Page 108 of One Last Time
I take the laptop off the floor, open it, and place it on the bed. “Let’s not pretend. Don’t insult me more than you alreadyhave.”
Kristin moves to the laptop, and she shakes her head. When her eyes meet mine, they’re filled with fear. “I didn’t writethat.”
“No, you already said youdid.”
Her lip starts to tremble. “I swear. That’s not what Isent!”
“Is it not what you sent or did you think you had more time before I read it? I can’t fucking believe this. I can’t believeyou!”
“Noah—” She steps toward me, but I move back. “Noah, please. I didn’t write that. It’s not my article! I swear! I wrote about your job, the new role you took playing a man who fights for the woman he loves, I talked about how kind you are, and the charities you’re involved in, nothing about Tanya! I wouldnever!”
I grip the side of my head as I feel as if it’ll explode. My God, I’m being ripped apart. I want to believe her, but it’s all there. “How the hell did everything I told you get in there? It has your name on it, Kristin! I haven’t told a soul in twenty years about what happened, and then it’s suddenly on the goddamn internet two weeks later? Tell me,” I step to her. “Tell me howthen.”
I’m a rational guy, she says she didn’t do it, then I need to see what she did submit. Because right now, there’s nothing showing meotherwise.
“I’ll show you my email! You can see that I didn’t send it.” Kristin grabs the laptop, but I pull itaway.
Right now, I don’t trust anything. I don’t even trust myself. All I want is for what she says to be true. But I can’t let my guard down, I’m weak to her. I have no idea if she’ll delete it or try to cover her tracks. I need to be one hundred percentsure.
“Tell me your password. I’lllook.”
Her breath catches, and she sits beside me. “You seriously think I would dothis?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Iadmit.
She drops her head and sniffs. “I thought we were better thanthis.”
“Just show me how the article on your blog, with your name and the details from Tanya’s death I told you about, wasn’t you, and I’ll believe you. The last thing I wanted is this, Kristin. All I fucking want is you, and I’m trying to come up with something that makessense.”
Kristin’s blue eyes meet mine, and I hate seeing the anguish swirling around, but she has to give me something, no matter how small, to hold on to. “Fine, open the email and you’ll see. I didn’t do this to you. I would never do this to you. I love you, Noah.” Her voice breaks at the end, which equally breaks me. “Erica is the editor-in-chief, she could override anything. So, I don’t know, maybe someone told her, and she edited myarticle.”
I want to be wrong. If this email isn’t there, I’ll grovel at her feet and then destroy the person who did this. She tells me the password, and I load her email. I go to the sent folder, praying to God the email isn’tthere.
I scan down and see two emails to Erica. The subject of the most recent one reads: URGENT-Use this for thearticle.
The email opens, and there’s no hopeleft.
I look to Kristin, who is standing against the wall. “I guess my story was worth more than what we had. Don’t worry, Kristin, I won’t push you off the ledge like you just did to me. Guess it was my turn tofall.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Kristin
“Just listen to me!”I clutch his wrist as he walks out of the room. “I didn’t dothis!”
Noah rips his arm away and pins me with a stare filled with disgust. “Stop fucking lying! I can’t look at you right now. Just letgo!”
Pain slices through my heart as he rejects me. He hates me. I see it in his eyes, and my lips tremble. I needhim.
“I’m not leaving!” I stand my ground as I rack my brain for anything to explain this. I didn’t send that email. I would never tell anyone about his past. “We have to talk. You can’t push me away because I loveyou!”
He gets nose to nose with me, closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again, and breathes heavily. “We’re done. There’s nothing more to say. I want you out of my placenow.”
“You have to believe me, Noah. Please, youknowme. You love me, and we have to figure this out. I don’t know how this happened, but I swear to God I didn’t do this! Why would I want to hurt you? Don’t you see . . . this doesn’t makesense?”
“So out of nowhere, everything I told you is suddenly exposed? All the details of my life are there for the world to see, under your name and sent from your email. Yet, you didn’t do it? Do you think I’m that stupid? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Or did you think you already got what you needed and didn’tcare?”
His words wound me deeper than anything I’ve ever heard before. He doesn’t believe me, and I don’t know how to prove it. All I know is I didn’t send that email. I didn’t write those words, and I didn’t tell anyone what he said tome.
