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“You heard me. If she’s part of this, we’ll know if she pays him.”
“She’s not part of this,” I ground out. How many times did I have to say it?
“Then she can give his ring back.”
I ran a hand over my face, suddenly exhausted. Fuck. She buried the stupid thing.
“She lost it. I gave her the money to pay him off.”
“Excuse me?”
“She lost the ring.” I wasn’t telling him about the bulldog rock. “She has zero money. You should see her tiny apartment. No way is rich Mommy and Daddy footing her lifestyle. She’s making it on her own just fine, but doesn’t have fifty K to throw at a loser ex. I asked Aspen to come with me to LA to fix the rehab gossip that was spreading about me. The film role was at stake. She refused, not wanting anything real.”
“I bet you hated that.”
“Yeah. I proposed she be my fake girlfriend instead. And I paid her.”
“You’re supposed to be an investigator or something in the new movie, right?”
Why was he asking about the film? “Yeah.”
“Well, you suck. I can’t believe you did all this.”
“How was I to know? You didn’t tell me shit.”
“She must be a fantastic lay.”
A growl rumbled in my chest. “Watch it, asshole.”
“You care about her.”
From my pocket, I pulled the thong I took off her the first night we met. Weird that I carried them around? Hell, yeah. But I didn’t give a shit.
“Of course, I care. One look, Mark. One fucking look was all it took. I told you she wasn’t involved and to leave her the fuck alone.”
“I did until her ex reached out to her. And you should’ve walked away, too. That family’s trouble.”
“Walk away from Aspen? Not possible.”
“Well, I’ll be able to keep your ass clean, but if she gives him that money and he uses it as I imagine, she’s going to jail.”
“She can’t go to jail because of me.”
Holy fuck. She’d done nothing wrong. The FBI had been sniffing around her because of her dick ex and his connection to her mother. I told Mark he was way off with Aspen. Warned him away.
Did it matter? No. Because of some random meeting with her parents because of me put her right back in front of the FBI. And the money I gave her to help her out? That would put her in jail?
“She can,” he told me.
Maybe he was right. If I’d left her alone, she wouldn’t be in the situation she was in. And didn’t even know it. I had to help her.
“FUCK!” I shouted, the sound echoing off the walls of my empty house. I had to be on a plane to India in two days.
What the fuck was I going to do?
44
ASPEN
