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She shakes her head no.
“All of this because of Evan?” I press, and her eyes whip up to mine. Red-rimmed.
“I just want to make sure you’re the person I think you are.”
“Says the woman who broke into my office to give me an ultimatum,” I counter in a low tone.
Her expression flinches, as if my words struck her.
A heavy sigh leaves me. “If there’s no other choice…”
I have to pace, needing an outlet for the anger and fear coursing through me, so that I can force myself to go back to a time that I’ve blocked out for damn good reasons.
“When I found out,” I tell her, “it tore me apart. I went to a very dark place for a long time, and I’ll admit, I spent a lot of personal time and money digging into Olivia and Evan. I kept asking myself how I could’ve missed the signs. Signs that Olivia was unhappy, that Evan was a monster, that they were fucking right behind my back.” I shake my head, remembering.
“What happened to Olivia?” Raven asks me. “Evan said she left town after you ruined her.”
I bark out a laugh, which sounds more bitter than I would have thought considering how old the wound is. “Honestly, I don’t know,” I say. “When Olivia betrayed me, I had one last meeting with her in my apartment at the time. She tried to apologize, said it ‘just happened’, but I was cold and blunt, told her it didn’t matter anymore. I gave her a file box with the things she’d been keeping at my place and took back my key. Other than that, I never kept up with her. I didn’t even askfor the engagement ring back or the wedding rings I left on her doorknob. None of it meant anything anymore.” It dawns on me as I tell her that the pain I prepared to feel isn’t there. When I look back to Raven, though, staring at me like she’s hoping I say all the right things to ease her worries, the agony I felt returns.
I offer more. “I imagine, Evan tossed her aside soon after. He didn’t care about her. She was a means to an end, a way to hurt me.” I release a shaky breath as I sit on the desk’s edge again. “It worked. But it was a long time ago. Years at this point.”
“Years ago or not, it’s still working,” she reminds me gently as she puts her hand on my thigh. “It’s still hurting you or I wouldn’t be sitting here as your means to an end to hurt him. That’s what it is between us, remember?”
The similarity is painfully uncomfortable, but Raven and I have moved well beyond the revenge scenario we began with. What I feel for her has nothing to do with Evan. However, my desire for justice remains.
“Wherever Olivia is, it’s her business and her life,” I tell Raven succinctly, covering her hand with my own as if I can hold her here with me. “I’m not going to waste my time on her any longer. Evan’s different. Hypocritical, I suppose.”
“And what about Evan? The email with the blackmail?” she questions.
“What email?”
She rattles off a date and time.
“What are you talking about?” I ask her, and she looks at me like I’m lying to her. Not that prick Evan.
I swap places with her, and though it takes me a few minutes, going into my email and searching up the email Evan wanted deleted, I eventually pull it up on the middle one of my screens, letting Raven read it all. “This… this is nothing,” Raven says, her brows knit together in confusion. “Why would he want me to do that? What does he have to gain from having me delete an email you probably haven’t looked at in six years?”
“This is why,” I reply, getting up and walking out of my office. Once I’m past the doorway’s threshold, I hold my phone up so she can see it. “Do it. Delete the message.”
Unsure, she sits back in my chair, her eyes bouncing from me to the screen as she moves the mouse. She clicks, and my phone buzzes. I walk up to my desk, showing her the notification I just received.
On my home screen is a security alert from my personal system… and a photo from my webcam, showing her looking at the monitor.
“How…?”
“He knew about the security systems I have in place,” I explain, dismissing the alert. Immediately, the email reappears in my inbox, and I go back to her side. “No computer can delete any of my personal files without three layers of security. One, you’ve got to be logged onto my system, which requires a biometric password. Two, my phone has to be near the computer, or else the security system is triggered.”
“What?” she says as she processes it all.
“If someone skips step two, you see what happens. My phone gets an alert, allowing me to confirm the deletion… or let the person who did it think it’s been deleted until I dismiss the alert.”
“That… but why would he tell me it was blackmail?”
“Evan knows, and he likely has it himself. My guess is he was trying to sabotage us. He knew if I saw that picture, I’d assume the worst of you. That you’d betrayed me like Olivia did.”
“And then I went and did it. I came here to confront you.”
“You didn’t log in and try to delete it. And I know you know my login at this point.” Her eyes meet mine, and she doesn’t deny it.
