Page 4 of Blackmailing the Bad Girl

But somehow, she’d clicked with Regan and Darcy. She wasn’t sure she would have gotten through this with her sanity intact if not for these two women. And now they were going to look out for one another. All of them had decided they were never coming back, which meant new lives, new careers. She was looking forward to it.

“Don’t sit moping tonight,” Darcy said. “Go out, pick up some cute guy. Have some fun.”

“I don’t think so.” She wasn’t a virgin, but she certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable going into a bar and picking up some stranger.

Anyway, men were the last thing on Summer’s agenda. She wasn’t putting her future in anyone’s hands but her own. All the same, an image flashed in her head. A man she hadn’t seen in years, but she’d dreamed about him so many times. Dreams that had left her hot and frustrated and kept his memory burning in her mind. A man with sun-streaked blond hair, dark eyes, olive skin. A long, lean frame dressed in faded jeans. Beautiful lips that had kissed her and lied to her. Okay, he hadn’t actually lied, but he also hadn’t told the truth. During their nightly conversations after the rest of the accounts department had gone home for the night, he must have known she thought he was one of the maintenance staff. He’d hardly looked like a typical CEO. And she’d only ever seen him after hours. He must have been laughing at her the whole time. A wave of residual rage washed through her at the memory. At least she told herself the choked-up feeling inside her was rage.

“Earth to Summer.” Darcy pulled her out of her thoughts.

“Sorry, I was miles away.”

A knock sounded on the door. It was time to go. And suddenly, she didn’t want to. She looked at the beige walls, the dark green covers on the beds. It was so familiar and safe and… “I’m scared,” she said.

A whole new life. What if she failed?

“Don’t be.” Darcy smiled, then studied her, head cocked to one side. “You know what your problem is?”

“Which one? I’m sure I’ve more than one.”

“Hah. The one where you’re a total introvert with an attitude problem. So you let everything bottle up inside until you burst. And then bad things happen.”

Never again.

While she’d done her first job out of a fierce desire to make a better life for her mother, she should have stopped then. Instead, she’d kept going, driven by an almost explosive need for revenge against the sort of big corporations that had torn their lives apart. But the last two years had given her time to see the situation more clearly, and she truly believed she’d managed to dispel the anger. “I’ve changed,” she said.

“I know you have, sweetie. But I’m guessing you still have problems sharing—so if anything bothers you, you come and talk to us. And just remember—you’re beautiful. Inside and out.”

“And you’re a good person,” Regan added.

She dashed a hand over her eyes. She could do this. “And from now on, I’m honest.” She wasn’t giving up—she still hated injustice—but from now on, she’d find legal ways to fight those battles. She had a few ideas.

“Yeah. We all are. I’ll see you in a few days.”

She nodded. “I’ll be at the gates to meet you.”

“And I’ll see you in a couple of weeks,” Regan said. “God, it’s going to seem like forever without you guys.”

The door opened, and the guard stood there. “Time to go, Summer.”

She swallowed, then grabbed her plastic bag of things and followed him out. The door clanged shut behind her, but this time she was on the outside.

That new life beckoned.

I can be anything I want to be.

It took nearly three hours to process her through the system. Summer spent most of that time sitting on a hard plastic chair at the edge of a dull gray corridor, gnawing on her lower lip, gripping her plastic bag in her hands. She could hardly believe the day had come at last.

Finally, the guard came and told her everything was ready. She followed him down a corridor, through several locked gates, finally halting by the gate to the outside world. A shiver ran through her. The gate seemed to move ever so slowly as it opened.

Then she was stepping through into the sunshine as the sound of traffic filled her ears. This was it.

She swallowed, closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, she looked straight at Danny, who stood on the other side of the road, a big grin on his face. She felt an answering smile tug at the corners of her lips. As she took a step toward him, a big black car pulled up at the side of the road in front of her.

She paused, waiting for it to drive on, but it just sat there. The windows were dark so she couldn’t see inside. She was just about to step around it when the rear window slid down.

“Ms. Sarah Daniels, I presume. Or perhaps not.”

At the sound of that name, that voice, her world stopped.

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