Page 88 of Captivated By You

He’d added a link. I never clicked on links in messages or emails, but I doubted Simon had the knowledge to send me a virus or a Trojan horse to wipe my phone or steal my personal data.

The link took me to a grainy video. I squinted, trying to make it out. The lighting was awful, the quality dreadful. It took a few seconds, and then reality hit me right in the stomach, and the blood in my veins turned to ice.

No. God, no.

I squeezed my eyes shut in the vain hope that when I opened them, the horror unfolding before me disappeared. But it didn’t. My breath came in shallow sips, and I folded myself in half, my belly aching from the involuntary clench in my core. I wrapped an arm around my midriff, unable to tear my gaze away from the video.

Simon had recorded us having sex. Without mypermission. Without my fuckingknowledge.Why? Why would he do such a thing, and why send it to me now?

I shut the video down, making it to the bathroom just in time. I sank to the floor, curled my arms around the toilet, and emptied the contents of my stomach. Sweat poured down my temples as I clung to the pan, the cool ceramic doing nothing to quell the nausea.

I staggered to my feet and rinsed out my mouth. The sound of another text arriving reached me, and against my better judgment, I weaved into the bedroom and picked up my phone.

Simon: You always were a lousy lay. Look at you, lying there all limp while I did the fucking work.

He must have had a trace on the video, something that notified him when I viewed it. My hands trembled as I typed out a reply.

Me: What do you want from me?

Three dots appeared. I sucked in air in tiny sips, the room spinning, spots flashing before my eyes.

Simon: Nothing.

Me: Then why send me this?

Simon: I thought it only fair that you see it first. It’s private right now. But it won’t be for long.

My throat closed up as his message became clear. I let my legs fall out beneath me, crumpling onto the unmade bed.

Me: Simon, don’t. Please.

Simon: Too late. It’s done.

The phone tumbled from my shaking hands, getting lost in the sheets. I brought my knees up to my chest, rocking in place.

No. No, no, no.

This couldn’t be happening.

Not to me.

Not to Ash.

I opened my mouth and screamed. “Simon, you fucking bastard!”

Launching off the bed, I paced into the living room, then returned to the bedroom. Back and forth, I marched. My hands curled into fists, and I slammed them down on the mattress. Whom had he sent it to? Just Ash. Or maybe my mom. My friends. God, where did it end?

My mouth dried up, every drop of saliva vanishing. I tried to swallow, but my throat muscles refused to work.

Maybe he hadn’t made it public. Surely not even Simon was cruel enough to upload a sex tape to the internet. Except, as the thought shot into my mind, I knew the answer. He was exactly that cruel, that manipulative, that vengeful. He blamed me for losing his job, and he’d retaliated in the foulest way possible.

What did I do? How did I fix this? I paced some more, biting the skin around my thumbnail until it bled. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. The idea of Ash seeing that video… it broke me. And what if his parents saw it, or my mom and dad? My brothers? Coworkers? How would I face them?

God, the embarrassment for Ash and his family. To have an heir to the Kingcaid empire involved with someone stupid enough to trust a man like Simon Barlow. Someone so naïve that she hadn’t caught on to being filmed in such a compromising position.

The moment Simon made that video available for public consumption, whatever future I’d envisaged for me and Ash dissolved. I couldn’t stay here, work here, live here. The idea of people pointing and sniggering in huddles, reveling in my complete and utter humiliation. I wasn’t strong enough to deal with that. Anything but that. And sully Ash’s reputation? No. I refused to do that to him or to his family. Or to myself.

I knew what I had to do.

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