“Miss Jacobson?”

“It’s me, Demetri. Let us know when dinner is ready. We’ll be here.”

“Of course, sir.”

What he loved the most about Demetri was that he didn’t ask questions. Of all the household staff, he was the one person who hadn’t questioned what Leo would do with Faith once he got her there. He either didn’t care, or recognized more than most that it wasn’t his place to ask anything at all. His job was to see to it that the house ran smoothly and manage those who cooked and cleaned for the master of the house.

Leo locked the bedroom door. It would be better if no one disturbed them. And while he thought most of the adults would avoid a closed door, with so many kids in the house, there was no telling where they would bust in playing hide-and-seek or being nosy and exploring.

“Lie back on the bed.”

Faith’s eyes widened and her lip started to tremble. “P-please, you said you wouldn’t…”

His brows drew together in confusion. Then he realized… the locked door. “I’m not going to touch you in any inappropriate way. I don’t want kids coming in here and asking what’s going on and taking the story back to the adults.”

She looked wary, but seeing she didn’t have any options, and probably not wanting to anger him, she scooted her body up the bed and lay against the pillows.

Leo went to the bathroom to run cool water on the washcloth again. He draped it over her face when he returned. “Relax.” He sat on the bed beside her and held her hand, stroking her skin with his thumb.

“I’ll keep you safe. I won’t let anyone here hurt you. I won’t leave you alone again.” He stopped short of apologizing. An apology was weakness, and it was something he’d never been good at. At least not in the standard way. His apologies came through action. In time, she would understand that.

8

The washcloth was soothing and cool against Faith’s heated flesh. It blocked out the world and gave her a place to hide. And in that place she was able to calm down.

Leo’s thumb skimming over the back of her hand made her feel strangely safe. In spite of the kinds of things she knew he enjoyed doing to a woman, and in spite of his family, when he touched her like this, she couldn’t help feeling like everything would be okay.

His voice penetrated the bubble she’d put around herself. “Do you think you can sit up now and let me fix your face?”

He released her when she pulled her hand out of his and pushed herself against the headboard. Reluctantly she pulled the washcloth away. Leo patted her face dry with another piece of gauze. He must have bought stock in a first aid kit manufacturer. Both his home and Angelo’s were like a triage unit.

He didn’t speak as he laid out the items of her makeup bag. She had several concealers and foundations, but she didn’t think he’d know what any of them were for—or why one would have a yellow concealer and a greenish-tinged concealer to begin with. Her experience with men—at least straight men—suggested the contents of a woman’s makeup bag was an arcane mystery impossible for anyone without female genitalia to unravel.