“I’m sorry.” I swallowed my laughter. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sure plenty of women find you attractive enough to forgive the lack of sense of humor. I mean, Gabriella Ruiz obviously did, and she’s gorgeous, so why not Lucy?”
“I have a sense of humor. I have—for fuck’s sake.” He scowled up at the ceiling. “Why the hell am I letting her bait me?”
Covering my grin with my hand, I watched Adair as he finally returned his eyes to mine.
Realization dawned on his face. “You’re awful, you know that?”
Yet his tone suggested otherwise.
Awareness zinged between us and just like that, my smile slipped. Discomfited by the moment, I straightened from the door and cleared my throat. “I, uh … I take it from how Lucy was with you today that things ended well between you? Or haven’t they ended?”
Adair was all business again as he pushed up off the armchair. “Things ended with Lucy over a year ago. It was amicable, and we’re still very good friends. You saw how she was with Eredine. There’s no way she would put Eredine in that position today.”
“Something happened to her, didn’t it? To Eredine. In the past.”
Lachlan stared stonily at me.
Protecting her.
I got it.
Still, I said, “My offer to teach her MMA is genuine. It might help her.”
“If anyone can talk her around to it, it’ll be Lucy.”
The mention of Lucy again reminded me we were still no closer to a list of suspects, although Stone was the beginning of one. He had the motive, however flimsy, and the money to acquire a hacker. He wasn’t a strong suspect, though.
Deciding I needed to have a deeper look at Mac’s files, I motioned to the door. “I’m going back to the village. I’ll return tomorrow for my training with Lucy. If you have time, it would be great if you could write up a list of all your current staff, all the members who have stayed here in the last eight weeks, and notes about anything personal between you and them that you can think of.”
“Oh, is that all?”
Ignoring his droll tone, I sighed. “I need to be thorough.”
“Fine.” He marched across the room to open the door, motioning for me to exit first.
“You don’t need to walk me out.”
“Yes, I do.”
I’d like to think it was because he was a gentleman, but I got the distinct impression it was because he didn’t want me to wander the castle alone.
Adair still didn’t trust me.
I couldn’t expect it. I rarely trusted anyone until I’d gotten to know them better.
However, I had to admit, if only to myself, that Lachlan’s determination to treat me as an outsider stung.
It stung more than I’d like.
10
Lachlan
He and the board selected their members carefully at Ardnoch, which meant they tried to avoid A-listers with a reputation for being difficult, people who believed the world revolved entirely around them.
That meant issues with members’ bad behavior were few and far between.
Mostly because Lachlan made it his business to anticipate the needs of his members.
It didn’t mean problems, no matter how silly they might seem, didn’t arise.
“I don’t think I’m understanding the issue, Agnes.” He stared impatiently at his head housekeeper.
Lachlan was informed half an hour ago that Robyn was on the estate, this time to train Lucy in self-defense. This information agitated him. He vowed to stay away from the source of said agitation, but to his utter irritation, he itched to make sure she wasn’t up to any nonsense while his back was turned.
That meant Lachlan had little to no patience to deal with Angeline Potter, British actor and current darling of a mammoth streaming service, insisting on extra shortbread in her room. They filled a crystal jar of locally made shortbread every day as part of the housekeeping service. In the evening for turndown service, they left locally made chocolates in little gift bags on the members’ pillows and a hot toddy on their bedside table.
It was little touches like this the members loved. Ardnoch was the ultimate hotel experience. A home away from home where everything was taken care of.
Agnes had been with Lachlan since they’d opened Ardnoch. She’d been head housekeeper at a five-star hotel in Glasgow when he’d stolen her away. “Sir, it is not that Ms. Potter has requested extra shortbread. Of that, we are happy to oblige. It is that Ms. Potter has accused my housekeepers of stealing her shortbread instead of admitting she has eaten it all herself.”
It was extremely hard to keep a straight face. “I see.”
“Och, don’t you dare laugh. It’s not a laughing matter.”
Only Agnes could get away with admonishing him like a schoolboy. “I apologize. And I am sorry that Ms. Potter has accused the housekeeping of stealing. If her accusations continue, then I will discuss it with her. However, for now, add a second jar of shortbread to her room each morning and see if that helps.”
“I can already tell you, it won’t. She’ll eat both jars and be even angrier at herself for it and then blame us.”
Lachlan would like to claim obliviousness to such thinking, but he’d seen people behave bizarrely when it came to food and body image. His attention caught on the grandfather clock in Agnes’s office. Robyn had been on the estate for thirty-five minutes. She’d leave soon. Then he’d feel less agitated. “I’m sure you can think of something to handle it, Agnes. For now, I have a pressing matter to see to.” He gave her an abrupt nod, ignored her glare of annoyance, and strode out of her office and through the castle.
Cutting through the drawing room that led to a side entrance, he nodded hello at a director and his wife who sat near the exit and ignored everyone else because that’s what they preferred. If they wanted to talk, they approached him. Otherwise, he left them to it, as if this was their home too.
As he passed into the short corridor between the drawing room and the library, he caught sight of one of his waiters stealing an hors d’oeuvre and cramming it into his mouth.
He saw Lachlan at the last second and blanched.
Trying to quell his impatience to march down to the studio at the loch, he made sure none of the five guests in the drawing room watched as he approached the young man.
His name was Andrew, and he was a permanent member of staff. Lachlan hired extra staff during the summer months and often in the early winter months too.
“Andrew,” Lachlan murmured.
“Sir,” he squeaked out.
“Do I not pay you well enough, Andrew?”
“Sir?”
“To feed yourself?”
He paled. “Sorry, sir.”
Lachlan straightened Andrew’s cravat. His butler, underbutler, footmen, and waitstaff, all genders, wore the traditional uniform—cravat, waistcoat, coat tails, and white gloves. The members loved it. Lachlan doubted his waitstaff loved it, though the girls seemed to get a kick out of it. Or that’s what Alfred, his maître d’hôtel, told him.
“While I see no harm in swiping leftovers once they’re taken back to the kitchen,” Lachlan said, giving him a pointed look, “I do not want to see you eating the members’ food in plain sight of them ever again. Are we clear?”