Page 2 of Payback

The limousine pulled out and headed over Tower Bridge.

“Everyone blames you for what happened to those girls.” I kept my voice even, tamping down the rage simmering in my belly.

Her mouth flapped open. “I didn’t drug them.”

“But you told the police Emilia did,” said Henry.

“Because she tackled me to the ground like a beast.”

“You’re protecting someone,” I said. “Someone who is going to leave you to get the blame and watch the students tear you apart.”

She broke eye contact with Henry and picked at her nails. One of her knees bounced up and down.

I leaned forward. “If this person cared about you, he would have sent a car the moment he knew you were stranded in London.”

“Who are you protecting?” asked Edward, his voice deceptively mild.

Her chin trembled, and she pressed her lips together in a thin line. I narrowed my eyes. Any display of vulnerability was probably for the boys’ benefit. To make them ease off her, but they had seen the state of the girls on that boat. Some of them had been fourth and fifth years too young to drink, let alone to consent to any kind of activities in a sex party.

The limo sped through a restaurant-lined street, where crowds of people drank alcohol outside the pubs. I turned my gaze from the strange sight back to Charlotte, who now hunched forward in her seat.

“Talk,” Blake snapped. “Or we’ll dump you on the side of the road. Again.”

“Philippe de Connasse,” she whispered.

I turned to Blake, who shrugged. Charlotte stared at her lap, mascara-tinted tears falling onto her bare legs.

“Would you care to elaborate?” asked Edward.

“Philippe organized the party. He works for the Saturday Correspondent. I met him at your Valentine’s Party.” She raised her head and fixed me with a venomous stare. “He told me you were the leak who got my father arrested.”

I placed my hand over my mouth and frowned. None of this added up. I hadn’t met anyone with that name at the Saturday Correspondent and thought Charlotte’s mystery lover had been Rudolph.

“Clearly, he lied,” said Edward. “How could Emilia uncover details of your father’s expenses fraud all the way from Mercia Academy, when the crimes were conducted in Westminster?”

Her nostrils flared.

“A whistle-blower provided all that evidence against your Dad,” I said. “She was a former secretary.”

Henry leaned forward and showed her the screen of his smartphone. I assumed he had found the article and the name of the woman who had resigned and handed over the evidence to the paper.

“Who is Philippe?” I asked.

“You already met him,” said Charlotte. “He was standing outside the boat, making sure the boys didn’t get back inside.”

I ground my teeth. Henry had shoved two crew members aside to get on the boat. They had worn glasses with frames thick enough to conceal a camera. Philippe really was a member of the Correspondent’s staff. But why had Jackie, the editor, been insistent that I uncover the identity of Charlotte’s lover if he had been working for her all along? It didn’t make any sense.

Charlotte wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “Everything you blamed me for was his doing. It was Philippe’s idea to raise money for Fathers’ legal defense by abducting you, not mine.”

“Did he also leave that fake invitation near my door?” I snapped.

Her brows lowered into a scowl, and she flared her nostrils. There were no doppelgängers or rugby boys to help her here, and she remained silent.

I folded my arms across my chest. This Philippe story sounded like bullshit. Where did a reporter get the kind of money to lavish on someone as annoying as Charlotte? Very few people had the type of wealth that could pay for cosmetic surgery and Mercia Academy tuition fees. And Charlotte’s helpless victim act was a sham, too. Even if Philippe was the driving force behind my abduction and the disastrous sex party, he couldn’t have achieved any of this without Charlotte’s full cooperation.

“Where does this Philippe live?” snarled Henry.

She shrugged. “We only met in hotels.”