“I did. And she wasn’t even the one to tell me. I didn’t know about Ash until the picture of them in Central Park holding hands was plastered all over the papers. She didn’t even tell me about him.”
This man was disgusting. There was no way any of this was true.
And then, James started producing evidence. One by one, screenshots of text messages from Kallie’s phone started filling the screen. Conversations with Eris outlining a plan to use the honeymoon to try and catch him. Ash’s stomach dropped. Message after message flooded the screen. So many it made his head spin. Dates and times and the last four numbers of Kallie’s number. All there in front of his eyes.
“How did you come across these messages?” the woman asked.
But Ash was no longer paying attention to the interview.
All he could do was look at the messages. Text messages that outlined the plan so effortlessly. A heartless plan to trap him. Messages about their first encounter together. How Kallie had “made the right decision” and how “she couldn't thank Eris enough for her support.” Messages about the day they spent together. How “romantic it had been” and that Kallie “felt she was on the right path to freedom.” How she never thought her “rebound guy” could’ve turned into “something better for her life” and how “she made the right choice in not going back.” That things were “almost complete” and that she couldn't wait to “get home and live the rest of her life.”
And Kallie was nothing, if not organized.
Ash couldn’t believe it. The whole fucking time he’d been worried about shacking himself up with a gold digger, and now he’d let one in the first time he dropped his guard . What the fuck was going on? How the hell had he let Kallie in that far? How could he not have seen it? She was good, he’d give her that. He could sniff out a gold digger five miles away.
Kallie kept telling him to trust her, and he had. But looking at these messages on the screen, it was clear as day. Now he had definitive proof for the nagging voice at the back of his head that kept telling him to be careful.
Kallie had been planning to trap Ash for his money.
His ass hit the couch and his phone hit the floor. He looked down to his feet and swore he could see his heart bleeding on the floor. He put his head in his hands and fisted the tendrils of his hair, trying to calm the anger rising in his stomach.
He’d trusted her. Pursued her. Chased her.
Loved her.
And she was nothing but the kind of woman he had tried to avoid.
Chapter 24
Kallie
Kallie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Those text messages were utter bullshit! She hadn’t sent any of those to Eris. They didn’t even message while she was there. They talked on the damn phone. And what was this crazy shit about her leaving him? He fucked one of her bridesmaids! The wife of his damn best man!
Why was James lying like this?
Kallie sat in her office watching the interview as call after call came into her videoconferencing. She ignored all of them, sending off messages that she was unexpectedly out of the office for the day and would call them to reschedule. But they all knew. The entire fucking country knew what was going on.
The problem was, absolutely none of it was true.
Eris kept calling her, but she kept shooting the calls to voice mail. Was James really that big of an asshole? Was he so butthurt at her leaving him after he cheated that he had to go and slander her entire reputation to the entire nation? And what was Ash thinking right now? She knew it couldn't be good. The only reason she knew those text messages were fake was because she was one of the parties called into question. But even Kallie had to admit that the messages looked real. Whoever James got to fabricate those insane things was good.
But Kallie never deleted Eris’s messages.
All she had to do was show Ash that she hadn’t talked to Eris via text message at all. Only on the phone while she was on the island.
Kallie ignored another phone call from Eris before she dialed Ash’s number. But he didn’t pick up. She hung up and called again, but this time it sent her to voice mail. She opened up a text message—ironically enough—and messaged him. And she saw that he read them. But he didn’t respond.
So she called one last time before she began to panic.
Something was wrong. Which told her he’d seen the interview. And if he wasn’t picking up, that meant that James was somewhat making sense to him. She had to get to him. She had to take a page out of his book and go to him, front and center. She closed her laptop after putting on her “out of the office” notification on her email, then slammed out the room. She ran down the stairs and darted across the street, horns honking and cars slamming on their brakes. She ran into the parking garage and hurried into her car, then wasted no time getting to Ash’s place.
She was going to confront him with the truth if he wasn’t going to pick up.
She smoothed her hands over her blouse, then rang his doorbell. She shuffled on her feet with her phone in her hand, prepared to show him the last message she sent to Eris. She was in the airport about to take off, then there isn’t another message from her until after she landed back home again. She had her call logs ready to show him their phone calls, but there were no text messages in sight.
It took a long time for Ash to finally be heard behind the door. And to Kallie, it seemed as if he considered not answering.
He opened the door and relief flooded her veins until she saw the cold look in his eyes. Instead of stepping off to the side, Ash blocked her from his apartment. Looming over her with a dark look on his face.