Ramie stirred and directed her cloudy gaze at Ari. “I’m okay, Ari. Much better than the other times. I’m only tired because of the mental strain of maintaining links, in this case, four separate entities. I’ll try to answer your questions if I know the answer. Just be patient with me. I’m a bit slow when I come out of a session and my thoughts are unfocused.”

“You trying is all I ask,” Ari murmured

She leaned her elbows on Caleb’s knees, hoping he didn’t mind the extra burden, but it was the only way Ari herself would be able to support herself and keep from sliding to the floor in a useless heap.

“Everything you talked about was in the past. A long time in the past,” Ari said hoarsely. “But what about now? Did you pick up on anything that would help us find them?”

Sorry and apology swamped Ramie’s eyes. She weakly reached for Ari’s hand and drew it into her grasp, squeezing in a show of comfort and support.

“Nothing,” Ramie admitted. “I’m so sorry, Ari. I would have gladly endured anything if it helped you. The impressions I did get were strong, despite the events being from years ago. There were flashes after the passages I related aloud. But they were random. You as a baby. Then as a toddler. A young girl. A preteen and then a teenager blossoming into a woman. The lovies, as you call them, were like silent observers of events that transpired over the years. Almost like a history, the history of you and your family. They are very special items. I hope you can keep them for many years to come.”

Ari rocked back on her heels, wrenching her arms from Caleb’s legs, not wanting anyone to touch her, to see her, to witness the horrible, gut-wrenching agony that consumed her. It was all for nothing. Instead of being able to find her “parents” and bring them home safely, all she’d received was life-altering news that flayed her heart open, leaving it bleeding.

“No!” she cried out, shaking her head, refusing the truth that stared her right in the eye.

She stumbled upward, weaving, unsteady, again warding off Beau’s hands when he tried to help her. He backed off, at least giving her that. She couldn’t bear to be touched. She felt dirty. Rejected. Unworthy. When for her entire life she’d felt assured of her place in the world. Assured of her parents’ love. She felt . . . betrayed . . . in the worst possible manner. The kind that went soul deep and ripped her to shreds, leaving her with . . . nothing.

And no one.

The sudden feeling of being utterly alone in an unfamiliar, dark and cold world, where she had no safe harbor and nothing was as it seemed, filled her with despair to her very soul. In a single moment, she’d been stripped of everything. And she no longer even knew who she was.

TWENTY-SIX

BEAU watched helplessly as Ari fell apart right in front of his eyes. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help her. No one could. Some hurts—betrayals—were simply too deep. Unable to be forgotten, forgiven or even understood.

“No,” Ari said again, the sound of a wounded animal.

She wrapped her arms protectively around herself as if somehow she could shield herself from the painful truth. She bent over, pain rippling across her face, the objects in the room reacting to the obvious devastation in her mind.

Objects, even large pieces of furniture, vibrated as though an earthquake were occurring. A lamp fell over, shattering, the sound cracking sharply in the otherwise silent room.

“I was not unloved,” she said brokenly. “I was not abandoned. I was not left to die in the cold, at the mercy of someone who may or may not find me on their doorstep.”

Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks, her eyes so utterly desolate that Beau’s throat swelled with emotion and his eyes stung with answering tears. Not a single person in the room was unaffected by Ari’s grief.

Eliza turned her face away, but not before Beau saw her wiping her own cheeks. Sympathy brimmed in Dane’s eyes and he shifted, shoving his hands in his pockets, clearly at a loss as to what to say or do, and just as uncomfortable witnessing Ari’s complete breakdown.

There was a bleak expression on Zack’s face, his eyes desolate and far away as if remembering something equally painful.

Tears slid down Ramie’s face and she shook off Caleb’s comforting hold, no doubt thinking that she wasn’t the one most in need.

Every time Beau tried to get near Ari, to touch her, simply hold her and be her rock, let her cry in his arms and on his shoulders, she reacted violently, almost as if she feared her taint would somehow spread to him.

He swore low and viciously, in that moment hating his father, Gavin Rochester and the bastards currently making Ari’s life hell. She’d been manipulated at birth. How could they have done it? From what he could glean from the bits of information, dialogue that Ramie had repeated in her stupor, it would seem that Ari was little more than a transaction.

A pacification offered to Gavin and Ginger Rochester to ease their devastating losses. A token baby, as if any child would do, and Ari had just happened to be a convenient solution for everyone.

Why were her birth parents so adamant that they couldn’t keep Ari? And what the ever-loving fuck did his father have to do with any of it? Was it possible that he’d truly “sent” Ari to Gavin? Did he owe Gavin in some way? And was it why Gavin had told Ari to seek out Caleb or Beau Devereaux if she was ever in need? Almost as if he’d been preparing for the eventuality.

The fact that Gavin had been the last person to see Franklin Devereaux alive, given the new information that had just come to light, made Beau more convinced than ever that Ari’s adopted father had something to do with his father’s death. Directly, indirectly. Who knew?