Avoiding Temptation (Avoiding 3)

The judge kept the photograph for now, but he relinquished the dress back into Lexi’s protection. Clark had a few words with Jack before leaving, and Lexi was glad that Clark hadn’t tried to speak with her. She wasn’t sure what she would have been able to say to him. He had been unnecessarily cruel. Sure, it had been to Bekah, who deserved everything that was coming to her and more, but Lexi didn’t want to have to face him for that.

Bekah’s father ushered her out of the courtroom in a hurry, and Lexi and Jack followed close behind them with a smile. Lexi could hear the hushed whispers passing between Bekah and her father as he berated her. Lexi only knew that was happening because she had been around the Bridges enough to pick up on their mannerisms.

Jack stood at her side, a smile bright on his face. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “We’re free.”

Lexi smiled brighter.

“I love you,” he said.

Lexi looked up into Jack’s gorgeous face, and she knew without a doubt that a day had not passed when she did not love this man. “I love you, too.”

They walked by Bekah and her father on the way out of the building, and Lexi heard the word bitch echo behind her. Lexi raised her eyebrows and stopped in her tracks.

“Just give me a minute,” Lexi told Jack.

He looked warningly at her, but she just gave him a reassuring smile and turned back to face Bekah.

“What the f**k do you want?” Bekah snapped as Lexi approached.

“Rebekah!” her father said. He knew that anyone could be listening. He was a pro at this.

“I just wanted to say thanks for everything,” Lexi said, a glint in her brown eyes.

She tossed the red dress into Bekah’s chest, and Bekah caught it instinctively.

“I thought you could wear that since all you were ever good enough for was my sloppy seconds.”

“You bitch!” Bekah snarled, lunging toward Lexi.

Lexi’s eyes went wide, and she staggered backward a few feet out of Bekah’s reach. Bekah’s father grabbed her around the middle and held her back.

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

Flashes went off overhead, catching the entire thing on camera. A reporter appeared in her line of vision. It was clear a story was already forming in the reporter’s head.

Bridges Enterprise Golden Girl, Bekah Bridges, Lashes Out At Ex-husband’s New Girlfriend. Father Restrains Raving Lunatic.

Okay, so Lexi’s imagination had embellished the last part, but it would be a good headline.

“You think you won?” Bekah snapped. “I f**king won. You don’t even know what I did. You and Ramsey will never be together. I ensured that when I planted that whore, Elisa.”

Lexi gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth as the words sank in. Suddenly, it all made sense—how Elisa got into the party in the first place and why she was so eager to keep coming back to attack Ramsey, even when it was clearly a lost cause.

The realization made Lexi feel so bad for Ramsey. They’d had to go through all of that for nothing because his sister was the devil. Lexi wished she had known from the beginning. It could have made all the difference in their relationship. She bit her lip and considered what Bekah had orchestrated. But in the end…it probably wouldn’t have changed all that much. It would have had the same outcome. Knowing it now though just made Lexi’s chest feel lighter. Ramsey was the man that he had always said he was. Lexi knew that for sure now.

“That’s right! I helped her,” Bekah said, clearly teetering off the edge. “And I helped Parker find that paperwork. She came to me, wanting to prove that she was right, and so I proved that she was right.”

“Did you manufacture the clinic paperwork?” Lexi asked, imagining how devastated Ramsey would be all over again to hear that. She couldn’t believe how low Bekah had stooped to put a wedge between Lexi and Ramsey.

“I didn’t have to. My brother was an idiot,” she said.

Her father tried to quiet her, but she just brushed past him.

“I just knew the right person to ask to get the paperwork Parker had been looking for. And now, you don’t have him!”

Lexi nodded. She didn’t have Ramsey anymore. And maybe part of that was because of Bekah and what she had done. But the pieces had already been in place. The cracks had already been there. Their relationship hadn’t fractured because of Bekah. They had just fallen apart. She hoped that whatever Ramsey did after this…he got the hell away from his crazy sister.

“You know, Bekah?” Lexi asked, ignoring the reporters and stepping up to meet her. “I truly pity you.”

“Don’t pity me. I have the world.”

“You have nothing—at least nothing that really matters. The only things you care about are money, status, and your precious reputation. They motivated you and deluded you into thinking that you were happy. But all of these things can leave you in the blink of an eye. Once they’re all gone, what do you have? Nothing. Your brother despises you. Your husband left you. Your best friend can’t even trust you. And you turn to complete strangers for the attention you desperately crave, and you mistake that for love,” Lexi told her. “So, I’ll repeat myself. I pity you, and still, I think it’s more than you’re worth.”

She felt Jack place his hand on her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

Lexi shook her head at Bekah, knowing another sharp retort was coming. But Lexi was over it. She wasn’t marrying into the Bridges family. Jack was free of Bekah. Lexi had said her peace. Lexi would be happy to never see the Bitch again for the rest of her life.

“Yeah,” she said, looking Bekah up and down with disgust. “Let’s go.”

“Jack!” Bekah all but shrieked. “Here take this filthy thing.” She hurled the glittery diamond ring into his chest, and he caught it easily in his hand.

He stared down at it for a second. “No, you keep it. It was made for you,” he said, tossing it uselessly back in her direction. “I still have the one that means something to me.”

Bekah gasped. “You mean she was right? You gave me a fake?”

“Oh, it's real, but you were never getting my grandmother’s ring.”

Lexi covered her mouth to keep from laughing hysterically at Bekah, whose mouth was just hanging open. Jack draped an arm around Lexi’s waist and guided her away. Bekah started calling out to them even as they walked back to Jack’s car.