“I won’t let anything happen to her,” Harvard assured her brother. “Now, is there any chance you could introduce me to some people? There’s no way in hell Rachel’s going to do it.” He glanced over to where she was talking with another one of her cousins. “I figure I have about half an hour before she sneaks off and leaves me stranded in Surrey.”
Jonathan gestured around the room. “Who do you want to meet first?”
“Everyone who’s on the board and works for TayFor.”
“We call those people the partial board.” He nodded. “Of course, I work there, as do Mother and Sebastian—when he’s in the country. Sebastian isn’t a member of the board yet, as he’s under thirty. That’s the age we inherit our company shares, which gives us a place at the table. But, of course, you know all this. And your investigation has already cleared us, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.”
Harvard kept his eye on the room as they spoke, ensuring no one was close enough to overhear them. “With Rachel going undercover, we had to clear her immediate family. It would have been too complicated otherwise.”
“Find anything interesting while you were digging around in our lives?”
“You sing Barry Manilow in the shower.”
Jonathan’s face turned beetroot. “How on earth do you know that?”
Harvard chuckled. “Rachel told us.”
“My sister will be the death of me,” he said, before muttering, “If I don’t get her first.”
“There are seven members on the partial board, aren’t there? And fifteen on the general board of directors, which includes all family members with shares. Is that right?”
“Not quite.” His lips quirked. “There are eight on the partial, and sixteen on the general. You’re forgetting Rachel. As of Monday, she’ll be working at TayFor, and she still has her shares, which gives her a say in the company. Father was on both boards, but he retired after his heart attack last year. Now he’s only the chairman of the general board.”
“And the largest shareholder.” Something Harvard had flagged as a possible motivation for the theft of industrial secrets. Perhaps the thief wasn’t driven by greed, but rather by feeling slighted at the power Roger Ford-Talbot wielded. That was why he’d asked his team to keep an eye out for family members who held a particular grudge against Rachel’s father. So far, nothing had come up. But they were still digging.
“Yes,” Jonathan said. “Father is the largest shareholder by far. Uncle Theo would have been second, but he kept losing wads of his shares in his divorces—until he wised-up and had them written into a prenup. Now his first wife, Aunt Anne, has more shares than he does and more power within the board.”
“How does Theo feel about that?” Harvard glanced over at the man.
Theo kept himself in shape and took pride in how he dressed. From his gray hair to his polished Italian shoes, he was every inch the sexy silver fox the tabloids liked to call him. And apparently, he was just as shallow as they reported too.
Jonathan snorted. “I’d say he misses the money, but he doesn’t particularly care about his first two wives having more of a say in the company than he does. Theo doesn’t exactly relish the responsibility that comes with privilege.”
“How much access does he have to the research and development department at TayFor?”
“You don’t suspect Uncle Theo, do you?” Jonathan looked more bewildered than affronted. “I don’t think he has the patience to pull off something like this.”
Harvard shrugged. “Just doing my job.”
“Everyone in this room is related to me. I grew up with them. It’s hard to think that someone here might hate us enough to try to destroy us.”
“I don’t think it’s about destroying the company,” Harvard said. “This kind of crime is usually about the money.”
“And that’s another thing.” Jonathan gestured to the room. “Do any of us look like we’re hurting for cash? We make a good living from TayFor. Some of us also have inheritances behind us. What would be the point in risking it all to get more?”
“Greed doesn’t need to be logical,” Harvard said. “It’s nasty and dirty, and it doesn’t care who suffers because of it. Greed is always hungry, and no amount of feeding satisfies it.”
“I don’t understand.” Jonathan thrust a hand through his hair, and Harvard suspected that the man really didn’t.
A streak of honor ran straight through him. One that had prompted him to set up the charities the company ran on the side and kept him fighting to make drugs cheaper for those who needed them. There was a lot to like about Rachel’s brother.
Harvard slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get these introductions over with.”
Jonathan nodded and headed off in the direction of the fireplace, where two of Rachel’s male cousins stood glaring at their father as he pawed his new, young bride.
Chapter Four
“So, you’re the chap who nabbed our Rachel,” Preston Talbot said once they’d been introduced. “You’re a brave man.”
The eldest of the two brothers was in his late thirties and had inherited his playboy father’s good looks. His blond hair was thick and wavy, his chin strong, and his physique that of a man who played lots of sport. If Harvard remembered his research right, Preston was a tennis player. In fact, he could have turned pro if he’d wanted. Instead, he’d gone into the family business as the company lawyer. Unlike his father, Preston had been happily married for fifteen years.
“You know what they say,” Harvard drawled. “Fortune favors the bold.”
“Good one.” Preston lifted his glass in salute.
“Life with Rachel certainly won’t be boring,” his brother, Marcus, said.
Unlike Preston, Marcus had not only inherited his father’s looks, but also quite a bit of his natural charm. As manager of the research and development department at TayFor, he often used that charm to negotiate government grants and private funding. It was a position that put him close to the information being stolen and high on Benson Security’s list of suspects.
“No,” Harvard agreed. “Life definitely isn’t boring with Rachel.”
There was only a year between the brothers, and they were very close. Partly because of the slight age difference, and partly due to having to deal with their father together.
They had three younger half-siblings: two sisters from their father’s second wife and a brother from his third. Wives four and five hadn’t produced any offspring. But it was still early days for wife five.
Unlike Preston, Marcus was already on marriage number two. And if the Benson Security research was correct, his eye had started to roam yet again.
“I see you’re working your way through the cousins.” A feminine voice had them turning to see a tall, svelte blonde sashaying toward them, champagne flute in hand. “So I thought I’d come introduce myself too. The three Talbot brothers—our grandfathers—started the company. Which really makes us second cousins, not first. But it would be tedious to say that all the time, don’t you think?” She held out a perfectly manicured hand. “Samantha Talbot, delighted to meet you,” said TayFor’s marketing director. Unlike her cousins, Samantha was very happily single and seemed to have a thing for younger men.