Miss Direction - the second book of The Miss Trilogy
He's holding out his hand for the folder. Reluctantly, she surrenders it, “Tell me about Chadwick.”
“What?”
“Tell me. You know him. I only know the rumours. You want me to be intimidated by him, explain why I should be. From what you say, he’s no threat to me. He can’t come and get me, right? And he’s sent you in his stead! No offence, Phillip, but you’re hardly the most terrifying option…”
Irrationally stung, he smacks the folder angrily onto the end of his lounger, “I’m not sure how to take that. I’m not here to terrify you. I’m here to persuade you.”
Her reply is scornful, “Persuade me of what? To pay him a hundred grand I don’t owe? Hand over the cash or my cover’s blown? Face it, Phillip, your veracity’s been so utterly discredited over the past couple of years, who’s going to trust a word you say now? You practically screamed the truth into the faces of anyone who’d listen. No one believed you; they just had you sectioned.” She shakes her head dismissively, “Sorry, Phillip, but you have no leverage. I won. They believed me and not you. Live with it.”
She reaches beneath an overhanging branch of bougainvillea, tugging out a hidden kaftan and slipping it over her head. She stands awkwardly, pulling it down prissily to preserve a modesty she’s already squandered, wriggling the enveloping bedsheet to the ground beneath it.
She’s going! Abruptly, without even taking leave! She’s half way across his private beach before Fishmandatu recovers sufficient presence of mind to squawk, “It’s nothing to do with the hundred grand!”
Her body language betrays only exasperation. She isn’t frightened of him at all. Her eyes flash irritation as she marches back up the beach, “Then what?”
Fishmandatu goes for broke, “He wants the forty million in your offshore account!”
Tammi, usually so accomplished at keeping her nerve, stumbles on her way back up the steps to the deck, wincing as her toes stub the rough stones. Witnessing this delivers Fishmandatu a surge of self-confidence, enabling him to jerk a casual thumb at the bulging packet of paperwork beside the pool, and drawl, “Pointless denying it. It’s all in there. Every single bit of evidence but where the money is right now…and that’s the bit I’m here to discover.”
www.annieholder.com/miss-direction/