Page 31 of What Goes Around

Nick POV

Two years had passed since the wedding that shattered everything.

Two years since I’d walked away from the only woman I had ever loved. I had told myself I was over it. Over her. I had built a life around pretending she didn’t exist.

So when I saw Thomas that morning, standing by the pumps at a gas station, I almost kept walking.

“Nick,” he said quietly. “I need to talk to you.”

I should’ve kept going. Every instinct told me to.

But something in his voice stopped me.

Tight. Strained. Desperate.

“You’ve got some fucking nerve,” I muttered. “What could you possibly—”

“It’s about Ashley.”

Everything in me went still.

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.

I hadn’t heard anyone speak it out loud in years. Everyone knew not to.

I forced my face into stone. “What about her?”

Thomas swallowed. “She didn’t do it.”

I let out a short, sharp laugh. “Really?”

“I’m serious,” he snapped. “It wasn’t her. Someone pretended to be her. Used her number. Used her photos. I didn’t know.”

My jaw tightened, but I didn’t let anything else show.

“Convenient,” I said coldly.

“I thought it was her,” he went on, his voice rough. “The messages, the calls… it sounded like her. Looked like her. I had no reason to question it. But it was not her.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not,” he insisted. “And I need your help… she’s missing.”

“What?”

“I tried to contact her after she was discharged from the hospital,” he said. “But her phone was off. Her mother claims she went abroad to ‘start fresh,’ but none of it adds up. She had hospital appointments—”

“Hospital appointments?” My chest tightened. “For what?”

He looked at me like I was the insane one.

“For the acid attack.”

I froze.

“What?” The word tore out of me.

“You didn’t know,” he breathed. “Shit. Nick… I thought you knew.”