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“What! That’s a lie and you know it. I never sent any such text to you,” she snapped.
“And I never sent any such text to you,” he snapped back.
“Well, if you didn’t who did?” she asked.
“I can ask you the same thing. Just so you know, I still have your text on my phone as a reminder of what a fool I was for loving you.”
She lifted her chin. “And I still have yours on my phone for the same reason.”
The room got quiet and he stared at her. Then as if of one accord she moved to get her phone out of her purse, and he pulled his out of his jeans. He was glad he’d decided to take a photo of the text. Like he’d told her, he had kept it as one of those mistakes to never make again.
When he swiped a few screens to find what he was looking for, he handed her his phone, and she handed him hers. The photo on her phone clearly showed the call had been made from his phone and what it said. She was right, considering what they’d done the night before, it had been a crass text.
He looked up when she gasped after reading the one he had accused her of sending to him. She met his gaze with shock on her face. “I swear on my grandparents’ graves that I never sent this, Dylan.”
Dylan stared at her with measured eyes. “And I swear on my grandparents’ graves that I never sent this text to you either.” He handed her phone back to her and she returned his. That’s when he said, “And I guess you knew nothing about those goons posted outside your hotel the next day either?”
She frowned. “What goons?”
“When I got your text message I refused to believe you could write such a thing after the night we spent together. After all we had meant to each other. At least I refused to believe it until I caught a cab to your hotel and two men who claimed to be your bodyguards were waiting for me, as if they’d expected me to show up. They told me you meant what you said in the text and warned me that if I tried contacting you again they would break my fingers so I’d never play another instrument.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath. “I knew nothing about those men, Dylan. I’ve never had bodyguards.”
“Well, whoever hired them made them aware of what was in your text, which made things more believable to me.”
She dropped down on the sofa in the room. “I knew nothing about them.”
“What about the ring?”
She looked up at him. “What ring?”
Dylan didn’t say anything for a minute and then after shoving his hands in his pockets, he said, “Even after getting that text and being threatened by those men, I still flew to Alaska at the end of the summer to see you when the band got back from England.”
“So you did go to England?”
“Yes, but we didn’t leave the day after our night together as that text claims. The band didn’t get that promoter’s offer to play the summer in the UK for at least three days after I supposedly sent that text to you. So it seems whoever sent those texts made sure I had a job in England that summer like the text said I would.”
Who in the hell would have gone through all that trouble to break them up? Whoever was behind it had the means to orchestrate a deceitful scheme, especially with the timing of the text messages. He suddenly had a sinking feeling he knew the identity of the person, and from the look on Charm’s face she did, too.
“When I returned from England I sought you out in Anchorage,” he said. “You weren’t home and one of your neighbors mentioned you often went to a coffee shop on Saturday mornings and told me how to get there.” He paused a moment and then continued. “I was determined that you were going to break up with me to my face and not take the coward’s way out by sending some damn text message. I walked in just when you were showing off a promise ring to your friends. That’s when I turned and walked out.”
She stared at him. “You left because you thought I had gotten the ring from another guy?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Yes, but that guy was my brother Garth. The woman he loved and had planned to marry had been killed during a military maneuver. He’d intended to give her a promise ring the night she died with plans to buy her a more expensive engagement ring when they were no longer deployed. As a way to move on after her death, he gave the ring to me.” She got silent for a minute and then said, “I do recall that morning I was showing it off to my friends. I had no idea you’d come to Alaska to see me.”
“Well, I did.”
The room was silent again.
“We were played against each other, Dylan. I believe I know who and I think you do, too. My father. He must have found out we were still seeing each other.”
“It had to have been your father.” Dylan rubbed his hands down his face. He then looked over at her. “You said he could be ruthless and manipulating, but I never thought he would go to those extremes to get back at us for defying him. But then look how far you intended to go to get even with me when you believed I had wronged you.”
“But at least you know why,” she said in her defense.
“I know why, but I don’t understand why. I thought you had wronged me yet getting even with you never crossed my mind. When I ran into you in Cancún the first thought that came to my mind was closure. I needed closure with you after ten years. But the more I spent time with you, the more I discovered I didn’t want closure at all.”
