would draw in clients.”
“I have all the work I can handle, and besides…”
“Yes?” Her steady gaze dissected him.
“Well, in the beginning it was because I was a typical middle child. I didn’t want to be overshadowed by my older brother or my cousins. Wanted to make my mark in the world. That kind of thing. Thankfully, I outgrew such posturing long ago, but I discovered in the meantime that if I was going to be handling discreet, sensitive matters, it made sense to fly under the radar. Leland is my middle name.”
“Tell me, Mr. Wolff…”
“Larkin,” he insisted.
“Larkin, then. Are you available for a large job? Do you have the manpower? The openings in your schedule?”
“Before I answer that, I have one last question of you. How and when did your parents die? Are you fearful for your personal safety because of the article? Is that it?”
She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The childlike pose did nothing to detract from her natural beauty. Without a speck of makeup on her lightly freckled, ivory-skinned face, she reminded him of a young Meryl Streep. “My parents have nothing to do with this,” she said tightly. “They were killed in a tsunami. At that time they were living with native peoples on one of the more remote islands of Indonesia. They never stood a chance.”
“Were their bodies recovered?”
“Eventually. But there wasn’t much left to bury. I had them cremated and flown home. DNA testing confirmed their identities. Lawyers aren’t willing to turn over a billion-dollar fortune without definitive proof.”
The horror of her tale was in no way minimized by her flat, deliberately emotionless recounting. Larkin had his own demons to battle, but here was a woman who knew what it meant to suffer.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, wishing there was something he could do to ease the tension from her slight frame.
“It’s been almost a decade,” she said. She stood up and wandered the room, pausing to run a hand over the top of the piano. It was a loving gesture…sensual…appreciative. Without warning, his body reacted. He’d never met a woman less inclined to accentuate her looks, and yet Winnie Bellamy fascinated him.
“Do you play?” he asked.
When she looked up, it almost seemed as if she had forgotten his presence, so lost in the past as she was with memories. “For myself…on occasion.”
“I’d like to hear you sometime,” he said.
She pursed her lips. “Probably not.”
“Why?”
She stared at him in silence, not deigning to answer his question. Perhaps she thought him impertinent. She turned and crossed the room to a small antique secretary. Pulling a silver skeleton key from her pocket, she unlocked the center drawer and extracted something he couldn’t see.