Ash

His social media feed was blowing up. Scores of people tagged him in Twitter feeds and people on Instagram were showering his pictures with nasty messages. That fucking video. James fucking Rathbone. A damn tell-all interview exposing Kallie as a fraud, a liar, and a gold digger.

Fuck.

He sat on his couch and watched the interview, and it was disgusting. The things he was saying were hard to dispute, and Ash felt himself being torn. On the one hand, he believed Kallie about that picture. James Rathbone looked like the kind of asshole who would manipulate a situation to get his way.

But it was a fucking national interview.

There had to be some merit to it.

“So what made you want to bring this to the public’s attention, Mr. Rathbone?”

“Simple,” James said. “Women like Kallie have always been after money and attention. My family warned me time and time again about her gold-digging ways, but I didn’t listen. I was in love with her. Head over heels. I was ready to move anywhere I needed to be and support her in any way necessary. And then Kallie left me at the altar.”

“Bullshit,” Ash said as he stood from the couch.

He turned on his television and blasted the entire interview throughout his apartment.

“She left you at the altar? Why?”

“Because she set her sights on a bigger fish,” James said. “And while I don’t want to drag her name through the mud, I do want to highlight that this is an issue that plagues the upper one percent. I know that’s an unpopular opinion to have, but with all of the progressive feminist movements happening in our age today, it’s important to know that women like her set those movements back. Kallie Semple is just one of a massive horde of women who hunt men down for their money. Women like Kallie set women’s rights and movements back decades.”

“Some people would say you’re doing this out of spite,” the woman said. “But you say you’re doing it out of some sort of respect for the feminist movement?”

“I try to support in my own way. I donate to their causes. I volunteer my time at women’s shelters. And every time a friend of mine comes to me and talks about how he got swindled by a woman who wanted nothing more than his money, it makes me burn. All of these women out there are trying to find equality in a world dominated by people like me, but the war has to be fought on both fronts. Men who take advantage of women need to be exposed, of course. But women who take advantage of men need to be exposed as well.”

“It’s an interesting theory, Mr. Rathbone. And a theory you speak of thoroughly in this article.”

The woman held up the fucking New York Times and Ash roared out into his apartment.

“In the article, you talk about how things ended with you and Miss Semple,” the woman said. “Do you care to elaborate for us?”

“Kallie and I planned our honeymoon together. Two weeks in St. Barts. Ash Worthington has a bungalow there at the resort we were staying at, and her plans changed.”

“Are you saying she planned to go to St. Barts for the explicit purpose of getting close to Mr. Worthington?”

“I’m honestly not sure. I don’t want to believe that about her, but it’s hard not to. At first, she didn’t really care about the honeymoon. Then all of a sudden, she was insistent on St. Barts. She grew distant. We didn’t see each other much. I figured it was pre-wedding jitters, and then she didn’t show up for the wedding. Left me high and dry. I didn’t even know what had happened to her until a charge came through on my credit card.”

“A charge?” the woman asked.

“Drinks,” James said with a chuckle. “My card was linked to our private bungalow for room service and drink service. That’s how I knew she took the trip to St. Barts anyway. After standing me up. She went to the island, conveniently found one of the wealthiest men on the East Coast, and she did it all on my dime. I mean, who does that? What woman doesn’t show up to her own wedding and then goes on the honeymoon trip alone? We all know they’re back in town together. Pictures of them in Central Park have been taken. You mean to tell me she’s back in town with a new billionaire boyfriend, and somehow these dots aren’t all connected somehow?”

“You sound like a bitter ex,” the woman said.

“I’m bitter because I loved her,” James said. “With every fiber of my being. I sold my apartment. Moved into a massive house I was readying for her to move into. She didn’t want to move until after we were married. She was hell-bent on staying independent until the last possible second. And now that I think of it, maybe I was blind. Maybe ... maybe she didn’t have any plans of marrying me at all.”

Ash couldn't tear his eyes away from the man on the screen. He watched James’s stare glisten over before he cleared his throat. Oh, the man was good. And even though he sounded very convincing, he had to trust Kallie. He trusted Kallie. He had to keep telling himself that. His Pretty Kallie wasn’t the type to do the kinds of things this man was talking about. According to her, James was the one who called off the wedding. Who was caught cheating with one of her bridesmaids. And her friend at the club backed that story up.

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.