Pimpernel

by Sheralyn Pratt

  Claire pulled her gaze from the screen to look at the absurdly beautiful woman. “Yes. I’m ready early, so I thought I’d look around.” Which I’m just now realizing was a very stupid idea.

  Margot blinked. “I see.”

  Why did Claire suddenly feel naked? “I, um, is there anything I can help with?”

  Margot leaned back in her chair, seeming to choose her words carefully. “You’ll be helping when you reverse those accounts, so keep your head in that game.”

  Claire nodded, her eyes glancing at the wall. “Is this what you’re doing now?”

  With one tap from Margot, the massive wall screen went black. “This is my part of the dance, yes, but there’s a lot of information I can’t share. Nothing personal.”

  “Of course,” Claire said, suddenly feeling a deep desire to retreat.

  “Feeling restless?” Margot asked.

  Claire nodded. “My brain is…”

  “Obsessing?” Margot offered.

  Claire nodded. “Every time I run the numbers, my mind starts running worst-case scenarios. I need a distraction.”

  Margot studied her for a moment. “Want me to let you in on a secret?”

  “Sure.”

  She leaned forward, and Claire had the distinct impression Margot was grading her somehow. “Things rarely, if ever, fall apart due to a worst-case scenario. They fall apart because of something small that happens in a lost moment of focus.”

  That actually didn’t help allay Claire’s concerns at all. Focus was not something too many people excelled at these days.

  “You’ve probably been taught that your OCD is a liability your entire life,” Margot added. “But I can promise you that we wouldn’t be talking right now if it were not one of your more dominant attributes. You see little things, Claire. That makes you valuable because there are things you can do that very few can.”

  Claire wasn’t sure what to say in response, so she nodded.

  “But you know what we don’t need from you?”

  “Um, no?” Claire’s nerves made the words come out like a question. How Margot could be so intimidating with a desk and twenty feet between them was beyond Claire.

  “Your doubt. We don’t need you anticipating ways we’ll screw up our part of the deal and fantasizing ways you’ll save the day.” Margot stood, stepping around the desk and leaning against it. Claire fought the primal urge to run. “Jack, Ren, and I are very good at what we do. We don’t need your help with anything we do any more than you need our help to reverse those accounts tomorrow—or am I wrong? Do you need my help typing in the numbers and reversing the accounts?”

  Claire cleared her throat to make sure her voice didn’t crack from tension. “No. I’ve got that covered.”

  Margot nodded. “Would it be helpful for me to imagine all the ways you could fail and create mental plans to do your job for you while abandoning my own responsibilities?”

  “No.” The word came out like a croak, which was embarrassing.

  Margot studied her for a moment. “Imagining failure is human, Claire. What you are no longer allowed to do is imagine that doing more than is required because people around you will fail.”

  The words took the wind right out of Claire’s obsessive sails.

  “Do you think I’m going to fail you, Claire?”

  “No,” Claire said quickly.

  “Do you think there is even one thing I have promised to do that will be left undone by the time this is finished?”

  Claire shook her head, feeling like she was suddenly four years old.

  “How about Ren and Jack? Do you trust them to deliver?”

  Her mind flashed to the moment she and Jack had shared the night before—his earnestness, his gentleness. There was no way he would leave her hanging. “Yes.”

  “So make that your litmus test when your brain starts writing horror scenarios,” Margot said. “Ask yourself: is your imagination forcing mental stand-ins to do what their human counterparts would never do in real life? If those are the directions of your thoughts, shut them down. You’re allowed to imagine how to escape if things go south, but you are never allowed to imagine doing anything delegated to someone else on your team. If it comes to that, we all abort and your only responsibility is to get out. You never cover.”

  Heat burned Claire’s cheeks from the inside as she sought a response. None came.

  “There’s one more secret you should know,” Margot added.

  Please, no. Claire was quite content with the one she already had.

  “This field of work doesn’t attract those who are functionally normal,” Margot said. “We all have personality attributes that don’t allow our brains to shut off until we are content that we have our bases covered.”

  Okay, this secret was better.

  “So when I ask you to leave, it’s not because I don’t like or trust you,” Margot continued. “It’s because this is my time and place to obsess about what I need to obsess about to make sure I don’t drop the ball. Does that make sense?”

  Yes. That made total sense—enough that it got a smile out of Claire. “I totally get that.”

  Margot nodded and started back to the seat at her desk. “Thank you.”

  “One question?”

  Margot glanced back Claire’s way. “Yes?”

  “Did I see Jack on that screen a moment ago…with a woman?”

  She shouldn’t have asked. Her cheeks blushed again the moment the words left her mouth, and yet part of her needed to know if she didn’t want to spent the next hour obsessing over it.

  Margot studied her a moment, then tapped on her desk. The video from before came up full screen, showing now-empty seats by the pool. Margot rewound the timeline back to when Claire had walked in.

  “I keep an eye on my boys,” she said. “I make sure they’re safe and that they’re not being followed.”

  Claire’s eyes locked on the attractive blonde Jack was talking to in the frame. They were sitting close…really close.

  “They know each other?” Claire asked, unable to stop the words even after she told herself not to say anything.

  “For a couple of years, yes.”

  Claire wanted to ask if they had dated, but she didn’t need to. The blonde’s body language told the story.

  “They went out a few times when they first met,” Margot offered. “She’s trustworthy for what we’re asking from her. And if she doesn’t come through, Jack has a backup.”

  That was…vague. Not that Claire should care. She shouldn’t. She couldn’t. And besides, they made a cute couple.

  “Don’t worry,” Margot said from her seat. “They’re not on a date.”

  Claire flinched, flushing yet again. “I didn’t…I wasn’t—”

  “Sure you weren’t,” Margot said, sounding bored with the exchange. “But to be clear, everyone’s head is in the game right now. It’s not social hour.”

  Claire nodded mutely, afraid anything she might say would earn an eye roll from the woman who now officially scared Claire more than her own mother.

  Man, that would be a face-off she wouldn’t want to miss: Margot Harbour vs. Natasha Ramsey in a verbal battle. If such a cathartic event ever serendipitously took place, Claire would be there with bells on…discretely wearing a Team Margot shirt under a tailored button-down blouse her mother would approve of.

  “And Claire?”

  She stopped her retreat. “Yes?”

  “Word to the wise…”

  Oh, no. Not more wisdom.

  “…Once you date one brother, you can’t date the other and then go back to the first.”

  Wait. Jack had a brother? Was that what Margot was saying? Claire was too afraid to ask, so she just nodded her head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Then Claire left to give Margot the rest of the minutes until 9:00 all to herself.

  Chapter 28

  Unmemorable and underestimated. When Jack did his job right, those were the words people
used to describe him. That meant being able to handle himself seamlessly in every occasion, including a fight, while simultaneously appearing to be easy pickings.

  Conversely, memorable and formidable were two words that perfectly described Ren. If there was a man who could handle himself in any type of fight while simultaneously looking like the last man in the room you’d ever want to pick on, it was Ren. Lasting two minutes against him was like winning against most others, which made him a perfect training partner for Jack. Ren could beat Jack in a fair fight any day of the week, which meant it behooved Jack to find not-so-fair ways to win.

  He was a magician, after all, not a warrior.

  But magician or not, Jack had yet to find a trick that stopped the short sticks he and Ren were fighting with from raining down on him like a hail storm. Parrying the strikes and getting off the center line were Jack’s current strategy for avoiding hits. He hadn’t managed to land a strike of his own yet and Ren had landed thirteen. Not a huge confidence builder, but it could be worse.

  When the gym door pushed open and Margot’s silhouette appeared in the door, Ren froze for the barest moment. It was long enough for Jack to land two strikes on Ren’s bare abs. Ren didn’t even flinch as he turned to face Margot.

  “Where’s your protective detail?”

  “Please,” she grumbled. “I’m still in the building.”

  Ren put both sticks in the same hand, his knuckles whitening as he squeezed his annoyance into them. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re here,” Margot said, strutting into the room like she was working a runway. “I think I can handle an elevator ride all by myself.”

  The muscles in Ren’s tattooed arms became more defined as they tensed, making him look like the warrior he was raised to be. “Margot—”

  “Drop it,” she said, walking up to Jack. “Is there a reason we must meet in a gym? I have a perfectly good conference room upstairs.”

  “You also still have Claire up there,” Jack said.

  “And I’m supposed to meet with her in ten minutes about the script for tomorrow night, so this will have to be fast.”

  Jack waved them both over to the locker area. Only Margot would have an ironing board in her gym, but it made for a perfect makeshift table. He pulled the playing cards out of his bag outlining the plan he’d created.

  Margot arched a brow. “Already?”

  Jack nodded, shuffling the cards out of habit. “There’s a certain inertia that’s going to come into play once Claire refunds the investors, and we’re going to ride it. No waiting.”

  “I like it,” Ren said, crossing over to the ironing board. Margot brought up the rear, purposefully ignoring Ren’s shirtless body. She wasn’t playing with fire today, not even a little.

  Giving the deck one last shuffle and splitting it into two stacks, Jack fanned the cards out face-up. One row of cards for Margot, one for Ren, forcing them to step together to take a look. Ren didn’t seem to notice when Margot faltered as she stepped in, which made the score even between them as far as Jack was concerned. Ren faltered when she opened the door, and Margot was tensing now that there were only inches between them.

  If there was a single magic trick on Jack’s bucket list, it would be getting his two best friends together. But that was a trick for another day.

  “Someday I’m going to figure out how you always have the cards in order after shuffling them,” Margot muttered as she leaned in to take a look at her row. Then her face brightened. “Three paydays?”

  “Potentially. If Claire’s father misbehaves, then yes. If he does, I want all that money put into a separate account for Claire. We’ll give it to her when the job is done.”

  Ren nodded. “I can go with that.”

  The soft moan of pain that escaped Margot came from a real place as she eyed Ren. “Et tu, Brute? I was afraid Jack might say that, but you?”

  Ren shrugged, his eyes still looking through the cards. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  Margot leveled an accusatory gaze on Jack. “This isn’t because you have a soft spot for her, is it?”

  Jack shook his head. “With all she’s losing through all this, she’s going to need some seed money to be able to stand against her parents after everything plays out. It’s the least we can do. We have more than enough.”

  “Fine,” Margot said, pushing the card away from her for Jack to burn. “I get it. It’s going to physically hurt to give her that much, but I will. For you. And because Claire isn’t an idiot.”

  Jack smiled at his longtime partner. “You might surprise yourself, Margot. You might even feel good about it after you’re done.”

  “Not a chance,” she said, then got back to looking at the rest of the cards.

  Jack nodded, his eyes moving to the still-silent Ren. “How about you? Is anything I’ve slated for you undoable?”

  “We need more manpower,” Ren said without hesitation.

  “Will Kali do?” Jack asked, fully expecting the eye roll he got from Margot. “I called. She said she can be back here by tomorrow morning.”

  Margot tensed but didn’t open her mouth.

  “If I had one choice, it’d be her,” Ren said. “But I’d prefer two more.”

  “What about my bodyguards?” Margot asked.

  Ren shook his head. “They’re trained to protect. They’re not tactical.”

  “Can you make it work with her?” Jack asked, focusing on Ren. “Honest answer.”

  The nod was slow coming, but it came. “You give me Kali, and we’ll get it done.”

  At last, Margot couldn’t hold back her snark. “It’s a wonder you made it the last twenty-four hours without her.”

  Ren ignored the sarcasm and looked up at Jack. “Did you offer her a job again?”

  Jack nodded. “Still on the fence.”

  “Because of her husband?”

  “The one she’s seen twice in the past six months?” Margot put in bitterly. “I think we can all read the tea leaves there.”

  Ren sent her an annoyed look. “You’ve never met the man.”

  “But I know men,” Margot shot back. “Kali’s legally dead, which means her husband’s legally single. Any marriage they had is null and void.”

  “Legally,” Ren replied, looking at Jack. “But find a way to let them be together again full time, and Kali will come on board. I’m certain of it.”

  “I’ll look into it,” Jack said, gesturing back to the cards. “As it is, we have her until the end of all this. We’ll just worry about that for now.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Margot drawled as Jack picked up the first card.

  “We all good on this?” he asked. When both Ren and Margot nodded, he let the card go up in flames.

  Margot frowned. “I always think you have something up your sleeve when you do that, but you’re literally naked from the waist up.”

  “It’s all in the wrist,” Jack said, picking up the next card. They both nodded, the card burned, and so it went until they reached the final three.

  For the first time since she walked into the room, Margot looked—really looked—at Ren. “I have the easy part in all of this. I move around a few appointments and order espresso every two hours to stay awake.” She looked back at the cards. “But you…”

  “I’ll be safe,” Ren said, seeming to know where she was going.

  She shook her head. “There’s a lot of room for things to go wrong. I don’t like it.”

  “But if Claire has a shot of keeping the life she’s built, it’s pretty much our best play,” Ren replied. “Kali and I will make it work.”

  Margot tensed so visibly that Jack marveled Ren didn’t pick up on it. “Just don’t get hurt,” she said tersely, before reaching up to give his scruffy cheek a couple of pats. “I have a lot invested in you. I’d hate for it to go to waste.”

  And that was about as close to I love you as Margot Harbour got. If Jack had a camera, he’d have taken a picture of the moment.

/>   “I’m in,” Ren said, stepping away from Margot and tucking the fighting sticks back in their cubby. “Beginning to end. We’ve got this.”

  Jack looked at Margot. “And you?”

  “Me, too,” she said, still looking tense. But Jack knew her well enough to know she wasn’t nervous for herself.

  He picked up the last three cards and made them disappear in a poof of fire. “Okay, Margot. We start when you get us a mock buyer who will play along with what Claire needs.”

  “I’ll reach out to Natasha tonight and get an appointment for tomorrow,” Margot promised. “Let’s get this done.”

  Chapter 29

  It was getting close to Go time, and Claire had yet to emerge from her room. Jack didn’t need a camera to know what she was doing. He’d been able to hear snippets of it each time he passed her door over the past three hours. She was reciting the numbers again and again and again.

  If Jack ever had any doubt that Claire knew the numbers by heart, those fears were officially gone. Claire knew them all right. Maybe a little too well.

  He waited by her door, waiting for the next time she completed the circuit of numbers before knocking lightly on her door. She looked a little panicked when he pushed the door open, but he could tell the panic wasn’t related to him. Hers was a look of an exhausted person who couldn’t stop pushing.

  “Hey, there,” he said softly. “We need to walk out these doors in the next thirty minutes. Is there anything you need to do to finish getting ready?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll go as I am. I just need to keep the numbers fresh in my mind.”

  No. That was not what she needed. Jack knew that for certain, just as he knew he couldn’t tell her as much.

  Without being asked, he crossed the room to where she sat on her bed and reached for her wrist. She looked confused, but she didn’t pull away. Without a word, he found her pulse and trained his eye on his watch. Ten seconds later he set her wrist down.

  “You’re at 144 beats per minute, Claire,” he said. “Most people need a cardio class to get up that high.”