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Lia said nothing. She tried and nothing came out.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “My show opens Friday. You give me a million pounds before the show, and I’ll forget what I know about this little erotic cottage industry you and your friends are running. If you don’t have it Friday, I’m calling the police and the papers, and you get to be as famous as Heidi Fleiss. That scandal was over twenty years ago, and people still know her name. You want the world to know your name?”
“A million pounds?” Lia repeated.
“That’s how much money I lost in work when you had your tantrum, little girl. You owe me.”
Lia put her hand over her mouth.
“You understand everything I’ve said?” he prompted.
“Yes,” Lia said, nodding though they were on the phone.
“What were you thinking?” he asked, then tut-tutted at her like a maiden aunt. “This is the new Victorian era, sweetheart. Nobody gets to have any fun anymore, didn’t you know that?”
She knew now.
“See you Friday,” he said. “Goodbye, Ophelia. Don’t go swimming in any rivers.”
He rang off.
Lia dropped the phone.
She sat on her love seat and held Gogo until her racing heart calmed. Pure hatred coursed through her veins. She imagined David on the floor in front of her and how she would put on steel-tipped boots and kick and kick and kick his face until no one could tell a face had been there. Then she’d start in on his testicles.
Lia let herself hate him for thirty whole seconds, let herself entertain the most gruesome violent scenarios that all ended the same way: with David in a coma.
After thirty seconds, she pushed the thoughts away. She wasn’t violent. She would never hurt anyone. And she needed to figure out what to do.
And fast.
All her life she’d prided herself on being intelligent and resourceful, no shrinking violet but an English rose, hardy and hale with thorns aplenty. Usually no matter the mess she got into, she could get herself out of it.
This time, though, she had no idea what to do.
Lia stood up to pace her sitting room. So David was back and out for blood.
She had some cash from her work but not a million, not even close. She took 10 percent from the ladies, and she was always lending her cut to them when they were skint. At most, she could scrape together fifty thousand if she had to. Her father had the money—last week he’d dropped a million on a Brueghel—but there was no chance she’d be asking him for the cash. He’d give it to her in a heartbeat, but not unless she told him why she needed it.
And that was never going to happen.
Maybe she had something she could sell? Her suite was full of antiques, but even if she sold every stick of furniture in the place, every knickknack, every painting, she wouldn’t get to one million and certainly not by Friday.
And then she’d have to explain to her parents why she’d suddenly sold everything she owned.
Also never going to happen.
Lia kicked her shoes across the floor as she cursed her arrogance and her stupidity. Why hadn’t she quit while she was ahead?
She ordered herself not to panic, though it was true her heart was racing so hard she thought it would run right out of her body.
“A million pounds,” she said aloud. “A million bloody pounds...”
On the love seat, Gogo raised his head off his paws and looked at her, ears cocked.
“And we were having such a good morning, weren’t we, boy?” she said with a sigh.
A good morning because of a miraculous last night.
