Page 201 of My Ruthless Neighbor

The voice inside of me pities me. It tells me that I can’t keep lying to myself anymore.

“Are you listening to yourself?” Raleigh raises his voice. “You are accusing Summer of leaking our concept? Take a second and think, Archer. This is Summer. Your girlfriend. This is how you treat your woman? By disrespecting her in front of everyone. This is the second time—”

“Ask her where she was one week ago.” Archer cuts him off.

“What?”

“Go on. Ask her. The day when she canceled all her shoots. Nobody could get to her that day. Ask her where she was. Or better yet who she was with.”

Raleigh widens his stance. “I don’t have to ask her shit.” His voice has an edgier note to it. “I’ve known her my whole fucking life. I know she would never betray us like that. Summer is loyal by default. She would jeopardize her career for the ones she cares about. She would never do something like this to us.”

A tear escapes my eye. “Do you really think I could do it?” I stare at Archer, trying and failing to keep the pain from my voice.

I search his face for any trace of the caring man I fell in love with. When I don’t find it, I wonder if he ever was that man. The one who called me just to check if I reached home safely after a shoot. Is he the same man who ate my disastrous cooked dinner without a word to not hurt my feelings? Is he the man who held me in his arms throughout the time I was talking about my dead mother?

He doesn’t say anything. And I get my answer. A broken sob constricts my throat, cutting off the thoughts I couldn’t bring myself to voice anyway.

Hannah strokes my back. “I don’t know why you’re being like this, Archer. What’s wrong with you?”

“Something must’ve been wrong with me because I trusted a liar.” He could barely meet my eyes, he was that disgusted. The tiny hope I was clinging to all this time has shriveled up and died inside of me.

The tears flow down my face and I let them. I let everyone see me in my most vulnerable state. Something I hated. But now I have no fight left to hide behind a mask. Because that mask of a happy-go-lucky girl I used to wear has shattered and fallen off my face, revealing my true broken self.

He truly broke me this time.

“Do you have any evidence to support your allegation?” Cold disapproval rings in Hannah’s voice.

“Molly saw her having dinner with the CEO of Genesis Media, Lorna Garson a week ago when she went MIA.”

“So you’re telling me you chose to believe her over Summer?”

Instead of responding, Archer merely holds out his hand to the side. Molly fishes out her phone and puts it on his waiting palm.

He then passes the phone to Hannah. My eyes fall to the screen and find a picture of me and Lorna Garson with Goldie perched on a stool by my side as we eat at the patio of the restaurant in North Hollywood.

Hannah slowly lifts her head and stares at me wordlessly.

Is this seat taken?” The woman dressed in a pantsuit asks.

Before I could chew and swallow the mouthful, she was sitting across from me. “That’s the cutest dog you got there.”

I swallow the food and turn to stare at my son, Goldie. He is indeed the cutest fur ball ever. I thank God every day for his presence in my life. “Thanks,” I tell her, smiling.

“Do I know you?” I ask as I slurp on my chocolate milkshake.

“Yes and no. We’ve been in touch through emails but we are meeting for the first time. I’m Lorna Garson, CEO of Genesis Media.”

The straw slips out of my mouth. I sit straighter. “So you didn’t coincidently stumble upon me.”

Her agency has been literally harassing me through emails. I thought blocking their numbers and the email address would be the end of it. I thought wrong. “Are you guys following me?” I gasp.

Her face doesn’t lose her smile. “Only so we could have a chat.”

I can’t believe this lady. She admitted that her people are following me. But why?

“I’m sure you might have questions as to why I approached you like this. But we didn’t have any other option after our emails kept getting failed to deliver.”

“It’s because I blocked it,” I tell her straight up. “Why are you guys chasing me after I refused your offer multiple times? This is stalking, you know.”

---