His hands left her arms and he stepped back. “Then….”
“Yes.” She confirmed. “It’s for them. The Point will be for teenage girls, the ones the state leaves in the hands of people who don’t always have their best interests at heart and if robbing people like you, people who can afford it, people who won’t even notice it is gone is how we have to do then so be it.”
He looked dazed, confused. No doubt her bad girl image had taken a serious dive, Penny thought and then hot on the heels of that was another thought. He won’t want me now. Which shouldn’t matter! She had Rachel to think about. The mission. It had always been about the mission and she realized then, with that reminder, that she had to make Sebastian let her go to Rachel. She had to.
Time to say goodbye. The thought was like a slammer punch in the gut and yet hadn’t it been due for a while? Sebastian was never going to keep her. Two weeks seemed almost like too much. She was nothing more than his bit of rough. The thief and the billionaire. A recipe for disaster from the first and it had always been just a question of time. Nothing more. Rachel came first; her sisters came first. Sebastian was just a moment out of time.
“Why not rob offices or banks or something?” he asked, his voice, that accent, making the slammer punch feel all the more worse. “Why three billionaires? I’m assuming the other sister is after one, too? So tell me why?”
“Because you don’t need the money,” she said slowly. “Because it won’t put people out of jobs or anything like that.” There was a pause and then Penny did what she had to, the only thing that would make Sebastian let her go, the truth at last, the very final secret. “We thought about if for months and we remembered everything. We’ve all waitressed, all worked in bars, and cleaned. We remembered how the rich guys were always the rude ones, always the ones trying to grope the staff or expecting us to fall at their feet. And the more we thought about it the more we knew that it was the perfect way to get what we needed. To take it from men like you, men who have too much money for their own good, too much for it to be fair.”
“That logic is absurd,” he said. “I earned my money.”
“Because of the ridiculous structure of our society! How is it right that one man can have so much when other people can barely afford to eat?”
“Theos. You are a socialist!”
“No,” she corrected, “I’m just a thief and I stole from you because you deserve it!”
“What?”
“You walk around in your cloud of money,” she said as scathingly as she dared. “And you don’t even look at what’s happening half a mile away from you. Do you have any idea what it would have meant for us if someone with your resources had stepped in to help? Do you? But you didn’t, you don’t! You’re selfish, you’re arrogant, and you’re conceited.”
He reared back like she’d slapped him and for just a moment Penny thought she saw something in his eyes that had her wanting to take it all back. “How dare you!”
Because she had to and even as she said the words Penny did not believe them. Not anymore. He was gorgeous, thoughtful, considerate—he was far from the mark she’d ever thought he would be.
And because of that, because of Rachel, because of the madness she took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and spoke again. “You deserved everything you got, Sebastian, and more besides.”
“Jesus, Penny…you think these things and yet….” He shook his head. “Was it always about the money? Was this, you and me—all a fucking fake?”
Slammer punch all over again and for one wild moment Penny wanted to take it all back. To tell him that it was never that. That she was scared and worried and didn’t know how to handle any of it. That she wanted him so damn much and it was so out of control. But then…. Rachel. Lyra. The mission. So of course she could not.
“What else, Sebastian?” she said and she was working hard to keep the hitch out of her voice. “What else? You’re a billionaire and I’m a criminal. You live in a million pound house and I robbed it just to scrape enough money to buy a wreck. We’re worlds apart. Worlds. The only thing I need from you are the deeds.” She paused and then added, “It’s the only thing I ever needed.”
Silence filled the room. She lifted her eyes and found his. Her chest thudded. Gone was the longing, the tenderness she’d seen in his eyes when she entered the room. The cold hearted billionaire was back.
“Then have them.” He reached into the drawer nearest to him and threw an envelope at her. “Have them and leave. Go to your sister. Go rescue her, though Rimeria might have a thing or two to say about it judging from her email.”