“Of course I don’t trust you, Ash!” Kallie exclaimed as she rose from her chair. “Look at all the things you’ve said to me! You can’t jump to conclusions just because someone says something bad about me. That isn’t how this works. You have to be able to trust me because of the person I am. Not the person people tell you I am. Especially people I have history with. An ex who I was supposed to marry. If you always jump to those kinds of conclusions, then we have absolutely no foundation on which to build any sort of a relationship!”
Kallie drew in a deep breath as her heart began to race.
“I’m sorry, Kallie. I don’t know what else to say other than that. Other than I’m working on changing who I am because I know I’m flawed.”
“And that’s great for you,” she said.
“I do want to trust you. And I know you don’t believe that, but I do. I really do. I want to prove myself to you. Will you let me do that?”
“This isn’t just about us, Ash,” she said breathlessly. “It’s all over the media. Still plastered all over the tabloids. We live in a fishbowl, and this kind of thing is going to continue popping up over and over and over again if we get back together.”
“Kallie, please—”
“Stop it, Ash.”
Kallie was finding it hard to keep her resolve. But she had to, because she’d taken all of Monday to think about it. And even if she still cared about him and even if she did want to be with him, fundamentally they couldn’t be together. He didn’t have the capacity to trust and she didn’t have the capacity to defend herself. No matter what steps they took together, the media would always pick them apart. Always scrutinize them. She would for
ever be watched. Judged for the actions she took. And Ash as well. That was how the media worked.
That wouldn’t change simply because Ash wanted to work on himself.
“Working on yourself is a great thing,” Kallie said, “and you should do that. Whether or not a woman is in your life. It’s obvious you’ve been drinking a lot. I can see it in your eyes. You can start working on that.”
“Am I talking to Pretty Kallie or Kallie Semple.”
“Is there a difference?” she asked. “Does there have to be?”
Ash sighed before he leaned his shoulder into the wall.
“The first step is you ditching the alcohol. You’re Ashly Worthington. Act like it,” she said. “Then your second thing is to address this issue you have with trusting others. Because it’s destroyed something you obviously want.”
“So that’s a ‘no’ then?” he asked.
“I have a life already, Ash. A life that is still floating about despite what happened with the interview. That was the constant through all this. Not you. My career was here. My customers were here. The need for my expertise was here. You were the one that left, Ash.”
“I know,” he said with a sigh.
“Maybe we could’ve lived our lives in the media spotlight had we come out to the public in a more subtle or more positive fashion. But we didn’t. James manipulated the media narrative to fit whatever motive that was driving him, so our relationship will always be looked at from that lens. If we get back together, we’ll be hunted, Ash. The press will come for our private life and try to destroy its very foundation before we can get it off the ground. And you’ve already trusted the press over me once.”
“It won’t happen again, Kallie. I swear it.”
“You can swear all you want, but all I have to go on is past behavior. And if we really want to get nasty, you’ve got distrusting me, slandering me in public, and lying. At my very worst, I’ve got ‘hearing my ex out after running away to an island,’” she said.
“Please don’t do this,” Ash said. “Please give me another chance.”
“I don’t want my private life splashed across the tabloids, Ash. I’m not welcome in the ranks of the rich and famous. You and everyone else at that party—minus Stanley—made that perfectly clear to me. All I want to do is build my business and be left alone.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” she said. “We don’t work well together. We have great sex, sure. But our personalities don’t work. I’m trusting to a fault, and you aren’t capable of it. I see the best in everyone, and you always look for their worst traits. And to round it all out, you run from people before they can get the best of you. You’re right, Ash. You do need to work on yourself. But not at the price of trying to get me back. Because there’s nothing to get back.”
“Kallie, ple—”
“Stop with the begging,” she said. “Just ... just stop.”
Watching him hurt was too much. She wanted to reach out to him. She wanted to wrap him up in her arms, pull him close, and tell him everything was going to be okay. But she had to look out for her happiness now. She had to repair what was left of her life before she could take on anyone else’s. She had a broken heart that had been shattered twice, which meant she had to sew the broken pieces back together as best as she could. She had a business she needed to keep growing if she ever wanted to get out of her small apartment and live any sort of decent life. She had to keep a low profile until all of this stuff with the media blew over, and she still had to implement tactics to keep her business afloat if the delayed effects of James’s interview did hurt her clientele and her reputation.
“You need to leave,” Kallie said.