her.
“Was it true? What you said about that guy?”
“About Jack?” I shook my head. “I was sort of in the moment, I was trying to tell Sophie what she wanted to hear.”
“Well, it looked like it worked.”
It had. Sophie and Maddy had spent the rest of lunch telling me about all the persistent boys they’d dealt with over the years and how I could shake Jack for good.
“I don’t really know what I was saying,” I admitted. “Once I started I couldn’t stop. It was all lies. Apart from Mon, Jack’s really been the only friend I’ve had at school. I just . . . I feel bad.”
William said nothing, and it only made me feel worse. For some reason, I sensed he disapproved. Even someone bad enough to be on my list was judging me.
I pulled the laptop from my bag once William cut the engine. In daylight, the lookout was unremarkable, a gravel parking lot isolated from the busy road, framed by oak trees, the view hidden by a few yards of foliage. It felt comfortable, a small nook away from the world.
“This is it.”
I turned the laptop in his direction and watched his face carefully. Even if this was an ambush to steal my evidence, I had copies backed up on my hard drive at home.
“You know, I still don’t know why you had to resort to blackmail.”
“What, I could have just asked you?” I raised a brow, my eyes scanning over his shoulders at the thread of Charles Bishop’s email correspondence, one from his opposition’s assistant describing the weak spots in his opposition’s campaign. Weak spots she’d planted under Charles’s command. It was well known that the revelations discussed in these emails contributed to his opponent’s drop in the polls after they were leaked to the media. The cherry on top was a darkened CCTV image of him and his opposition’s assistant shaking hands outside a hotel in town.
I saw him purse his lips. I was suddenly reminded of what Lola told me about him. “Did you know that Lola said she slept with you?”
“I didn’t realize she’d say that.” As if the stress of the blackmail was raising his temperature, he shrugged off his blazer, tossing it into the back seat. His gaze was fixed on the screen as he began to scroll. By now the rain had clouded the windows, trapping us in the luxury interior of the BMW.
“I didn’t think it was true,” I mused. Half of me was pissed off that I didn’t already know about it, and the other half was disappointed, though I wasn’t entirely sure why.
“I didn’t think it was really your business, but I guess it is.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair.
My cheeks flamed, my heart beating heavily in surprise. “Was it serious between you?”
“No. Considering the situation and all, I mean.”
“You mean, considering she has a boyfriend?”
“You don’t know the dynamics between Lola and Francis,” he explained.
I didn’t know why I was so worked up, but the subject had me feeling hot all over. “When did this happen?”
He shrugged.
“Oh no,” I groaned. “Lola was who Sophie was talking about at Jermaine’s.”
“It was last year, and it isn’t something that’s even worth talking about now,” he said, his voice stiff. “Can I just focus on this, please?”
He was right, I told myself. The sooner he’d seen what he wanted, the sooner I could go home. I wasn’t about to give him his own copy. It could land me in trouble. I clenched my teeth.
If Lola and William were a thing, that put a pretty huge target on my back. Did William realize that? Was he oblivious to the position he’d put me in, or was this just as much his game too?
“Did you come up with the dating idea to make her jealous?” I blurted.
He hesitated before answering, “Let’s just say you’re not the only one who has a problem with Lola Davenport.”
“You’re going to have to give me a better reason than that,” I said, shaking the image of Lola and William from my mind. Something about William sleeping with her. Even though he was Level One, he was supposed to be the best of them.
He exhaled quickly, his frustration evident as he turned back to the laptop screen.
Instead of giving up, I pushed. “I need to know, William. We can’t both have hidden agendas here.”
“It’s Will,” he reminded me. “And I don’t know if it’s something I want to talk about.”
Using his full