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Back at the yard, things were exactly as he’d left them, except for Matilda had now that strange, musty smell she always developed when he’d been away for a few days, and so he set about opening windows to air her. Then he shaved his head—it had been getting horribly shaggy— and took a good look at himself in the mirror. Dark smudges ringed his bloodshot eyes and he’d lost some weight, but it was nothing a few days of decent grub and sleep wouldn’t sort out. When he finally felt settled again with a coffee and a packet of biscuits on the table in front of him and a dog lying half on his lap, Dare finally checked the message from Grant. It was from the middle of last week.
“Hi. I’m guessing something’s going on with your brother...or maybe you have other family stashed away I don’t know about.” There was a bitter laugh then. “Anyway, let me know when you’re back. My boss is still on at me about buying your land.” Deep sigh from Grant there. “At least send me a text or something. Let me know you’re all right. Feels like you’ve dropped off the face of the earth.”
Grant had hung up without saying good-bye. And Dare had left him hanging for over a week without knowing anything. Oops.
He contemplated calling, but he didn’t know what he was going to say. Grant would want to know what had been going on, and Dare just wasn’t ready to share any family shit with him yet. He could just imagine Grant turning up his nose after the way he’d acted when he thought Dare was a user. He’d probably want to decontaminate himself and would never come near Dare ever again. And Dare was just selfish enough not to want that to happen.
Lying to Grant was the only way to go. For now.
Dare headed out to his workshop. The vans would be a welcome distraction. And hopefully, at some point in the day, the right words to say to Grant would just pop into his head. Okay, so they never had before, but there was a first time for everything, right?
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THE REPORT HAD BEEN due on Cecil’s desk first thing. He’d made that very clear. At ten a.m. on Monday, Grant was still avoiding his boss and hiding out in his office investigating secret tracker apps for his phone—could be useful for keeping tabs on his daughters as well as finding out where Dare was currently holed up.
But he couldn’t keep on hiding from Cecil. And he still hadn’t heard back from Dare, the bastard. It was pretty clear just how far down Dare’s list of priorities Grant actually fitted. Definitely below his junkie brother. Somewhere between the dog and one of his precious camper vans, he was guessing. No, wait. Below the camper vans.
It was a depressing thought, because a week apart from Dare had made Grant realise just how important the bloke was becoming to him.
And the clock was ticking. He couldn’t avoid telling Cecil something and selling out Dare in the process.
Screw it.
He’d just have to do it.
He made himself walk down the hallway and smile at Lisa, who buzzed him through.
“Ah, Grant. Just the man I wanted to see.” Cecil looked up from his newspaper and took off his reading glasses. “How’s the scrap yard buyout coming along?”
Grant shook his head. “I’m afraid our Mr. Nelson’s gone AWOL this last week, so I don’t have any good news there.”
Cecil scowled. “But you must have found out something we can use, surely?”
Grant paused. Maybe he could avoid selling Dare out and not tell Cecil anything. “Well, the PI I hired couldn’t find evidence of any illegal operations at the scrap yard, so that’s a dead end.”
Cecil drummed his fingers on his desktop. “Damn and blast. I suppose I’ll have to call in a favour from Dickie, then.”
“Dickie?”
“You remember I told you about him before? It always pays to know someone who’s well connected. Dickie and I play golf together, and although you’d never believe it to look at him, he employs the kind of men who’ll happily break Mr. Nelson’s fingers one by one until he’s signed that land over to us.”
Grant stared in horror. “You can’t do that.”
“Believe me, I’d rather not. Such a nasty way to do business. But all’s fair in love and war, and Grant, we really need a new project like this one. I had a video conference with New York last week. Apparently, we’ve got Allied Developments snapping at our heels, and there are rumours they want to make a takeover bid. I need to prove we can run operations here at a healthy profit, or my partners in the other offices might just decide they want to sell the company.”
“But that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
Cecil harrumphed. “Not for you, perhaps, but the first thing they’ll do is amalgamate our offices with theirs, and you can bet the job losses will all be from here. Anyone over the age of sixty is likely to be sent packing. Even you might not be safe. I hear they have a strong team of senior sales execs.”
His mind working overtime, Grant weighed up the risks of telling Cecil something against keeping quiet. Betraying Dare’s secrets would be terrible, but so would condemning him to what essentially amounted to torture, no matter how Cecil tried to dress it up as a legitimate business practice.
And in the end, he couldn’t let a man he cared about suffer in that way. Not if there was anything he could do to stop it.
“I don’t think you need to speak to your friend just yet,” Grant said, pulling himself up to full height. “There is another avenue we could explore.”
“Oh yes. I’m all ears.”
“The last time I saw him, Mr. Nelson all but admitted he was living on the site. He has a caravan there, and it definitely looks like a full-time residence.”
“He lives in a caravan?” Cecil wrinkled his nose in distaste. “How positively dreadful.”
Grant wanted to punch the snobbery right out of that aristocratic nose. He wanted to defend Dare from Cecil’s prying, but he couldn’t go losing his job. Not with his daughters and wife to provide for.
“And could your PI confirm this information? We do have a home address listed over in Totterdown, don’t we? What about that place?”
Grant wasn’t about to sell out Dare’s family secrets. “The PI discovered Mr. Nelson rents that place out.” It might even be the truth. For all Grant knew, Dare’s brother paid him rent. “He couldn’t absolutely confirm that D—Mr. Nelson lives in the caravan, but we both think it extremely likely. I think a simple threat to reveal that to the council might well be a better prompt to get him to sell up. And you wouldn’t have burned through your favour with Dickie.” He tried to keep the contempt out of his voice, but he was sure some must have leaked through.
Cecil gave him a long, hard stare, and when he spoke, it was coolly. “Your recommendations have been noted, Mr. Matravers.” Ouch. He hadn’t called Grant that for years. “And I think you might have been getting too involved in this case. I mean, it’s one thing to get to know the client, but a good salesman won’t have an emotional investment in them. I’ll take over from now on. You concentrate on the Lansdown Development. They could do with you looking over the budget. You’ve got a good eye for that kind of thing.”
“But...” Grant’s jaw worked, but the words refused to come.
Cecil had already begun scrolling on his iPad screen. “Was there anything unclear about my instructions, Mr. Matravers?”
Grant swallowed down the lump of hatred that threatened to choke him. “No.”
“Then good day to you.”
Grant closed Cecil’s office door with an exaggerated slowness as a precaution against slamming it, but didn’t give his own the same careful treatment.
“For fuck’s sake!” he bellowed into the empty room before swiping a pile of papers off his desk and all over the floor.
He’d sold Dare out.
Dare was going to kill him when he found out. He wouldn’t want to be friends with a man who’d given up his secrets to the enemy. Fuck it. Grant was the enemy now. He’d gone and screwed up any chance the two of them ever had of making something work together.
And now that was off the cards entirely, Grant realised just how much he wanted to make something work.
But there was no chance of that now, and it had all been for nothing. Now Grant was out of the loop entirely—wouldn’t know what Cecil was planning—and had been given one of the most tedious tasks available.
There were still two and a half hours left before he could legitimately leave for a lunch break.
He couldn’t even go round and warn Dare about what was potentially coming his way, because the bloke wasn’t there.
But then again, Grant knew where Dare was, didn’t he?
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t go barging into Dare’s fucked-up family life, but if the bloke wasn’t answering his phone, then maybe Grant had to.
Screw company policy on lunch breaks. He picked up his car keys and headed downstairs.