In His Keeping

And as he’d suspected, there were other bruises. One eye was swollen and had turned a dark purple. Only a slit allowed him to see the eye on that side.

Even with the swelling in one eye there was something decidedly electric in her gaze. He wondered if she was indeed psychic. There were suddenly a dozen questions he wanted to ask her, but he refrained because she was wearing bruises when none of the three punks who’d gone after her had been rough with her, no doubt, but hadn’t touched her face. Someone else had hurt her and it pissed him off. And there was also the fact that she was here, in his office, having asked for him by name, and she was clearly scared to death. That kind of fear couldn’t be faked unless she was a damn good actress, and he couldn’t think of a reason why she’d lie to him.

His questions could wait. For now he focused on whatever threat had sent her running to him and Caleb. He needed to make her feel safe so that she would open up to him about whatever trouble she was in. Which meant patience on his part. Not one of his better traits to be sure. But he tamped down his impatience and desire to know everything right this minute and allowed her to settle and feel more at ease. If such a thing were possible.

“You’re the woman on the news,” he murmured. “The one everyone is talking about.”

She nodded and then closed her eyes as pain and sorrow flickered across her face.

“I was stupid,” she said hoarsely. “And now my parents are likely paying the price. I need your help, Mr. Devereaux. I’m so scared of what has happened to them. My father told me if I was ever in trouble, if I ever needed help and he wasn’t there, to come here. To you or your brother.”

Beau’s eyebrow lifted in question. “And who is your father?”

“Gavin Rochester. I’m Arial—Ari—his daughter. Do you know him?”

Beau frowned. The name rang a bell with him. It had been years, when his parents were still alive, but he was almost certain that Gavin Rochester had either been a friend or a business associate of his father’s. And given the fact that his parents had died under suspicious circumstances, it made him uneasy that someone who’d associated with them had sent his daughter to him and Caleb.

Caleb had shed any and all connections to their parents’ lives, associates, friends, everyone. They couldn’t be sure who to trust, if anyone at all, and so they’d simply withdrawn, gone off the grid and started over. Clean. Whereas when his parents were still alive, they reveled in their lifestyle and enjoyed all the perks of having wealth and power, Caleb had gone the opposite way entirely. He hadn’t wanted for his siblings the life their parents led. A life that had led to their demise.

“No, I don’t know him,” Beau said truthfully. “It’s possible he knew my father. But my parents died many years ago. So perhaps that is why he told you to come to one of us if you were ever in trouble.”

“I wish I could go back and undo it all,” she said, grief choking her so the words came out choppy and sporadic. “I made a mistake. I was never supposed to reveal myself as I did that day, but I reacted on instinct. I knew he was going to kill me. I could see it in his eyes. And while I am versed in self-defense—my father insisted—there was simply no way for a woman of my size to take on three men.”

“What exactly did you do?” Beau asked quietly.

She went silent, chewing on her bottom lip in consternation. He could tell she was waging one hell of an internal battle. Deciding how much she should tell him, if anything at all.

“Ari. Do you prefer Ari or Arial?”

“Ari,” she said in a husky voice. “Everyone calls me Ari.”

“All right, Ari. You came to me because on some level you knew that if your father trusted us then so could you. And if I’m going to help you I have to know everything. You can’t leave a single thing out because I have to know what I’m dealing with. If you’re worried about privacy, we have a very strict policy of client confidentiality. We don’t even keep hard copies and our computer system is impenetrable. We hire the very best and we take our business—and our clients—very seriously.”

“Does that mean you’re going to help me?” she asked anxiously. “If it’s payment you’re worried about, I assure you I have the money.”

Even as she spoke, she began digging out ten-thousand-dollar wraps and placing them on his desk in agitation.

“Just tell me how much. I can pay it. If the cash isn’t enough I can get more.”

Beau reached across the desk and captured one small hand, holding her still before she could go back to her purse again. He rubbed his thumb over her satiny soft skin in an effort to soothe her.

“We’ll discuss money later,” he said gently. “Right now I need information from you so we know what we’re up against and so we know where to start looking. You said your parents disappeared? Or that they’re in danger?”

Tears shimmered in those electric, almost neon eyes, making them even more vibrant. They practically glowed, making her eyes seem much larger against her delicate bone structure.

His gaze found her swollen eye again and he ground his teeth together because it pissed him off to imagine someone striking such a small woman hard enough to put that kind of bruise on her. She was lucky nothing was broken. But then how did he know there wasn’t? It wasn’t like she could just pop into the local ER to get X-rays.

He made a mental note to have a doctor come to see her once he got her settled somewhere safe.