“There’s no way you could be held responsible for any of this,” Ava said.
“You don’t know my father.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. All you care about is your bloody money.”
“It’s my job. I take no pleasure in some of the things I have to do.”
Simmons turned from the window and lunged towards the table. She moved so quickly that Ava jumped in surprise. The other woman stopped just short of physical contact, both hands resting on the table, her head thrust forward. “Well, you’ll take no pleasure from what I have to say, because there’s no way I’m going to sign that piece of paper.”
“Ashton?”
“What about him?”
“You’d let him go to jail?”
“Do what you want with him,” Simmons said. “I can defend a badly thought-out and badly run business, but I can’t explain away a liar and a thief. Oh God, when I think about the things I said to my father about him, and how pleased my father was.”
“Speaking of your father,” Ava said gently, “Ashton or no Ashton, if you don’t settle with us there will be legal proceedings against the company — against you, in all likelihood — and your father’s name will be dragged into it.”
“My father knew nothing. His assets are in a blind trust. I was responsible for administering it.”
“That’s not what you said earlier. And it isn’t what Ashton told me.”
“Not that anyone can ever prove it.”
“But he did know.”
Simmons shrugged. “You won’t be able to discredit my father with this fiasco. I won’t let you. I’ll take full responsibility. So sue me, sue the company — I don’t care. Put Jeremy in prison. I don’t care about that either, and I won’t raise a hand to help him. But when it comes to the money, I’ll fight you every inch of the way. I have enough of a bankroll in Cyprus to keep this going for years.”
Ava glanced down at her notebook, at the talking points she’d crafted in Las Vegas and on the plane. They had looked good on paper but were ineffective in practice. She felt a lump return to her chest, the same one she’d felt when Maggie Chew first told her about her father. “This won’t go away,” she said, closing her notebook and slipping it into her purse.
“Here, take this too,” Simmons said, throwing the transfer request across the table.
“No, you keep it. You still might decide to sign it.”
“There’s no chance of that,” Simmons said. She stood to one side. “Now, if you don’t mind, I would like you to leave. And if there’s anything else you want to communicate, please use your legal representatives.”
Ava didn’t move.
“I will call security if I have to.”
“I have sex tapes,” Ava said.
“What?”
“You heard me,” Ava said, her eyes locked on Simmons.
The woman tried to hold Ava’s gaze but gave way. “That’s not true,” she said, her voice breaking ever so slightly.
In that second Ava knew that Simmons wasn’t sure. “I got them from Ashton.”
Simmons blinked and then threw her head back. “That’s not true. There are no such tapes.”
“I didn’t know anyone could enjoy a spanking quite so much. Jeremy filmed you over and over again. You hear about these things, of course, but until you actually see it — and all the peripheral sex play that goes along with it… Well, I found it rather lurid and upsetting. It didn’t do anything for me, though I’m sure there are people who enjoy watching that kind of thing.”
Simmons stared at Ava, her eyes wide and darting. Her face had collapsed. Her right hand reached for the table and she leaned on it for support.
“I’d be sorry if it had to come to that,” Ava said.
“To what?”
“There’s no need for me to say it, is there?”
“What are you trying to do?” Simmons demanded.
“Get my client’s money back. Nothing more than that.”
“With sex tapes?”
“Why not?”
“You’d release them?”
“Could there be a more receptive market for them than the British media? I mean, the daughter of a cabinet minister, a trusted senior officer at one of the country’s most respected private banks? A former Olympian? They would eat it up, no?”
Simmons sat down. “You bitch,” she said.
“Sign the request.”
Simmons didn’t respond.
“I’ve given you all the right reasons to do this and none of them seem to matter to you. So it comes down to this unfortunate one. Sign the transfer request and the tapes will disappear. Your fiance will not go to jail and we can all be spared years of legal wrangling. Ms. Simmons, that money was stolen. This is the right thing for you to do under any circumstances. Tell yourself that and it might seem more palatable.”
“I need to think.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I need time.”
“I don’t have a lot of time to give you.”
“Tomorrow. Give me until tomorrow.”
Ava hesitated. “This can’t drag on.”
“I need to talk to someone.”
“What difference — ”
“Please.”
“Does his approval mean that much to you?”
Simmons turned her head away.
“Tomorrow. I’ll give you until noon tomorrow, but if I don’t hear from you by then — ”
“How do I reach you?”
Ava slid a business card across the table. “My mobile number is the best way.”
Simmons looked at the card, her eyes glazed and watery. “I’ll call you,” she said.
“Yes, you will.”
“Now I would very much like you to leave.”
Ava stood and walked towards the door. Stopping an inch away from Simmons, she said in a low voice, “Tomorrow, by noon.”
(36)
It was dark when she left One Canada Square, and a light drizzle was falling. Ava’s shirt and hair were damp by the time she got to the Canary Wharf tube station. The weather matched her mood. She had nearly lost Lily Simmons, and the way she had had to claw her way back depressed her. There were times when she came close to hating her job, and this was one of them. Well, I did what I had to do, she thought.
She reclaimed her bags and then debated whether to hail a taxi or take the subway to her hotel in Kensington. She checked the route map on the station wall. Kensington was just a few kilometres west of the very heart of Greater London, so she took the tube.
The drizzle had let up as she walked up the steps of High Street station and into Kensington. She had been to
