Can't Stop the Feeling (Sinclair Sisters 2)

“Well, you are Rusty,” Keir quipped.

“It’s a nickname,” Mairi snapped. “Not the condition of my parts.”

“That’s it,” Sean said. “I’m taking my laptop to the car. I’ll work there.”

Donna couldn’t blame him for running. “TMI,” she wailed. She was going to be sick.

“You think that’s too much information? If you don’t get those draft emails to me within the next fifteen minutes, you’ll hear all about the time Keir and I did it on the back of his Harley—in detail. Tick-tock.”

“Why do you need to be involved in this? I can send the dean’s email to Sean. You can go do other stuff.”

“I can’t. I’m supervising. You lot would be lost without me.” With that, she hung up, leaving Donna with images in her head that she really didn’t want to have there.

Donna dropped the phone back onto her nightstand and groaned.

Master won’t like this. Donna isn’t being respectful.

She lifted her head to find Dobby sitting on the end of her bed. It wasn’t the Dobby she’d drawn, no, it was the movie version—damn those movies for messing with her imagination—and he was still wearing that stupid sack.

“Go away. You aren’t real.”

Donna needs to be nice to Master Duncan, another voice said, and Donna groaned again. She looked around to find Gollum, from Lord of the Rings, crouching in the corner of her bedroom. His wide eyes were staring at Donna in disgust. Gollum loves Master Duncan. Bad Donna will make him sad. Master Duncan is sad enough. Bad Donna! Wicked, tricksy, false Donna!

Dobby nodded in agreement. Master will never give you clothes and free you if you’re disrespectful. Dobby was very respectful to Harry Potter. That’s why he helped Dobby get the sock of freedom. He held it up and stared at it, a look of rapture on his face.

“I swear, if you go on about that sock one more time, I’ll erase you from every book I own.” She dragged her pillow over her head and shouted into it, “Everybody, out now!”

When there was silence, she peeked out from behind her pillow. The room was blessedly clear of imaginary characters giving her unwanted advice. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and dragged herself out of its warmth. Spring in Scotland was still chilly, and the central heating hadn’t kicked in yet. She reached for the silken robe on the chair beside her bed. It had massive red cabbage flowers over a black background. The red matched the lace two-piece boy short and tank set she wore to sleep in. It was a far cry from the old terry robe she’d worn when she’d first taken the job at the mansion.

She tied the robe tight and padded through her small apartment to the desk in the corner of her living room, nabbing a can of Scotland’s other national drink, Irn-Bru,

on the way because she was too lazy to make tea, and she needed the caffeine.

The chair felt cold on the backs of her thighs as she sipped her Irn-Bru and waited for her laptop to wake up. As soon as the screen she needed appeared, Donna started typing.

Dear Zoe,

No. Duncan would never write dear. She drummed her fingers on the desktop while she thought. And then she started again.

Zoe,

I’ll be in Glasgow the weekend of the 8th. If you still want me to give a guest lecture, let me know and I’ll see if I can fit you in, Duncan.

Yep. that sounded like him—terse, to the point.

Now, to sound like Zoe. She flicked through the old emails in Duncan’s account, found one the art school dean had written to him months earlier and used it as the basis for hers.

Hi Duncan,

I thought I’d check to see if you’re up for a spot of guest lecturing? We have space on the weekend of the 8th and would love to book you in. Maybe you could come up to Glasgow on the Friday night, and we could have dinner together? Catch up on old times? What do you say? Don’t let me down this time!

Zoe.

She sat back and considered it. Maybe she shouldn’t put in the bit about dinner. She didn’t like the idea of Duncan having an intimate meal with a woman she didn’t know. She had to look out for him. He was still so vulnerable. Maybe the dinner wasn’t a good idea. Unless...She brought up Google and searched for the dean of Fine Arts. It was a relief to discover she was a woman in her early sixties who’d been happily married to an equally famous sculptor for thirty-plus years.

“That’s much better than some man-eater,” she muttered to herself.

When she’d finished the forgeries, she sent the fake emails to her sister. Her phone rang almost immediately.