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“How fucking dare she.”
I swallow again. Against my better judgment, against all of my instincts, I believe that anger. He can’t be this good of an actor, no way. “Your ex?” I ask, a hesitant tremor in my voice.
He clenches my phone so tight in one fist that I’m almost afraid the screen will shatter. “How did she even…”
I gently pry my phone from his fingers, mostly to save its life. “Did she make up those conversations? Because some of them…” I pull open the one where he’s talking to another girl. Trouble sleeping? “Seem awfully familiar.” I lift one pointed eyebrow.
Zayne grimaces. “Some of them are real. Probably most of them, I don’t remember. But the dates are all wrong. Look.” He scrolls through his phone. It takes him a while, but he eventually locates one of the conversations, the one with CandyCane. Sure enough, it took place almost two years ago. Same with another one, shortly afterward, with XtraSaucy. In fact, almost all of the conversations are from that time period. The screenshots are real, identical to his account message history. All except for the dates which had been carefully, meticulously altered.
“It’s all the people I was messaging right after she and I broke up,” he finally says, his tone heavy. “Right when I first moved in here…” He winces at one particularly sexy conversation. “Some of these are embarrassing.”
“Not as embarrassed as I am,” I mutter, wincing.
“No, Clove. You couldn’t have known.” He wraps an arm around me, and finally, after what feels like holding my breath for 24 hours, I sink into his embrace once more. It scares me, how much I crave this. How desperately I wanted him to touch me, even when I thought he’d been betraying me, screwing me around. I still wanted him, even when I knew I’d have to walk away.
That scares the shit out of me.
“The screenshots were so realistic…”
“I’d have thought the same thing as you,” Zayne admits with a clenched jaw. “I’m so sorry that you have to go through this mess. You don’t deserve this kind of drama. If you want to walk away now, to spare yourself, I will completely understand.”
“Hell no.” I wrap my arms around him too, and lean into his warm embrace. “You don’t deserve this kind of drama either, Zayne. I mean, how did she even get those conversations?”
He scowls. “She must have access to my account. Nothing else makes sense. She must have gotten in there and been able to see the conversations, and…” His eyes widen, his jaw slackening. “That’s how she found your photo, too. It has to be. She took it from your inbox, where we were messaging.”
“Since she knows about both of your accounts, it must not have been too hard,” I agree. “If she hacked this old one, she must not have had a hard time hacking the new one too.”
“Christ, how long has she been doing this?” Zayne shakes his head. “Has she targeted other people I’ve messaged? I never heard anyone talking about being harassed like this, having their photos put up on a website somewhere…”
“Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. They might have just assumed you did it and sworn off ever speaking to you again.” I sigh.
“Shit.” Zayne pockets his phone in a single, angry gesture. “I have to stop this. I will. I’ll fix it.”
“How?” I catch his eye, my own wide with fear.
“I’m going to confront her. Tell her she needs to stop pulling this kind of shit. I’ll go to the police otherwise. We have proof it was her, and if she hacked my accounts, then she probably still has more screenshots like this saved. None of this is legal, Clove.”
I can feel myself nodding, my heart rising in my chest once more. But still… “You shouldn’t have to talk to her. Let me.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“But you have all this history, this baggage. It will hurt you to confront her.”
He’s shaking his head hard. “It’s my mess, Clove. I’ll clean it up.” He steps back and presses the ground floor button. The elevator heaves around us, like it’s relieved to finally be in motion. As we whir down toward the first floor, he finally seems to take a look at my outfit, the whole thing, from head to toe. “What about you? You look like you’re off to take care of business, too.”
I nod, steeling myself once more, shoulders squared. “I’m going to get my job back. No matter what it takes.”
He smiles and leans in to kiss my lips, just once, feather-soft and light, a kiss that’s there and gone again before I have time to blink. “You will. You’re incredible, Clove. If anyone can talk your boss into having you back in the office, it’s you. And if you need me to come in and testify about it, explain that it was all this psycho…”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Somehow I don’t think that would help. If you tried to explain that it’s all a big misunderstanding, someone stole my sext to you…” I raise an eyebrow pointedly.
He grins in response, and leans down to kiss me one last time before the doors open. “Well, I offered.”
“You did. I’ll keep that in mind when I’ve finished winning my case.”
“Good luck,” he says, offering me a hand as I step out of the elevator. I take it, and twine my fingers through his, squeezing tightly just once for affirmation.
“You too,” I tell him, pouring every ounce of feeling into my tone that I can. I hope he can do this. I hope he can talk his ex down. I hope it won’t hurt him too much to be around her, to have all those old memories drug up. I hope she stops coming after him, leaves him alone to live a normal life.
