My spine turned to steel. The woman had the unique ability to show up at the worst moments, and all the leftover adrenaline from Christopher flowed through my body, making my hands shake as I spun around to face her.
She wore cutoff jeans and a skintight red tank top, but it wasn’t her outfit that worried me. It was her expression. It was pure malice.
“It’s Thursday. Back early?” I said, needing to not let her see my fear. I crossed my arms and made my face go hard, like when I had to discipline a kid even though they were cute.
“Yes. I’m sick of waiting for your bullshit month to end. I need ten thousand sooner than the end of the month.” She mirrored my stance and arched a brow. “I’m starting to think I should’ve kept in the game with your brother. Ten thousand is pocket change compared to what you two have. He showed me his bank statements, the idiot.”
My lip curled up at the mention of Fritz, and my voice came out stronger than I intended. “Stay the fuck away from him. You made your choice—you chose cash. Deal with it.”
Damnit. Her eyes lit up, and I played right into her hands.
“Okay, you’re right. I want two thousand by Monday.”
“I don’t have access. It doesn’t matter what you say or do. I literally cannot get the money until the end of the month, so threaten me all you want. I don’t have it.” I took a steady breath and stared her down. Samantha was a bully, a con woman, and an asshole, and the warning in the back of my mind blared.
I just had to tell Fritz, and then I’d be done with her, for good.
Samantha didn’t like my response. She licked her lips and grinned at me like an evil, psycho Cheshire cat and got her phone out of her pocket. She clicked her tongue a few times and held up the screen, showing me a photo.
It was me, on top of Christopher, in his car. Only you couldn’t see him at all.
“How would Mountain Elementary like to see photos of Ms. Carter being a slut in a car? You think this would change their mind about you? The rich heiress who fucks anywhere.”
“Samantha,” I warned, the white-hot fear making my thoughts blur together.
She swiped to the left, and another photo was there, me with large hands at my ass, and it was like she punched me in the gut. I looked racy as hell. Kissing Christopher had consumed me, and it was obvious I paid no attention to my surroundings.
“You can’t…why? Why take these? I already told you I’d give you what you wanted.”
“First off, I don’t believe you.” She laughed and showed me a third picture. This one was when he picked me up and moved me onto his lap. My dress came up in the move, and if this photo got out, I could lose everything. My reputation, my anonymity, my job. Samantha giggled and put the phone in her pocket again. “I already sent copies to my guy Devin, so if you’re trying to think of ways to get my phone, it won’t work. Think of the parent groups online. What would they say? How far would they go to get you fired? Would it go to the Board? Would it be public knowledge? God, it makes me giddy thinking about it.”
“I can’t…I can’t get my funds, Samantha. I swear.” My eyes watered at this point, and my misery seemed to feed into her energy. She bounced on her heels and tilted her head to the side, studying me.
“Any dumb tricks or excuses, and these go public. You hear me? The second you fucking get access, I want a check.” A crazed look crossed her face, like her eyes went unfocused, and a part of me wondered if she was on drugs.
A loud engine made me jump, and Samantha grinned at the driver before pinning me with one last stare. “Ten thousand dollars, Gilly, or your precious little life is over.”
She took about ten steps before tossing my car keys at me. I let them fall to the ground and watched with panic coursing through my body as she got into the black car with music so loud it shook the earth. Then I got my keys, went into my apartment, and cried.
The next morning was like any other, besides the fact I had Samantha’s threats to worry about, the lie to Christopher, and the fact I paid my brother’s girlfriend to dump him. Other than that, it was a normal Friday at school where the students had a different energy about them. Fridays in the fall were so much fun—the football team played at the high school, everyone wore school colors, and weekend plans were shared between lessons.
I forced a smile through all the chatter about camping and bonfires and had two extra cups of tea to keep my pep in my step. Even Christopher’s little smile he threw my way wasn't enough to shake the storm cloud over my mind.
It was lunchtime, and while I always ate in the teacher workroom, I stayed in my class with the excuse to catch up on stuff. It wasn’t entirely unheard of—we all did it from time to time—but Christopher seemed to think it was an invitation, and he joined me a minute later.
“Oh, did we have a buddy meeting?” I asked, my unanswered text to Fritz leaving a hole in my heart. I asked if we could talk this weekend. Nothing more or less than that.
“Nope. Just wanted to eat lunch with you.” He sat in one of the chairs on the other side of my desk. The folder with all the information for the conference the next weekend was there, and he picked it up. “This one looks fantastic. Hillary Jones is one of the keynotes. Her passion for differentiation is incredible.”
My heart clenched at the longing in his voice. I was excited about the conference, but not in the same way he spoke about it. “Are you a fan of Hillary Jones?”
“Yes. I’ve read all her books and got to hear her speak when I lived in Chicago. She’s inspiring and data driven. There are too many gurus who are focused on the emotional piece, which is important, for sure, or those who are all numbers and data. Hillary Jones, though, she uses both.” He took a bite of his sandwich with one hand and set the information sheet down on my desk. “You’ll have to tell me all about it. Maybe get a photo with her and let me see it? I could use a new desktop background.”
I snorted, really needing the humor, and we shared a smile for a beat. The eye contact, the slight curve of his lips, and his foot resting under my desk, an inch from mine, brought me back to the car where his lips were on mine and his hands on my body. I cleared my throat, refusing to let my mind go there at work. “Yeah,” I said, shaking my head a little bit. “I’ll get a picture, sure.”
“Great.” He smiled again and studied the wall behind my desk. His attention stopped at a photo of Grace, Fritz, and me with our arms around each other and covered from head to toe in mud. “You three are close, huh?”
“Yes.” The guilt crept back in, and I checked my phone. Fritz still hadn’t answered me, and I hated to think Samantha was the reason. If he found out from her, there would be irreparable damage done to our relationship. At least if I told him the truth, there was a sliver of hope. “Grace forced us to do this mud run. It was awful, honestly.”
He laughed. “You look happy in the photo.”
“Because we were done.”
His amusement warmed my face, and I tried eating a bite of my salad. I loved homemade dressings with oil and vinegar, but it tasted off. Everything had tasted off since Samantha had visited the night before, and I forced myself to swallow. My phone buzzed, and my heart leapt into my throat. My brother had finally texted me back.
Fritz: Is it an emergency or can it wait? Need to go out of town. Camping with some colleagues.
Gilly: Oh, good. When you get back then.
Fritz: Deal.
There went my plan to tell him soon.
“Things not better with your brother?” he asked, reminding me that he saw right through my emotions. His soft and kind voice was the same one he used on students, and a part of me wanted to crawl into his lap and have him tell me it’d be okay.
But that wasn’t his job, and I’d caused this mess.
“Not yet. He’s going out of town this weekend, so we’ll have to talk after that. It’s just eating away at me.”
“I get it. If it’s one of those conversations that needs to be in person, it’s hard to wait, but it’s the right thing to do. You clearly love each other, so I know he’ll forgive you. Try not to be so hard on yourself, Gil.”
Gil.
The stupid, one-syllable nickname that everyone called me should not have elicited a full body shiver, but it did. My face heated, and I bit my lip to prevent a smile. He would not be calling me that or being so nice if he knew the truth about what I did, or what I kept from him, but that was filed into a later folder. “I appreciate you saying that,” I said, meeting his warm gaze. “Thank you.”
He shrugged and dived into his food again, repositioning himself so his foot rested against mine, and instead of moving, I kept it there. His large foot and my small one, sitting side by side, felt intimate. “What are you doing this weekend?” he asked after we ate in silence for a few minutes. “My college roommate has this bro bachelor party up in the city for the weekend. Food trucks, paintballing, the beach. I’ve been saving up for it for a while, and I’m excited to be back up there.”
“You miss living there?”
“Yes and no. I moved here to be with family, and I have a few friends from here, actually. It’s a different lifestyle for sure. Everyone drives everywhere, and the nightlife isn’t nearly as fun, but it's homey. I want a family someday, and this is the kind of town perfect for that.”
It was undeniably sexy to hear a man say he wanted a family and be upfront about it. Too many crappy dates or horror stories from Larissa clouded my mind when it came to the opposite sex. The fact he said it all, just like that, made me like him even more, and that was dangerous.
“This is a great town for a family. I loved growing up here and only going to college a short drive away.” I took another flavorless bite and felt his stare like a caress. “Um, your weekend sounds fun.”
“I don’t do it often enough, so I’m excited. But, I gotta admit, it’s been nice running into you after school.”
“It has been…nice,” I said, letting the word hang between us. It was more than nice, and if I thought about him, about us too much, it’d mess with my already muddled brain.
He grinned, like he knew my mind was a hot mess when it came to him, and he finished his sandwich. “All good with your car? Hopefully it didn’t cost an arm and a leg.”
“Yeah, it’s…good.” I forced a tight smile, but he didn’t notice. He gave me a lazy grin that made me think of his lips on mine, and I looked down. Someone knocked on my door, making us both look up, and APD was there.
“Gilly, got a minute?” he asked, his voice serious as he clutched a folder to his chest. He rarely wore smiles, so nothing should’ve raised the hair on the back of my neck.
What if those are the photos?
“Yeah.” My teeth ground together and I stood up way too fast, earning a frown from Christopher, but I ignored him. I marched toward APD and went into the hall with him. Not another great sign.
If this were good news, he’d have said it in my room in front of Christopher. What is the punishment for those photos? Suspension? “What’s going on, Dave?”
“Wanted to give you a heads-up about the conference next weekend.” He sighed, and an annoyed look crossed his face. “The board will want an update from what you learned. You know how they feel about us spending money on teachers instead of students.”
“Oh,” I said, my limbs relaxing. That’s what had him all worked up. It was almost laughable compared to being blackmailed with racy photos. “Georgia?”
“Yes, you know her passion for literacy.” He ran a hand over his face, and just the mention of literacy made me think of him, about how excited he was about Hilary Jones.
“I think Christopher should go instead of me.”
“Wait—why?” Dave narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side.
“He’s passionate about the topic and was fangirling over Hillary Jones. I’ll have other opportunities.”
He ran his square teeth over his lip as his brows drew together, and he eyed my classroom door for a beat. “You sure?”
“Yes. He should go,” I said, knowing this was the right move. I’d have to tell Fritz the truth then, and it would be best to be here. “He’d be a great teacher to go soak up all the info and bring it back to us.” I nodded to further prove my point. “Change it to him, I insist.”
“If you’re sure, I can see if I can change the reservation.”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling for real this time because even though my life was a hot mess right now, Christopher’s wasn’t. He deserved to go to a conference in his favorite city. I did not.
I had to deal with my brother, and lord knew I’d need the weekend to prepare for it. Once I told Fritz, then I’d tell Christopher the truth.