Rich (Benson Security #5) - Janet Elizabeth Henderson Page 0,14
out and nearly tripped Rachel on the way to the bar.
“Gran, are you trying to kill me?” She frowned at the slender octogenarian, who was seated on the ornate high-backed chair she always claimed when she visited. As usual, her clothes would have given Grace Kelly a run for her money, her snow-white hair was fashioned into a tasteful chignon, and her lips were painted the faintest shade of sparkling pink.
“Darling girl, if I were going to kill you, I wouldn’t do it with this cane. It’s my favorite.” She poked at an upholstered stool. “Sit down and tell me all about this man you’re marrying.”
Rachel knew an order when she heard one, and seeing as her grandmother was the only person on the planet she took them from, she sat. “What’s there to tell? He’s American, he’s a former spy, he’s beyond smart, and he looks like that.” She pointed over at him as she did her best to avoid lying to her gran. “Who wouldn’t marry him?”
Mary Prudence Talbot was clearly suspicious. She gave her granddaughter the considering glare that only a dowager countess could pull off. Rachel tried to appear innocent. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a look she’d ever been able to do well.
“I suspect there’s more to this than meets the eye,” her grandmother said. “I’ll get the information out of you eventually.” Her eyes strayed back to Harvard. “Are you going to rescue him? The barracudas are circling.”
Rachel glanced over to where her cousins had congregated around her fake fiancé. “He can take care of himself.”
“Samantha’s trying to seduce him.”
“No, she isn’t. She’s just being Sam.” Which meant flirting with anything that had a penis.
“You’re very certain of your fiancé’s devotion.”
“Trust me, Harvard has no interest in anyone but me.” But definitely not for the reasons her grandmother envisioned.
“Are you going to bring him over here so I can meet him?”
“No. I have no idea what will come out of your mouth, and I think I’ll spare him the experience.”
Her gran put her hand to her chest. “I can feel some pain in the general vicinity of my heart. Might be an attack. Best not to exacerbate it by making me anxious.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Remind me again. When was the last time you had a heart attack? Oh, never. That’s when.”
“There’s a first time for everything. I do believe I’m feeling faint. You’d better call your mother over.”
“Oh, for the love of Prada, don’t involve Mother. She’s already causing enough trouble as it is.”
“Perhaps I’d feel better if I was distracted, say by a handsome American man…”
Rachel let out a sigh as she stood. “When are you going to grow out of this manipulative streak of yours? You don’t even do it very well.”
“And yet, it’s still effective.” She smiled serenely. “Do bring me a sherry when you return with your man.”
“Honestly.” Rachel let out a huff as she stalked to the bar. She asked them to deliver a sherry to her smug grandmother, then took the drinks she’d ordered for herself and Harvard and made her way back across the room.
“I hear you’re Rachel’s bodyguard,” Preston said, in a clear attempt to change the subject away from his father’s many wives.
“Yep. Have been for a few months now.” He went with the story his team had come up with when they’d first taken the job of investigating the thefts at TayFor.
“Why on earth does she need a bodyguard?” Marcus seemed genuinely bewildered as he knocked back his scotch. By Harvard’s count, that was his third since they’d started talking.
“Benson Security deals with some shady people. Rachel was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up on the radar of someone we’d rather didn’t know about her. I’m sticking close until the situation’s resolved.”
“In other words, Rachel managed to irritate the wrong person,” Marcus said with a guffaw. “No surprise there.”
“Don’t blame her,” Samantha reprimanded. “She can’t help how she is.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my sister,” Jonathan told her.
Samantha shrugged. “That’s what I meant.”
Marcus held up his hands. “We all know that Rachel delights in offending everyone she meets, why pretend otherwise?”
“She doesn’t delight in it,” Samantha said. “As I already told you, she simply can’t help it.”
“Oh, but I can.” Rachel stepped up beside Harvard. She handed him a drink, making him grin. “I got you your usual, darling. Sorry it took so long, but I got waylaid by Grandmother.”
Preston and Marcus gaped at him as Samantha started to giggle.