Kallie wouldn’t rope her friend into that kind of lie.
Right?
“So what happened when Kallie returned back from the island?” the woman asked.
“I tried to get her back. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Even though she stood me up and even though it broke my heart, I wanted her back. Would’ve done anything to get her back. And for a while, it worked.”
“What do you mean ‘it worked’?” the woman asked.
“For a few days there, we saw each other. Got together. And I thought things would be okay. We talked out the wedding and what happened, and she admitted to being nervous about the wedding. To being self-conscious about all the people that would’ve attended that day. And, being the idiot I was, I offered her another chance. We could have a small wedding anywhere she wanted. Hell, I’d take her to the courthouse and we could be married with nothing but a magistrate and two witnesses! And I almost fell for it. She convinced me to buy her this beautiful necklace and everything to go with her future wedding dress. I thought we were rekindling our romance, hence the picture of us outside of that restaurant.”
“Then you found out about Mr. Worthington.”
“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.