Rich (Benson Security #5) - Janet Elizabeth Henderson Page 0,27

because he leaned in to whisper, “I can stay if you need me.”

She stepped back with a jerk, holding her head high. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Oh, oh,” Samantha said. “I suspected you two had had a falling out. It’s all in the body language.”

“We haven’t had a falling out,” Rachel snapped.

“Well, you don’t look like a couple in love.” Sam cocked her head and studied them. “There’s something that isn’t quite right, and I can’t put my finger on it. But as soon as I do, I’m going to sort the two of you out.” She patted Rachel’s arm. “Don’t worry, I’ve had many relationships. You can trust me to help.”

“You haven’t had any relationships,” Rachel told her. “You’ve had affairs. There’s a difference.”

“Rachel!” Her cousin Rupert elbowed his way past his sister. “It’s fabulous to see you back in the fold and congrats on the engagement.” He wrapped her in a quick, hard hug before pumping Harvard’s hand. “Welcome to the family.” He turned back to Rachel. “Can you believe I’m on the board now? And I work here.”

“Sometimes,” someone barked from inside the room.

Rupert looked sheepish. “Preston’s mad because I went to Paris on Friday instead of coming to work. Apparently, I have to be here every day. Who knew?”

Rachel shook her head at her cousin. Even though there was only a year between them, she often felt decades older than him.

“Look at us.” Rupert wrapped an arm around her shoulder and his sister’s. “The gang back together again. We should go clubbing. For old times’ sake. We haven’t done it since you two were in uni. Let’s do it. What do you say?”

“I say,” his father, Charles, shouted from inside the room, “let’s get on with this blasted meeting, shall we?”

“I’m in trouble again,” Rupert whispered, before giving her one last squeeze.

After running his fingers through the blond hair that matched his sister’s, he tugged at his tie as though he wasn’t used to wearing one and entered the room.

“Come on,” Samantha said as she took Rachel’s arm. “Let’s go save Rupert from the wolves.”

And then the door closed behind them, leaving Harvard on the other side. And Rachel feeling strangely alone.

Chapter Eight

Rachel took one look at her disabled car before turning to Harvard. “You got Ryan to do this, didn’t you?”

Harvard scratched his chin and made a mental note to have a quiet word with his teammate. “I thought he’d be more subtle.”

“That fool doesn’t know the meaning of the word.” She glared back at her car. “The wheels better be back in place by morning. This is a travesty. That car is a classic and he’s propped it up on common garden bricks.”

Okay, now she’d lost him. “Should he have used gold bars?”

She ignored him. “Do you know what this means?”

“That Ryan had too much time to think about this?”

“No, that his infantile sense of humor has returned. Months of brooding, and now he’s back in puppy mode.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Make it stop.”

“How?” Ryan had lost his sense of humor after being conned and abandoned by a woman in South America. And if he was coming out the other side and joking around once more, Harvard didn’t plan on making him miserable again. He wasn’t that kind of guy.

“You honestly don’t know?” Rachel tapped on the iPhone that never seemed far from her hand, then held it to her ear. “Ryan, my car will be in one piece by first thing tomorrow, or there will be consequences. This is exactly the sort of juvenile thing you did before that woman in Peru used and abused you. What was her name again? Oh, yes, you called her Essie, didn’t you? It was terrible the way she walked all over you like that. A lesser man would never have forgiven and forgotten as easily as you have. But still, I’d prefer it if you didn’t use your newfound lightness to mess with my car. Sort it please.” She hung up. “That should have him brooding again by the morning.”

Harvard folded his arms. “That was a crappy thing to do.”

“And necessary. I can’t cope with him bouncing all around me right now.”

Yeah, other people might let her get away with that sort of shit, but he wasn’t one of them. “Rachel, behaving like this is beneath you.”

“No, this is who I am. Which makes me wonder if you even know the woman you’ve been trying to woo for months. And I use the word