Ordinarily, he’d have opened his computer by now and would be making notes. But he didn’t want to miss the nuances of expression that danced across Winnie’s open-book face. Her posture and graceful movements projected dignity. She carried herself regally, as if she had spent her formative years at exclusive Swiss finishing schools. And perhaps she had.
She took a moment to almost visibly compose her thoughts before speaking. Her demeanor seemed pensive. “My parents had me when they were well into their mid-forties. The pregnancy was somewhat of an embarrassment to my mother. She and my father were academics, both with IQs off the charts. My ‘accidental’ conception made them look human, I think, and I’m sure they hated that.”
“They are deceased?”
“Yes. Both had advanced degrees in anthropology and archaeology. Their careers and their marriage were spent crisscrossing the globe. They were much in demand as speakers at colleges, universities and basically anywhere that could rustle up the money to cover their exorbitant fees.”
“And that’s how they amassed a fortune?” He lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
“No, of course not. The money was always there. My mother’s great-great-grandfather invented and patented some kind of engine during World War I, and my father’s family owned a large publishing conglomerate in London.”
“Where were you during all their travels?”
Trained to note small tells, he witnessed the brief moment her hands clenched on the chair arms before relaxing again deliberately. “I had governesses, tutors, semesters at boarding schools, an Ivy League education. Everything a child could possibly need.”
“Except parents to tuck you in at night.” The compassion sparked by her terse narrative was born of his own dark memories.
“No,” she said quietly. “I didn’t have that. But there are worse problems, I assure you.”
“Indeed. But having grown up myself without a mother and with a father who was all about business, I sympathize, Ms. Bellamy.”
“I’d appreciate it if you would call me Winnie. Ms. Bellamy is too formal and, quite honestly, I hate the name Winifred. It makes me sound like an old-maid librarian.”
He grinned. “You’re far from that.”
“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.
When she returned to his side, she laid a piece of paper on the table at his elbow. His jaw dropped. Though his own personal financial portfolio was in the high seven-figure range (and that was not counting the portion of Wolff Enterprises that would be his in the future), it wasn’t every day that someone tossed a check at him for half a million dollars. Though Winnie had signed the document, the pay to line was blank.
He picked it up gingerly. “What’s this?”
She sat back down, this time crossing her legs and kicking one foot lazily. “That should cover everything I need from you. But I have to know that I am buying your utmost discretion. Nothing you learn about me or my estate can be shared.”
There it was again, that tingling Spidey sense. He dropped the check. “I’m not a priest, a doctor, a shrink or, thank God, a lawyer,” he said gruffly. “If you’re involved in something illegal, I’ll go straight to the police. You can buy my loyalty and discretion, but not a blind eye. Sorry.”
She blinked, her pale lashes only a shade darker than her hair. “Wow. You shoot from the hip, don’t you?”
“I won’t take your money under false pretenses.”
Winnie was not threatened by Larkin Wolff’s displeasure. Instead, she was fascinated. When it was his turn to stand and prowl, she studied him. He was built like a baseball player, long and lean and athletic. Though his looks were pleasing, he wouldn’t be called handsome. There was too much of a permanent frown line between his eyebrows and an unmistakable bump on the bridge of his nose that indicated a past break.
His eyes were a shade of steel-blue that could burn or chill given his mood. The man’s body was a walking testament to working out, his biceps flexing beneath a thin dress T-shirt. He had removed a navy sport coat, and clad only in the oatmeal-colored knit, he looked powerful and intensely masculine. His short wiry hair was mostly black with a few strands of premature gray.
She knew from her files that he was barely thirty. But his visage and demeanor made him seem much older.