NaturesBounty(32)

“That’s far enough,” a man said, and she knew the voice all too well. “Did you bring what I want?”

“You can see I have it in my hand,” she said, squinting her eyes against the glare. Trying to peer past the flashlight beam did no good. Everything else was still shrouded.

“Then let’s take our meeting somewhere with a little better lighting, shall we?”

Her arms were grabbed suddenly by men who appeared on either side of her. They “escorted” her along the path where their own wildly bobbing flashlight beams were trained. A door popped open, and ambient light from a single lamp spilled from the room. Lydia was taken inside, where Andrew sat on the edge of a small desk that the banker’s lamp was on. The room had little else in the way of office decor except for an unused waste bin and papers strewn everywhere. There weren’t even any chairs.

The men stood on either side of her and she glanced at them. They weren’t the same goons who had broken into her Venice hideaway, and she wasn’t certain whether she was relieved or disturbed by that fact. She was in no hurry to see those two again, but the question of how many brutes Andrew had on the bad-guy payroll sat heavily on her.

“Check her,” Andrew said.

Both men turned, and one grabbed the envelope and held her arms behind her back while the other ran his hands over her.

“Hey!” she shouted when he literally squeezed each breast, hefting and prodding into her cleavage. “Hey! What the hell is this about? Can’t you guys get a real date?”

“Relax,” Andrew said. “I’m just making sure we can talk freely. I’m sure you had something similar done when you were booked into jail.”

With that, her shirt was yanked up, and her bikini top was searched inside and out. For a final insult, one of the men stuffed his hand down her pants. She struggled and spit curse words at him.

“Don’t fight him,” Andrew said. “Unlike my other friends, these men are gentlemen. They won’t pull out their weapons unless they have to. Let’s not make it necessary.”

She gritted her teeth while the guy proceeded to very intimately, though roughly, probe her entire crack from her clit to her ass. When he pulled away, there was a sick gleam of satisfaction on the asshole’s face.

“Yeah, a real fucking gentleman,” she said. She yanked her arm hard, and the other man let go.

“Sorry that was necessary,” Andrew said, “but things with you haven’t exactly gone as expected.”

She snorted. “Yeah, well, working at your company didn’t quite line up with my five-year plan either.”

“I have to say, your little jaunt to California came as quite a surprise.” He nodded to the guy with the envelope, who stepped forward and handed it over. “That wasn’t part of the plan at all. I’m afraid you made matters a lot worse for yourself.”

“You’re the one who made matters worse for me,” she said as he opened the envelope.

“On the contrary. I was just trying to make an important point about the consequences of corporate snooping.” He peered inside the envelope and shook his head. “Oh dear. Yes, this little piece of paper would have been quite inconvenient to explain away.” He glanced at her. “You were supposed to sit in jail overnight until I could pay you a visit, explain how this was going to work, and then drop the charges when I was assured of your cooperation. Instead, you somehow managed to post bail despite a frozen bank account and then skipped out of state.” He waggled a finger at her.

“I always keep rainy-day money. You never know when some criminal is going to come along and spoil your parade.” She cocked her head. “Out of curiosity’s sake, just how were you going to say this would work before I ruined your little plan?”

He held up the envelope. “You were going to hand over the evidence you stole and go away quietly in exchange for me dropping the charges against you. Should at any point you decide to change your mind, you would go to jail for embezzling.”

“Which you yourself are actually guilty of.”

“But with all trails now conveniently pointed to you,” he said, lifting the envelope, “this was the only remaining evidence of any, shall we say, questionable bookkeeping with my name attached.”

He stood and straightened his suit jacket. “That deal is still on the table. We part ways professionally, of course, and in lieu of severance, you can keep twenty percent of the money that was funneled into your account to help sell your embezzlement. I’ll drop the charges against you. All I need is your silence and any copies you made of this bank statement.”