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And Keiley had every intention of escaping. But seconds after Victoria left, Delia stepped in front of her.
“Keiley, could you come to the committee board?” She extended her hand to the long table where the women of the committee still stood. All but Victoria Staten.
“Of course,” Keiley murmured before following the other woman suspiciously.
She didn’t trust Delia, and she didn’t trust the glitter of triumph in her gaze.
“Hello, ladies. ” Keiley nodded to the six women who hadn’t bothered to stand as she approached. “What can I do for you?”
“You can resign from the committee. ” Delia laid a resignation form on the table in front of her as Keiley stared back at her, trying to hide her incredulity.
“Resign? Delia, why would I want to do anything so insane?” She would lose heavily if she resigned now. Not only would she lose the money she had invested in the charity booth, but she would have to pay a heavy loss for walking away.
“I believe you’ll consider it in your best interests when you see this. ” The other woman removed a picture and slapped it down on the table in front of her.
Keiley felt the blood drain from her face. For a moment, the room darkened, and she had a horrifying fear of losing the strength in her legs.
Nothing could be more incriminating. The picture had to have been taken from a crack in the curtains over the wide living room windows of her home. It was positioned perfectly to catch the full view of Mac, Keiley, and Jethro. Naked. Obviously engaged in a full ménage act, their expressions tight with ecstasy.
Keiley picked up the picture, watching the print shaking in her hand and realizing her fingers were trembling violently.
“Where did you get this?”
“Does it matter where I got it?” Delia questioned snidely. “I have it. And so will everyone you know if you don’t sign that paper. ”
They would have it whether she signed the paper or not. She lifted her gaze and met the condemning stares of the other head committee members.
She could feel the heat of humiliated anger rising in her face and refused to bow down to it. This picture was an invasion of her privacy, of her home, of her life.
“Are you truly this vindictive, Delia?” she asked, even though she knew the other woman was. “Is your life truly so pitiful that you have to destroy others to make it seem worthwhile?”
She looked at the other woman, watching as a flush of fury mounted her cheeks.
“You’re not wanted here, by any of us,” Delia snapped. “You should have never married Mac and you should have never come here. You don’t fit in and sluts like you are not wanted. ”
“What about the slut who is so hot for another woman’s husband that she’ll resort to this?” Keiley retorted, indicating the picture as she stared back at Delia. “Do you think for one second you’ll ever have Mac?”
Her lips thinned, and for a moment Keiley glimpsed the gloating satisfaction in Delia’s gaze. Delia didn’t care at this point if she managed to snag Mac to her bed or not. The point was, Mac had rejected her all those years ago. He was the only man to have done so, the only thing she had wanted that she couldn’t have.
“I’m not resigning. ”
“Then this picture will hit the Internet within hours,” Delia drawled smoothly. “Everyone in Scotland Neck will see it and they’ll know you for the whore you are. ”
“You’re such an amateur, Delia. ” Keiley shook her head sadly as she folded the picture and secured it in her purse. “You should be certain when blackmailing a person that they give a damn about the blackmailing material. Of course, I’m just the slut having sex in my own home. I’ll be sure to give Mac your demands and see how he feels about it. ”
Keiley watched her composure slip marginally then. Delia hadn’t anticipated this. Though why she hadn’t, Keiley couldn’t understand.
“If I post that picture he’ll be humiliated,” Delia snapped.
Keiley shook her head. “You really don’t know Mac, do you, Delia? The first thing he’s going to do is come down on your husband’s head like a ton of bricks. Then he’s going to call his very good friend, your mother-in-law, and he’ll come down on her head like a ton of a bricks. And then. ” S
he looked at each of the other members. “He’s going to come after the rest of you. You should really research your victims closer and make sure they give a fuck about the blackmail material. ”
Keiley was aware of the fury vibrating in her voice then. She knew it was shaking through her, shuddering violently through her insides. Her stomach knotted with rage and the flashback to the helpless teen she had been when a community had turned against her tore through her.
She could see the nervous uncertainty working through the other women of the committee then. The heads of the charity committee, mostly older women, certain in their morality and their judgments. Certain that Keiley would be as horrified by her secrets coming out as they would have been.
Victoria had made a mistake in choosing these older women, and especially in choosing her daughter-in-law as the only younger member of this group. Because Delia didn’t have a clue about her own peers. Alternate sexual lifestyles among her age group were not that uncommon.
