Dark Redemption - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,15

I don't know, I could just have some fun, but I wouldn't have to have all of these explanations and nobody would wait for me to call."

"And that's where you met this girl that you can't stop thinking about?"

I nod. I've told her some of the truth, but of course not all of it. I haven't told her that I've been watching Jacqueline. At first, just to see if she was okay but then because I couldn't make myself stop.

"So you met her there and you two what? Fooled around?"

"Yes," I admit.

"And what then?"

"Then I went back looking for her. I wanted to run into her again by accident, but on purpose."

"And?"

"And, I don't know. It just didn't work out that way."

"But I thought that you went to Minnesota, I thought that you two had a good time?"

"I did," I nod, "but then she found out something that she shouldn't have."

"What? You didn't cheat on her, did you?” she yells at me.

I shake my head no and look away.

"What did you do?"

"I paid for her mother's medical treatment."

Marguerite furrows her brow and leans closer. I can tell that this was the last thing that she had expected to hear.

"I don't know. I don't know how to put it, but she had mentioned that her mom was sick and doctors had recommended this experimental surgery but they had to pay upfront, and she didn't have the money and so, I just did it."

"You just paid for a medical procedure for a stranger?" Marguerite asks. "How much?"

“$250,000,” I say quietly.

"A quarter of a million dollars?" She gasps. "You don't even make that much."

"There were complications and there was an additional amount of about $100,000,” I admit.

"I cannot believe this.” Marguerite stands up, shaking her head. "You don't even have that much money."

Of course, on some level, I have known this part to be true all along, but this is the first time that anyone's ever confronted me with that fact out loud.

"I had some money saved up and I had some in the trust but yeah, I had to really borrow a lot to try to make this work."

"And what about now? Is she paying you back?"

"We had a fight when she found out about it. She was really angry that I didn't tell her."

"She was angry at you?"

"Well, she was really grateful for the treatment, but she was angry that I didn't tell her. She was angry that I just went behind her back."

"Okay," Marguerite rolls her eyes, "but you don't actually have this money, you borrowed it from your trust, right?" Marguerite asks.

She knows exactly what that means. It's not borrowing in that true sense.

"What's going to happen when your mother finds out?"

"She's not going to be happy," I say.

"Yeah, exactly. You think she'll just let it go, $350,000 missing."

"I borrowed about two-hundred from there."

"Just because you liked this woman?"

"No, there's something else, but I can't talk about it right now."

"Look, whatever it is, Adele is not going to understand."

I bite the inside of my cheek. She of all people knows exactly the limits of my mother's understanding.

We sit for a little while in total silence and I look at the drapes: warm, the color of tangerine and diaphanous. The window is slightly cracked, and a little bit of air comes in swaying in the breeze.

"How do you feel about Jacqueline now?" Marguerite asks.

"I thought that this would be a good chance to make a clean break. I shouldn't have been so obsessed with her," I say, pausing slightly before saying the word obsessed in an effort to figure out just the right phrasing. "I was being, I don't know, impulsive and then when we had that fight, I thought, 'Okay, this is my chance.'"

"But aren't you going to ask for the money back?"

"No, I'm just going to pay it back. I'm working a lot of hours, booking a lot of clients, and there's a number of investments that might sell in the near future, so I'll be able to put the money back before Mom notices."

"That's if you're very lucky," she says, swallowing hard.

"You're not going to tell her, are you?"

"No, of course not, but Adele has her way of finding out. Besides, you know how she is about money. God knows why she has a business manager when she takes care of every last thing."

"This came from my trust, I just hope that she doesn't check those amounts very often since they've pretty much stayed the same."

There’s another