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“Hell, no,” Joe and Noah both snapped at the same time.
Noah glared at Harvard. “The whole point of the three of us joining the same security company as Joe and Grunt was to hang out together. Beast’s already pissed off to follow his wife around the world. If you go too, that’ll just leave me and Joe in London. Grunt might as well be on another planet instead of in Scotland; phone conversations with him are few and far between and consist mainly of me talking and him grunting. You talked me into moving my kids to London. And now you’re backing out on us?”
“I’ll still be in London, and I’ll still get to hang out with you. It’s not like we’re moving to New Zealand; we’ll see all of you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Rachel said.
There were a few people she’d be happy to see the back of. Ryan being top of her list. She already had an annoying younger brother; she didn’t need a second one. And Ryan had been trying to fill that role for years. Although without her around to keep an eye on him, he’d probably choke on a chicken bone. She sighed. She’d have to see the idiot after all. Responsibility sucked.
“Are you going to tell them our other news?” Harvard asked, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“No.” She frowned at him.
His lips twitched. “Then how about I do it? We’re getting married.”
“Married?” Elle gaped at them. “For real?”
“Don’t make such a big deal out of it,” Rachel said. “I’m sure it won’t last.”
“That’s what you said about your relationship to begin with,” Elle accused, as though Rachel had deliberately lied to them. It wasn’t her fault Harvard kept screwing up her plans.
“When we’re done with this touchy-feely crap,” Callum blared over all of them, “can we concentrate on Rachel’s blackmailer and what we’re going to do about that?”
“First, we need to talk about the guy locked up downstairs,” Joe said. “We can’t keep him there forever. The cops frown on unlawful imprisonment.”
Lake and Callum shared a look of cold understanding.
“You can’t kill him either,” the potted plant said befo
re Julia peeked out through the leaves. “That’s just wrong.”
Honestly, it was like working in a kindergarten. Which was one of the reasons Rachel was keen to get back to TayFor. At least that building was populated by adults. “Julia, why are you hiding? You know everyone in this room. I thought we got past this?”
“I’m not hiding,” Julia said. “I just like sitting in the corner. And the plant smells nice.”
“It’s plastic,” Rachel pointed out.
“I like the smell of plastic.”
“Julia’s right,” Harvard told Lake and Callum. “You can’t kill Terrance. But if need be, I could make him disappear.”
“I didn’t hear any of this.” Noah put his fingers in his ears.
“One thing’s for certain,” Rachel said. “We can’t keep him in the basement forever. His wife’s been calling Jonathan daily to ask when her husband’s top-secret work trip will end. At some point, she’ll stop calling TayFor and start calling the police.”
“Let him go,” Harry said from the floor. “We have enough evidence to hand over to the police once we catch the blackmailer. Terrance isn’t going anywhere in the meantime.” His cheerful grin appeared over the edge of the table. “I canceled his passport and added his name to every no-travel list in the UK.”
“Hackers rule.” Elle patted Harry’s head, and he beamed up at her.
“Plus,” Ryan added as he pushed away his empty plate and reached for a donut, “we could microchip him, like they do with all dogs.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal too,” Julia informed them.
“Yes,” Noah shouted, his fingers still in his ears even though that was obviously proving useless. “It is.”
Her smile sad, Elle caught Rachel’s eye. “You’re going to miss this.”
“Yes,” Rachel agreed. “In much the same way I miss the bout of chickenpox that hospitalized me as a child.”
