Blackmailing the Bad Girl (Cutting Loose)

by Nina Croft

Something came up. I’ll see you on Monday.

  What the hell did that mean?

  Should he go after her?

  At that moment, he caught sight of Harry weaving his way through the crowd. He came to a halt in front of him. “What the hell did you do to upset Summer?” Harry asked.

  What the fuck?

  “Did you see her?”

  “Just as I came in. She was on her way out and she did not look happy. So, what did you do?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. She was fine. Enjoying herself. Then something spooked her.”

  “What?”

  She’d gotten a little upset when she’d realized his dad knew who, or rather what, she was. But she hadn’t seemed truly bothered. And he was pretty sure he’d convinced her that his dad would never give her secrets away. It wasn’t until Trenton had talked with them that she’d gone quiet. He glanced around and caught sight of Trenton across the room. That was when he’d lost her. There was obviously a connection there, but he had no clue what and his mind shied away from the obvious one. What would be enough to upset her that way?

  Was she in trouble?

  The fact that she’d run rather than talk to him told him she didn’t trust him. Probably never would.

  “Damn.” What was he supposed to do if she wouldn’t tell him what was bothering her? “Reopen the file on her,” he said.

  Harry quirked a brow. “You want me to investigate your girlfriend?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Tell that to your mom.”

  “I need to know if she’s in trouble.”

  Harry stared at him for a minute longer and then gave a curt nod.

  “And see if you can find any connection to Steven Trenton,” Nik added.

  “From Trenton Industries?”

  “Yeah.” He hoped what he was thinking wasn’t the case. But he had a bad feeling about this. And he had no clue what to do. “Should I go after her?”

  Harry shook his head. “The fact that you’re asking me suggests you know the answer.”

  “Yeah, it’s a really bad idea.” Nik scraped a hand through his hair, pressing his fingers to his scalp.

  “She can’t go anywhere,” Harry said. “She’d be in violation of her parole.”

  There was that. He hated the idea, but he’d give her some space, and maybe she’d decide to come clean. Tell him whatever it was that was bothering her.

  He’d give her until Monday. Then they were going to have a talk.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Someone was banging on the door.

  Summer pulled her head from underneath the pillow long enough to yell, “Go away. I’m asleep.”

  Of course, she wasn’t. She’d hardly slept at all in the last two nights.

  She’d half expected Nik to come storming after her. She’d built herself up to making him go away, persuading him that anything between them right now was a mistake, that she hated rich people and that the party had shown her she didn’t want to be part of his privileged life. When he hadn’t shown up, she’d deflated. Somehow, she’d convinced herself that she didn’t care. More to the point, that Nik didn’t care. He’d wanted her, and he’d had her, and he’d probably realized that she was more trouble than she was worth.

  And oh God, what was she going to do about Steven Trenton? He might not have recognized her at the party. But he’d certainly known he’d seen her before. And if he thought about it enough, he’d come up with the answer. She was living on borrowed time. Any moment, she could expect the police at the door.

  Dread crawled through her, churning in her stomach, threatening to erupt into an uncontrollable spiral of panic.

  She couldn’t go back inside.

  Just the thought made her want to throw up.

  At least there were no more knocks on her door. She knew Regan and Darcy were worried about her. She’d felt their eyes following her on the few brief occasions she’d emerged from her room. But she couldn’t involve them in her problems. They’d want to help, and how could they? She couldn’t let them get tangled up in her troubles.

  Then something prodded her in the back.

  She sat bolt upright, the pillow falling to the floor. Her eyes wide.

  Darcy and Regan stood side by side, next to her bed, hands on their hips, identical expressions of grim determination on their faces.

  “I was sleeping,” she muttered. “Aren’t I allowed to sleep?”

  “It’s ten o’clock on a Monday morning,” Darcy said. “Why aren’t you at work?”

  “I called in sick.” Actually, she’d texted to Nik’s phone, said she had a stomach bug and would be in when she was better. He’d replied immediately—could he help in any way? She hadn’t answered. Because he couldn’t.

  Regan’s eyes narrowed on her, assessing. “And are you sick?”

  She nodded. “I don’t feel well.”

  Darcy pulled her phone out of her pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Summer asked.

  “Calling the doctor, of course.”

  “I’m not that sick. I just need to sleep.”

  Regan let out a huge sigh as she sank down on the mattress beside her. “Please talk to us, Summer. You’ve been hiding something since I got out, something to do with this job. Just share whatever it is that’s bothering you. That’s what we’re supposed to do for one another.”

  “You can’t help.”

  Darcy sat on the other side, tugged Summer’s hand from where she clutched the sheet. “Maybe we can’t help, but if you share whatever it is that’s bothering you, then we can try. And it won’t seem so bad when it’s out in the open.”

  “Want to bet?” She bit her lip, swallowed. “I think I’ve fallen in love.”

  Where the hell had those words come from? She hadn’t meant to say that. She hadn’t even been thinking it. Of course she hadn’t, because it wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true.

  Both Darcy and Regan were staring at her.

  “Well, that’s not what we were expecting,” Darcy said.

  “But it’s sort of nice,” Regan added.

  “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 warm pain 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 in
surance.” 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 for who he was, not what he 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 and he didn’t matter.”

  “But he did?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I couldn’t see past who he was. So, I left and did another job, because, again, I had to prove that what I was doing was right. Except it wasn’t, and I got careless and got caught.”

  Darcy reached across and patted her hand. “You’re not going back. A long time has passed. No one’s looking anymore. You’re safe.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. When I came out of prison, Nik was waiting for me.”

  “What?” They both spoke in unison, and she almost smiled. But not quite.

  “He’d been looking for me since I vanished. Anyway, he had this file and evidence and he sort of blackmailed me into working for him.”

  “The bastard.”

  “But why?” Regan asked. “Has he done anything else? Made you do anything you don’t want to?”

  “No.” Summer could feel a flush heating the skin of her cheeks. She ate a croissant to avoid looking at them while she got rid of her flusters.

  “What have you been up to, Summer Delaney?”

  “I slept with him. The first night.”

  “He made you?”

  “No.” She scowled. “It was your fault,” she said to Darcy. “You told me to pick up a guy. And then you fed me champagne, and I didn’t want to be alone.”

  “And you still fancied him rotten,” Regan finished for her. “What’s he like?”

  She sighed. “Gorgeous.” She got out her phone and looked up the Masterton Industries website, found a picture, and passed the phone over.

  “Oh my freaking goodness, he is gorgeous.”

  “Wow,” Darcy added. “And since then…?”

  “I told him the next morning that I wasn’t sleeping with him again. And he said I still had to work for him. So I have been.”

  “But why?”

  “I think he wants to rehabilitate me. I’m his good deed. And I think he likes me.”

  “And you’re falling in love.”

  She swallowed. “I said I think I’m falling in love. I don’t know. It’s probably just some psychological consequence of getting out of prison. Or maybe I’m coming down with a bug.”

  “What we need is a psychiatrist, not a doctor.”

  “Hah. Anyway, since then Nik has sort of promised he won’t use the file. And he wants us to be friends. And maybe more than friends.”

  “It sounds like it’s all working out. Don’t you trust him?”

  “Yes…no. Maybe. But I can’t live a lie and if I tell him, I’m not just risking my life but my mother’s as well. If he traced the money…she could lose everything.” But the truth was, she didn’t think he would do anything. She believed her mother was safe. From Nik, anyway. If only that were the only problem.

  “Maybe it’s time to trust someone,” Regan said.

  “I’m not sure I can. But it’s irrelevant anyway. Because Saturday night, things got much, much worse.”

  “We knew something happened.”

  She tore another croissant into pieces. The others had stopped any pretense of eating. “I was at a party with Nik, and I came face-to-face with Steven Trenton.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The owner of Trenton Industries, the first company I stole from.”

  “Holy shit,” Regan said.

  “Exactly. The thing is, I was so stupid. I’d always known there was a connection. That’s why I picked Nik’s company—because it had strong ties with Trenton’s. It was dodgy by association.”

  Except the connection had been all but severed when Nik took over the company, and she’d gotten the distinct impression on Saturday night that he hadn’t liked the other man. “Anyway, I just freaked out.”

  “Did he recognize you?”

  “No. But he said he knew me from somewhere. He’s going to remember, and I’m finished. And probably so is Danny if they start digging.” She took a deep breath. “I can’t go back to prison.”

  “You won’t. We won’t let you.”

  She forced a smile. “You can’t stop it. It’s all going to come tumbling down on me. And really, I deserve it. I thought it was a game. Right until I got caught. Then it was too late. I was in prison and so scared and messed up, and I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll think of something. Even if we have to take a hit out on the guy.”

  She sat up straight in her chair. She did feel better, now that she’d gotten it out of her system and into the open. “I don’t want you involved. You’re not to do anything that might get you in trouble. I couldn’t bear it. Anyway, I’ve already come up with a plan.”

  “You have?”

  “I’m going to run away.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Harry reckoned he should give her time.

  Nik wasn’t so sure that was the right way to go. The thing was, he hadn’t been all that surprised that she’d texted in sick on Monday, or that she hadn’t returned his calls to her house phone, or that her cell went invariably to voicemail.

  Something had happened at that party. Something that had made her run. And he wasn’t allowing it this time.

  Tuesday, he was still trying to give her time, but how much goddamn time did she need? He wanted proof that she hadn’t already run, that she was still where she was supposed to be and safe. So he’d texted her and told her if she didn’t pick up her house phone next time he called, then he was coming straight around and wasn’t leaving until she’d seen him and told him what was going on.

  He’d given her ten minutes, and then he’d called. The phone picked up right away. But it wasn’t Summer on
the other end. “This is Darcy Butler and you’re harassing my friend. Please desist.”

  “Is she there?”

  “Actually, she’s in bed with the covers pulled up over her head. She’s not going to talk to you.”

  So he asked the one question he needed to know. “Why?”

  She was silent for a moment. “Look, you haven’t given her up when you could have. She says you’re her goddamn friend—so I’ll tell you. She hates your kind.”

  “My kind?”

  “Rich fucking dickheads.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just saying it like it is. The truth is, you’re scaring her. She likes you, and she’s worried that might be a sign that she’s totally insane.”

  “Again…thanks.”

  “My pleasure. Anyway, your swanky party sort of freaked her out. She’s convinced herself there’s no way you and she can ever have anything more than friendship, so she just needs a little time to get her head straight.”

  The explanation made sense. But he couldn’t help but think there was something more. At the same time, he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get anything else out of Darcy.

  “How much time? When will she be back?”

  “Wait a second.” The line went quiet; presumably she had her hand over it while she consulted with Summer. “Thursday,” she said eventually. “Thursday morning, she’ll be back at work.”

  He wanted to shout at her to let him talk to Summer. Hell, he even considered begging. Maybe a bribe? But he knew it wouldn’t do any good. This woman was firmly on Summer’s side. He sighed, rubbed a hand across his scalp. “Tell her I’ll see her Thursday.”

  He tried to immerse himself in work for the rest of the day. Tried again the following morning. He missed her. She’d become a fixture in his office—well, the small amounts of time he allowed himself in his office. He watered her plants.

  He wrote a huge personal check to her friend’s charity.

  No doubt Summer would accuse him of trying to buy her. She wouldn’t be wrong. At the same time, the money was for a good cause. The charity gave people the chance to give a little back, not only money, but time and a small part of their privileged lives, as well.

  It made him wonder what Summer had done with the money she’d stolen. Because he was 100 percent sure she hadn’t spent it on herself. He thought for a few minutes, jotted down a few names. Then picked up his phone and called Harry. “Anything?” he asked.