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I can make you an offer, but you have to move quickly.
For a moment, I was dumbfounded.Did I write that?But I hadn’t, and I knew I hadn’t. Jenny had sent Ramos that message. She didn’t even know who he was. She had zero idea about my business dealings. But Jenny had texted him. I’d just caught her in the act.
Ramos hadn’t responded—not yet. He would, of course. Everyone had a price, and he was no different. I turned my phone off and returned to my side of the bed. Jenny had posed as me and offered Ramos a bribe. I couldn’t believe it. I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, my mind racing. Why had she done it? What was her angle?
I couldn’t think straight. None of this made sense. Why on earth would she do that?
But then it hit me with a thud.
My fathersounded so smug on the phone earlier. He kept talking about Jenny and her influence over me. And now she’d offered Ramos a bribe for the deal my father had been pressuring me about.
Clearly, that had not been her idea.
But she’d done it. She’d done it, and she’d hidden it from me.
Jenny finished in the bathroom and crept back, unaware I’d discovered her betrayal. She climbed into bed and turned away from me, pretending to sleep. It was true, what I’d thought.
Everyone had a price.
I just didn’t realize that Jenny was everyone.
JENNY
When I wokeup the next morning, Cole was up and packing. “Oh! Do we have an early flight?” I asked, confused. I thought we were spending the morning at the spa and then flying home in the afternoon.
“Ihave an early flight,” Cole said. He wouldn’t look at me.
I sat up a little. “Aren’t we going together?”
“I don’t think so.” Cole’s voice was ice.
I felt sick to my stomach. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
“What do you mean?” I asked, but I already knew. I wanted to tell him the whole truth right then and there. But I remembered his father’s warning. If I ratted out Lewis Bryson, he would take it out on Cole. This wasn’t about just me and my past anymore. This was about the man I loved.
The man I loved, who still wouldn’t look at me.
“I mean that I’m flying back as soon as I can get to the airport.” Cole roughly folded a pair of pants and stuffed them into his suitcase.
“Can I… Can I come with you?” I knew what his answer would be, and tears flooded my eyes.
“No, you can’t.” Cole finally looked up at me. His cheeks were hollowed out, and he had faint dark circles under his eyes like he hadn’t slept all night. “I can’t have you around me right now.”
“Why not?” The tears spilled over.
“I think you know, Jenny. You don’t need to play dumb anymore,” Cole said. “I think you’ve been lying to me for long enough. Why’d you agree to come back, huh? Did my father offer you a bonus? Or was it the double-dipping—was it too good to pass up?”
I shook my head. “That’s not why I came back.”
“You think I’m going to believe one word that comes out of your mouth?” Cole closed his suitcase. “Ramos hasn’t texted you back yet, by the way. So you’ll have to tell my father you couldn’t close the deal, either. We’ll both be on his shit list.”
“Cole, please?—”
“And what about this, huh?” He grabbed my phone from the nightstand and furiously swiped at it. “A ten-thousand-dollar Venmo to someone in Boston a few days ago. And then yesterday,while we’re on fucking vacation, another one. Who was that to, huh? Your fuckingboyfriend?”
“Don’t be crazy!” I wailed. “There isn’t anybody but you!”
“How can I believe one word that comes out of your mouth? I should have known when you left the first time that I couldn’t trust you.” His voice rose. “But I brought you back. I couldn’t help myself. I brought you back and hoped that finally—even though you left me the first time—I’d found someone I could trust. Someone I could be myself around. Someone interested in more than my fucking bank account.”