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Calen kept on scowling. Not just because of this little B and E mission, but because his past with Sasha was the reason he hadn’t already given her the damn letter. The more she pushed, the more Calen dug in his heels.
When he started to step around Sasha to go inside, she shifted, apparently believing she could block him from entering his own house. Calen just lifted her up by her elbows and moved her aside. Emmy and he went in, and Calen spotted a second intruder by the stacks of mail and packages on his dining room table. Stacks that had been rummaged through.
“I told you to run,” Sasha grumbled. Not to Calen or Emmy but rather to the man who was in Calen’s dining room.
Tate Webster, Owen’s assistant.
Obviously, the rummaging was still going on because Tate was holding several letters in his hands.
“I wouldn’t run and let you take all the blame for this,” Tate told Sasha, and with a heavy sigh, he put the letters back on the table. Like his partner in crime, guilt was plenty evident on his face. Calen figured it coordinated well with the surprise that was on his. “We thought you’d still be at the hospital. It’s all over town that your sister’shaving a baby.”
“Had a baby,” Calen clarified. He pointed to Tate and then shifted his finger to Sasha. “So, Tate sent you a card or letter that has something written in it that would clue folks into the fact that you two had an affair.” It wasn’t a question, and neither of them denied it. “Judging from the postmark, the affair was going on right about the time you got engaged to me but before you hadsex with Owen.”
Again, no denial. And that made Calen feel like an idiot for not having seen thisside of Sasha.
“Why?” Calen asked.
Sasha shrugged, and then as if her bones had dissolved, she sank down onto the floor. “The therapist I’ve been seeing says it’s because my parents always wanted me to be perfect, and that the sex is my subconscious wayof rebelling.”
Calen was having trouble working up any kind of sympathy. Yes, her parents were controlling, but they were also rich and had pampered Sasha. Maybe the pampering hadn’t been enough. Maybe nothing would be enough. Some part of Calen had always worried about her neediness, though he had assured himself that Sasha’s good qualities outweighed the bad.
He no longerbelieved that.
Trust was all-important, and he never would have had that with Sasha. Sadly, Sasha might never have it in herself if she turned to forbidden sex to solve her problems.
“So, what’s in the envelope?” Emmy asked.
Slowpoke-y turtles could have won races in the time it took for them to answer. “Naked photos of me,” Tate finally said.
“I sent some to Tate,” Sasha added, picking up the explanation. “He got his. I never got mine because your stupid father didn’t deliver the letter.”
Calen let the insult go because it was hard to defend a man who had indeed done a whole bunch of stupid things. “Any reason you two didn’t just text or emailthe pictures?”
Sasha gasped. “Do you know how many times that backfires? All the time,” she said, answering her own question. “We thought the mail would be safer and sort ofold fashioned.”
Emmy groaned again and repeated, “Good grief.”
Calen and she were obviously of like minds about this. There was nothing old fashioned about sending naked pictures. Then again, maybe in Sasha’s mind, there was.
“So, does Owen know about this thing you had with his assistant?” Calen asked Sasha.
“No.” That answer came instantly from bothSasha and Tate.
It was Sasha who continued, “I want it to stay that way. You’re supposed to take this letter and the others to the post office, right?” She waited for Calen to confirm that with a nod. “The post office where Janice FayMerkins works.”
Calen could see where Sasha was going with this. Janice Fay was one of the biggest gossips in town, and the woman would look at every letter that Waylon had failed to deliver. She would see that this one sent to Sasha had come from a renter in the house on Belmont Street, and Janice Fay would soon figure out that renter was Tate. The woman wouldn’t keep that tidbit to herself. Nope. Janice Fay’s blabbering would start a whole lot of speculation that would end up painting Sasha and Tatein a bad light.
“I don’t want Owen to know,”Sasha insisted.
“Of course you don’t.” And because Calen couldn’t resist, he added, “You said it was a one-off with Owen. Was it with hisassistant too?”
“Oh, what does it matter that you know the truth,” Sasha spat out as she got back to her feet. “No, it wasn’t. I cheated. Obviously, so did your father. And so did you.”
Calen was certain he looked offended. Because he sure as hell was. “Ididn’t cheat.”
“Sure you did,” Sasha said with the certainty of gospel. “Maybe not sexually, but you cheated with Emmy.”
Emmy’s sound of outrage was slightly louder than Calen’s. “And in what warped fantasy world did that happen?” Emmy challenged.
