I suspected that for her, the past was still very much a part of her present.
4
EREDINE
While I led the small class of celebrities through the cool-down exercises, I could feel Iris Benning eyeballing me. She’d been doing it throughout this afternoon’s session.
I hadn’t seen the actor since the beginning of the week when she’d encountered Arran and me outside the Gloaming, but when she’d turned up to a Pilates class this afternoon, I got the distinct feeling she was itching to ask me something.
“Push into your heel, stretch your right calf muscle. That’s it,” I encouraged, looking around the studio to make certain everyone was following carefully. “Okay.” I stood out of pose and then lowered myself to my mat. “Last one, and then you’re free.”
The class tittered as they mimicked my position.
“It’s your favorite stretch,” I teased. Even though it was mine, I knew not everyone loved it. “Knees bent, place your right foot over your left knee and gently draw your knee to your chest.” Turning my head on the mat, I searched everyone, saw they were good, and said, “Now the other knee.”
A few minutes later, the class was on their feet, rolling up their mats. When I first moved to Ardnoch to run one of Lachlan’s fitness studios on the small loch on his estate, I’d been a little starstruck at first. Yes, I’d lived in LA most of my life and seen more than my fair share of famous people, but I’d never instructed them in an intimate studio. Funny how quickly I got used to it, how easy it was to remind myself they were just people, good, not so good, funny, complicated people.
One of them had even become a close friend.
But she’d been one of those rare folks with a special gift. She was wicked, so very wicked, but, Lord, did she have a gift for making people believe she was good. Lucy Wainwright was a high-caliber actor who’d befriended me, gained my trust, gained all our trust, and then she’d terrorized Ardnoch, including me, all because she was obsessed with Lachlan. No, she was obsessed with herself, and she’d decided that Lachlan was the only man worthy of her.
She did just about every diabolical thing a person could do to have him. She almost killed Robyn and Lachlan. She wrecked my studio, which emotionally took me back to a traumatizing place. And she hadn’t operated alone. Her accomplice, Fergus, worked as a mechanic on the estate and had been a longtime family friend of the Adairs, another of Brodan’s close childhood friends. He was working on an old car for me before Lucy shot him.
Truth be told, Lucy had shaken my faith in my gut instinct.
But not today, as Iris Benning waited until every other person left my studio before she approached. I felt it in my gut that Iris Benning was not a nice person and that I needed to be careful around her.
“Eredine, right?” She smiled falsely.
I didn’t bother replying because she’d just spent an entire hour in my class while people said my name.
Her smile wavered, annoyance flashing in her eyes. “Right. Well, I’ve noticed that you’re kind of chummy with the Adairs. I’ve seen you with Lachlan on the estate and then you were cozy with the younger one who looks like him in town the other day.”
I waited, wondering where this was going, sensing I would not like it.
At my continued silence, her smile dropped entirely. “I’ve also seen you with Galbraith.”
Oh, here it was.
“Do you speak?” she spat.
Patiently, I replied, “I’m waiting for the question.”
Her jaw clenched. “I want Mac’s number and thought you might have it.”
I did. “If you have a security issue and would like to talk with Mr. Galbraith, you only have to ask Wakefield or Stephen”—Ardnoch’s butler and underbutler—“and they will arrange a time for you to speak with Mr. Galbraith.”
Iris sneered, and it amazed me how lovely she’d seemed before I met her compared to how plain and mean she appeared now. “I need to talk to him, and I’m pretty certain he’ll want to talk to me too, if you catch my meaning. Which is why I’m asking if you have his cell number.”
Lord, she was delusional. “I can’t give out staff members’ private contact details to you.”
“So, you have his number?”
“Ms. Benning, Mr. Galbraith is engaged to my friend.”
She smirked. “Men are not monogamous creatures, and I’ve seen the way he looks at me. Now give me what I asked for.”
Was she wackadoodle? True uneasiness filled me. What was it about this place that attracted the crazies? “Ms. Benning—”
“Let’s cut the crap.” Iris stepped toward me. She was tall, so we were face-to-face. “I want Mac’s number, and unless you want me to get you fired, you’re going to give it to me.”