“My sister is the reason you broke up with Amanda,” Lindsey insisted.
“I know what Sarah did,” I said. “She slept with Amanda’s ex on purpose. Amanda told me the whole sob story when we were dating. I met Sarah once when we were in a restaurant. She made some snide comment to Amanda and got her all upset. Though now, I am thinking that those tears might have been all for show.”
The scene from the park started to play in my mind. She really did seem genuinely upset, and that had been the exact moment that I fell even further in love with her, thinking she was the woman that I was going to spend my life with. It had been a ruse, and I wouldn’t even be surprised if Sarah was all part of the giant scheme to get my money. Or maybe she had fooled them just as much as she had fooled me.
“No,” Lindsey said. “You don’t understand. She’s the reason that all of this current day situation is happening. She is the person behind it, and she cannot be trusted. My entire life, Sarah has been jealous of Amanda. She has always done things to try to keep her from being happy. This time, she really went above and beyond. You have to hear me out. This is not what you think it is. John is being played for a fool, too. Don’t you care that some woman is using him for her own sick scheme?”
“First of all, I still have no idea what you are talking about,” I said. “Secondly, it is not surprising if what you are saying is true about a woman using a man. It seems there isn’t a single decent woman left, no offense. I’m sure you truly love Jordan, but that would make you the exception.”
“You are a very stubborn man,” Lindsey said, sitting down in the chair. “Listen, Sarah has been screwing John before you ever met Amanda. When you started dating her, Sarah saw an opportunity to further torture my best friend. She fucked some guy and had him create a fake marriage document. She then went to John, acting like she was so worried about you, his best friend. She gave him the document and showed him some woman’s marriage license online. The woman just so happened to have the same name as Amanda, but she’s like forty-six and lives in Iowa. From there, John had his ‘proof,’ and of course, everything after that looked suspicious. I have known Amanda my whole life, and I would know if she were married.”
“Wow,” I said, laughing and clapping my hands. “That is a very elaborate story. Did you get that from her, or are you in on this, too? What’s in it for you? She must really want my money.”
I shook my head and crossed my arms in front of me, still snickering to myself. If I wasn’t cocky about the whole situation, I wouldn’t be able to hide just how much this whole conversation was tearing me to pieces. Why couldn’t she just leave me alone? Why couldn’t she just understand that she got caught in a lie and move on to the next poor schmuck that she was planning on conning out of money? My heart was breaking in my chest, and all I could do to cover it up at that moment was laugh.
“I am not joking, and I am not part of any scheme,” Lindsey said angrily. “I have never been away from Amanda for more than a couple of weeks. She is not married, and she has never been married. In fact, the only time I ever even heard the word marriage out of her mouth was when she told me that the two of you were going to get hitched. She was the happiest that I had ever seen her in that moment. She really loves you, and it’s not a scheme or a joke. Sarah is the reason why your life and her life are being completely ruined. I don’t know what I have to do to prove that to you.”
“That’s the whole thing, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“I have mountains of hard evidence proving that what John is saying is actually fact,” I said. “You come barging into my office, full speed ahead, spouting off some ridiculous story about your little sister’s vengeful tirade, doing everything she can to ruin Amanda’s life for no good reason at all, and you don’t have a lick of hard evidence. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“You need to wake the fuck up,” she shouted. “You are really going to lose her for good.”
“I’ve already lost her,” I said. “In fact, I never had her. She has never been mine because she belongs to someone else.”
“She doesn’t belong to anyone, nor will she ever, no matter who she marries,” Lindsey snapped.
“You know what I mean,” I said with a smirk. “You can’t lose something that you never obtained in the first place.”
“You are making a huge mistake,” she said, picking up her purse and turning to the door. “There has never been anyone else in this world for Amanda. Even before she met you, she loved you.”
She walked out of the office, and my face began to droop down. I could feel the pain surging through my chest, thinking about Amanda and the love that I thought we had. I stood up and walked over to the bar, pouring myself a big glass of whiskey and setting it on the desk. I made my way to the door and stuck my head out.
“I need you to cancel everything on my schedule today,” I instructed my secretary. “I don’t want to be disturbed under any circumstances, and there are no exceptions. The building could be burning down around me, and you leave that door closed and that intercom off. Hell, tell people that I went home for the day to get them off of you if that helps. Not John, Jordan, or anyone else. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, looking at me with worry.
“Thank you,” I replied, closing and locking the office door.
I sat down and started drinking, thinking about what Lindsey had said and everything I had been through with Amanda. She had gone and done it, just like John, planting that tiny seed of doubt in my mind. I had never heard of John screwing Sarah, and if he had slept with her more than once, I was sure he would have told me about it. John was not the kind of guy to cover his territory twice, which made me believe that the entire story was a load of bullshit.
I sat back in my chair and downed the glass of whiskey, staring at the bottom of the glass. I was completely down, and I could feel myself growing closer and closer to a full meltdown. Everything I had worked so hard for and built meant nothing to me at that moment. All that I cared about was the full carafe of whiskey on the shelf. I got up and grabbed the bottle before settling down in the chair by the windows. I drank myself to the point of blacking out that day, passing out in the chair of my office, trying to forget. It was definitely not my finest hour.
Chapter 19
Amanda
There were only two weeks left until the wedding, and luckily, Lindsey had made sure that all of her modeling contracts ended by that point. We were running around all over the place, trying to tie up the last-minute errands that needed to be done. We met with the DJ to okay the playlist, the band, to talk about what they would be playing, and the violinist that would be playing the music when she walked down the aisle. I showed Lindsey the table setting that I had picked out for her, and we went over to the venue just to take one last walk around the room, envisioning what it would look like during her reception. I was exhausted, walking two steps behind her at all times. I could remember a time where I left her in the dust, but with my body going nuts over this pregnancy, I felt like I could take a nap every five seconds.
When we were done at the venue, we hopped in the back of the town car and sat back, both of us propping up our feet. We still had to go to Jordan’s parents’ house and talk about the rehearsal dinner over a late lunch, but for that moment, we were both sprawled out in the car. Lindsey looked stressed, and I hated that I couldn’t do more to help her. At least we both knew that in two weeks, this would all be done, and she would be enjoying being a new wife, jetting off to their honeymoon. Jordan had bought the honeymoon as a surprise, and it made me think about how Nathan loved to do things to surprise me. My heart still hurt every time I thought about him.
“You know I went to see Nathan,” Lindsey said, watching my face across the car.
“You did? What did he say?”
“He wouldn’t listen to me,” she said. “I got so angry and frustrated with him, I was pretty sure he almost threw me out. I left before it got to that point, though. I figured it wouldn’t look good on Jordan if his future wife assaulted his boss.”