Page 37 of An Enchanted Spring

“Aye,” Reilly agreed. “Not everything. But most things.” He saluted Aidan with her coffee mug.

“Do you always tease him?” she wondered. Reilly just shrugged, and Colin laughed.

“One of the reasons they act like children is because they love each other so much,” Colin explained.

“Hardly,” Aidan growled.

“So how, exactly, are you related to each other?” Emma asked. “None of you look anything alike.”

Colin cleared his throat. “Our family tree has, um, many branches.”

“You all have different last names. That’s interesting. Are your mothers all sisters?” she asked.

“We’re more like second or third cousins,” Colin said carefully, and Emma’s BS radar went on full alert.

“Secondorthird?” she replied.

“Right. Many branches,” Colin reminded her.

“Right,” she echoed. She poured herself another cup of coffee, since Reilly was still drinking hers, as they swiftly changed subjects and began to (loudly) discuss the state of affairs in Ireland. Reilly, who owned a cottage near Dublin, was arguing with Aidan about the property taxes, and Colin just continued to stare at his laptop.

They were trying too hard. She’d seen it hundreds of times with clients; she wasn’t fooled. She wondered what the real story was—she’d only asked a simple question about their family history.

She caught Aidan’s eye and raised her eyebrow. He stood abruptly, cutting Reilly off mid-sentence. “Emma, come with me. I don’t want your sweet self tainted by any more time spent with O’Malley.”

“You wound me,” Reilly replied. “Is Cian around today?”

“No.” Aidan didn’t elaborate.

“Actually, I have some questions for Colin,” Emma cut in. “I’d like to know more about your matchmaking business. Did Aidan ever fill out a profile?”

Colin was clearly caught off-guard by the question. “Well—”

“Why is that important?” Aidan interrupted.

Emma took a sip of her coffee. “Because if I’m going to do my job successfully, I need to know what information about you is out there. Is his application still in your database?” she pressed Colin.

He looked bemused. “Of course.”

“How secure are your firewalls? Have you had any hacking attempts recently? Has your client information ever been put at risk? What safeguards do you have in place in the event of such an occurrence?”

“Still not seeing the importance here,” Aidan cut in irritably.

She raised an eyebrow. “Let’s say a patron at The Colcannon decides that he had a terrible experience there. He digs around and finds your profile on Celtic Connections. He can glean all sorts of personal details to use in whatever way he thinks of to damage your reputation. If we know what information is publicly available, and what information is privately available, our case against him will be stronger in court, and we can mitigate the damage. So, I want to know how secure your information is on Colin’s database.”

Aidan’s mouth hung open in surprise. “Oh.”

Colin inclined his head, his expression impressed. “I’ll take you through it all this afternoon in my office.”

“I thought you said the office was ‘organized chaos,’ and that not even the housekeeper would touch it,” she teased. “Maybe we’d better stay in the kitchen.”

“Unnecessary,” Aidan said swiftly. “We can discuss it later, but for now you can rest assured the information in that application is no longer in Celtic Connections’ servers.”

“You wiped my servers?” Colin exclaimed. “You don’t have permission to do that, MacWilliam!”

“Colin’s overprotective about the business,” Reilly murmured in Emma’s ear. “He loved Brianagh—another cousin, the original founder—very much and he promised to take care of it for her. You’ll see a temper tantrum now.”

Colin and Aidan weren’t paying attention to her and Reilly; Colin stood nose-to-nose with Aidan and was shouting all sorts of things at him in rapid-fire Gaelic. Emma caught “Brianagh,” “fool,” and what she thought were a few choice words directed at Aidan. Aidan didn’t shout back, but she could see the muscles on his neck bunching.

---