Until that damn voice message.
He knew he’d lied to her. At the very least, he had misled her without correcting her interpretation of him. But he wasn’t trying to steal her money. He wasn’t intentionally conning some sort of plan with a friend of his to drain her for all she was worth. But the more he found himself around Kallie, the more his heart and his mind fought. The more they clashed. And little by little, his soul was stepping in to resolve the argument.
He needed to get back to the city.
He needed to get away from Kallie.
And he would do that once his hangover went away.
He washed himself down, scrubbing the stench of Sasha off his skin. The nerve of that woman. But then again, he did use her. He didn’t push away her advances when she first initiated them. And he had shown up for the weekend just to attend her party. Fuck. Ash needed to get a hold on himself again. If his antics continued to appear in the papers, he knew his father would pay him a visit. Which was something he didn’t want. The last thing he needed was to stare that man in the face and see any part of himself in that man’s eyes.
It was enough that they looked exactly alike.
Ash gathered himself together enough to call Clyde to come get him. He packed up his things and contacted the maid, letting her know that he was leaving and she was free to clean the house. He slid into the back seat of the car and told Clyde to take him home, then he immediately rolled up the partition between the two of them.
But his mind wouldn't shut off.
He kept replaying that voice message in his head. The one from Eris’s phone. Did she really leave the island because of his lie? Because if she did, then that contradicted those text messages. Was there a way for them to have faked that kind of thing? He was sure there was. Then again, Eris was right about another thing. It was very easy to fake text messages as well. Ash knew it would plague him if he didn’t get to the bottom of things. Even if he dug and al
l he found was more proof that Kallie’s ex was right, he had to do something.
Anything to keep his mind off drinking away her memory.
“Investigative Probabilities, this is—”
“Chanel. It’s Ash,” he said.
“Oh. Well hello, Mr. Worthington. To what do I owe the weekend phone call?” she asked.
“Are you still on the family’s payroll?” he asked.
“The last time I checked my bank account, yes.”
“Good. I need you to do something for me. Are you familiar with James Rathbone’s interview?”
“Everyone is,” she said plainly.
“I need you to figure out the truth behind those text messages,” he said. “Because I’m not sure if they’re real or not.”
“You want to know if James is telling the truth.”
“For now, I’ll settle for whether or not those messages are real or faked,” he said.
“It’s pretty dicey to get phone records without a warrant, Mr. Worthington. But I do have a tech guy I know that works miracles in exchange for some favors. Maybe I can persuade him—”
“I honestly don’t care,” he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can you do it or not?”
“Of course I can, Mr. Worthington. You’d be surprised how many times fake text messages come up in divorce proceedings. Faking text messages is easy. Proving they’re fake takes some time. But I can figure it out. It’s why your father keeps me on retainer. Is there anything else you want on Mr. Rathbone?”
“Anything you’ve got on his public and private reputation,” he said.
“I’ll call you the minute I have something,” she said.
“Thanks. Oh, and the sooner you can have all of this to me, the bigger the tip I’ll be encouraged to leave you.”
“I read you loud and clear, Mr. Worthington.”
Ash hung up to the phone and closed his eyes for the rest of the trip. Chanel Clodfelter was the best private investigator in the state of New York. The police departments regularly contracted work out to her until his father experienced someone embezzling from his company. He reached out to her to fish out who it was, and within a week she had not only a name, but also a file folder’s worth of proof to take straight to the courts. My father tripled her yearly salary from what the police departments paid her on a regular basis, then she sat and waited until we called.