Page 67 of Blackmailing the Bad Girl

“No, it isn’t. It’s a huge mess and everything is falling apart and…” She squeezed her eyes tight shut. “I’m in big trouble.”

Darcy studied her for a few seconds, then nodded. “Well, lying in bed isn’t going to solve it, and getting up isn’t going to make it worse. So out of bed with you. You have five minutes to get ready, then we’re taking you out for breakfast and you’re telling us everything.”

She chewed at her lip while she thought about her options.

“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Darcy said as she got to her feet. “Five minutes.”

Fifteen minutes later, she sat at a small table in the café across from the gym. Darcy and Regan sat opposite her, with mugs of steaming coffee on the table between them and a plate of warmpain au chocolat.

Summer picked up a croissant and nibbled a corner, her mouth filling with the taste of warm chocolate and fresh bread. For a moment, she just savored the taste, but she was only putting things off. She took a sip of coffee.

How to start?

“From the beginning,” Regan suggested, as though she’d said the question out loud.

Where was the beginning? She’d never spoken about this to anyone but Danny, not even these two, whom she’d revealed so much of her real self to. Only Danny knew her secrets, and they were his secrets as well, so she’d always felt like it would be a betrayal.

But now the secrets burned like acid in her stomach. She needed to purge herself of them and maybe, in doing so, find a way forward.

“The job I was put away for wasn’t the first one I’d done.”

“We knew that,” Regan said.

She frowned. “How?”

“It was obvious, but go on.”

“The first one was the company my mom worked for when she had the accident. The company who claimed it was my mother’s fault and refused to pay up on the insurance.” They’d actually bribed people to tell lies about her mother, to say she’d been drunk when the accident happened. Her mother never drank. Not ever. “I planned it with Danny almost from the day we met. Anyway, I used the money to set up a trust fund and to buy a house for her so she could get out of the care facility and be self-sufficient.”

She drank her coffee, took a peek at the two women opposite her. They were thoughtful, but not judgmental.

“Sounds like they deserved what they got,” Regan said.

“They did. We looked into it. They had an atrocious health and safety record, but always got away with it. I’m not sorry I stole from them. My mother deserved that money, and it changed her life.”

“And then what happened?” Darcy asked. “Because I’m sure there’s more.”

She sighed and tugged at her ponytail. “I should have stopped there. But I…enjoyed it. It was exciting. I got to pretend to be someone else, and I thought I was doing something good and making the bad guys pay.”

“Like Robin Hood.”

She smiled. “Yeah, just like that. Anyway, when I was doing the second job, I met this guy.”

“Aw, sweet. And he found you out?”

“No. Nik used to come and talk to me in the evenings after everyone had gone home for the night. Except me—I liked to stay late…for obvious reasons. I had a reputation of being very conscientious. He was always dressed casually and I presumed he was one of the maintenance staff. We talked a lot.”

“Just talked?”

“Yes, right up until he found me in the CFO’s office doing the transfer. I panicked and kissed him and he kissed me back and it was…nice.”

“Nice?”

“Okay, it was fabulous. We would have…” She shrugged but didn’t put it into words. “But a friend of his walked in on us. And I found out that Nik was actually the CEO of the company.”

“The lying bastard. But why?”

“He hadn’t lied to me. He just hadn’t told me the truth. I think because he liked the idea of someone talking to him, liking him forwhohe was, notwhathe was. But I didn’t see it like that at the time. I was furious. He was the enemy, and I’d kissed him. I did the transfer that night and disappeared.” She gave a weak smile. “I did it to prove that it didn’t matter. That I hadn’t cared, that I was doing the right thing andhedidn’t matter.”

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