Page 24 of The Heiress

“Can I help you?” I swallowed around the regret-shaped lump in my throat.

“Miss Samantha Rossi?”

“Can I help you?” I repeated. I didn’t confirm my name. You learn a lot in research—mostly to never give up information unless you need to. Information is the one truly valuable resource we all still had in this world.

He held up a photograph of me from my information page on the Excel Research website. “I’m looking for Samantha Rossi. This is her parents’ address and you look remarkably like the woman in this photograph, so I’m going to make the assumption you are Miss Rossi.”

Jace pushed the door further open and glared at the man in the suit. The back of his shirt was now stuck in his jeans and the small gun was tucked into the waistband. “The lady has already asked how can we help you twice. If you don’t state your business immediately we’ll close the door and call the cops.”

But the man didn’t even flinch at Jace’s threat. And let me be clear, it was a terrifying threat. Not in his word choices, but in his voice and posture. I was positively quaking on my bare feet and I knew Jace wouldn’t actually do anything.

Probably.

“I doubt you’d actually do that, Jace Malone. You prefer to take matters into your own hands, and you do it quite effectively.”

If Jace was shocked he didn’t show it at all, which I found seriously impressive because I had my mouth hanging open.

“My name is Lance Dombrowski. I’m the head of security for the Roark family. As part of our regular security protocol we monitor specific keyword searches related to the disappearance of Victoria Roark. A series of such searches was conducted from an IP address associated with this location. I’m here to follow up. May we please step inside and take care of this privately, Miss Rossi?”

At some point in his explanation my ears started buzzing and my mind went blank. No actually, that isn’t accurate. It went into chaos, but so chaotic that there was no time to latch onto any of it, so it might as well have been background noise.

One stupid night of drunken curiosity and I had the head of security on my doorstep asking questions.

These people were frighteningly powerful.

“I’m sorry, but what the hell? That’s an outright invasion of privacy,” Jace fumed.

But, like I was in a dream, I stepped aside. “Please come in.”

Mr. Dombrowski smiled politely, nodded once, and walked past while Jace gawked at me. “Samantha?”

I always knew Jace was freaked out when he used my full name. The only people who called me Samantha were people who didn’t really know me. I always used it as a litmus test. If someone called me Sam then they knew me through friends or family. If someone called me Samantha, they knew me professionally.

Or Jace’s case, in times of emergency.

“It’s okay.” I closed the door.

He grabbed my hand. “You’re freaking me out.” Then he cupped my face with his other hand. “Are you okay? You’re really pale.”

“You’ll understand in a minute.” The nausea hit me really hard but I took a deep breath, holding it at bay.

Jace’s eyes went wide in panic but he didn’t say anything else. He just followed me to the dining room table where Dombrowski had made himself at home, spreading out some papers and a laptop.

Jace kept his hand firmly around mine. I siphoned off some of his “scary motherfucker” energy while also noting somewhere in the back of my mind that I liked holding his hand.

“I take it your best friend is unaware of why you would be searching for information on Victoria?” Dombrowski stood on one side of the table while we stood on the other.

My tongue grew really thick in my mouth as I glanced at Jace. It was too hard to look at him so instead I fixed my eyes just past him on the wall. “My mom’s letter. The one that told me I was adopted? She also mentioned I might have been stolen.” I had to force those last words out.

“Oh Sam.”

“There’s a letter?” Dombrowski asked, as if this were a casual business transaction at a bank. “That helps explain some things.”

My shock wore off and I swung my glare his way. “Explains some stuff? Look, I just found out I was adopted at my parents’ funeral. I’m dealing with one complication at a time.”

“As am I,” he shot back. “As I’m sure you can imagine, losing a child is extremely traumatic. Especially when you don’t know what happened to her. I’m not trying to be unsympathetic, but this is sensitive and critical. We need to get on the same page as quickly as possible. Why don’t you tell me what led you to your search.” Then he sat down and folded his hands on the table.

I threw up my hands and started cry-babbling. “I’m twenty-eight years old and I grew up in this house believing my parents were my biological parents. I loved them very much and it hurts deeply to lose them. The day of their funeral, my mother’s best friend delivered a handwritten letter from my mom. She wrote it years ago when I left for college. In the letter she confesses that I was adopted and she worried that maybe I was actually Baby Victoria, but she wasn’t sure. She wanted me to know since she’d never be around to tell me herself.”

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