Chapter 5
Jasper drove through the streets with no direction in mind. His head was a mess.
His phone rang. It was his friend Michael Lucas. "Hey, man, you want to grab a beer later?"
"Not in the mood," Jasper said flatly.
"Oh yeah? What's going on? Sounds like you and Charlotte got into it."
Jasper said nothing.
Michael picked up on the silence right away. "No way. You two actually fought? What happened? Don't tell me this is about that girl you can't get over."
Jasper rubbed his temples. "I divorced Charlotte."
There was a sudden silence on the other end.
Then Michael's voice came back, filled with shock. "What did you say? Divorce?
"Jasper, have you lost it completely? Charlotte is one in a million. You're never going to find someone like her again."
"One in a million?" Jasper let out a cold laugh. "What's so great about her?
"She pushed Emily out of the way so she could marry me. And now she's trying to destroy the Lane family's project. You think that's the kind of woman worth holding onto?"
"Whoa, hold up," Michael said, completely thrown off. "You're telling me Charlotte forced Emily out? And she's sabotaging the Lane project? What are you talking about?"
"I saw it myself. The evidence was right in front of me. How could it be fake?"
"What evidence?" Michael pushed. "Show it to me."
"Forget it. I don't want to talk about it."
"No way, man. You owe me an explanation," Michael insisted. "You've been with Charlotte for three years. Don't you know her by now?
"If she had the power to push Emily out without a trace, why would she still be hung up on you?
"And this Lane project, what's her angle? Revenge on Emily? Do you really think she has nothing better to do?"
Michael's words hit Jasper like a bucket of ice water.
He couldn't understand what Charlotte stood to gain from any of this.
For three years, she had been nothing but dutiful. She kept the house running smoothly and never gave him a reason to complain.
She barely had any friends. Her world was small, and all of her attention had been fixed on him.
He couldn't picture someone like her pulling off something so complicated and cruel.
Jasper felt his certainty begin to crack.
"Wasn't it Emily who told you all this stuff?" Michael asked. "Listen to me. That girl is not as innocent as she looks. She plays games. Don't let her make a fool of you."
After he hung up, Jasper pulled over to the side of the road. He lit a cigarette. The smoke drifted around him, but his thoughts only grew cloudier.
He opened a file his assistant had put together. It was a report on how the Lane family's project had been snatched up by a rival company.
Every clue in the file led back to a middleman. That middleman had been photographed meeting with Charlotte at a coffee shop.
To Jasper, that photo was solid proof. It was the smoking gun that showed Charlotte was behind it all.
He pulled up the picture again. It was blurry. It only showed a side profile that looked somewhat like Charlotte.
When he first saw it, he had been too angry to look closely. Now, with a clearer head, he noticed something strange.
The woman in the photo wore a beaded bracelet on her wrist. Charlotte never wore things like that. She did not care for them at all.
A flicker of doubt crept into his mind. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had been wrong this whole time.
He grabbed his phone and called his assistant. "Find out exactly who that woman in the photo is. I want a name.
"And that crystal vase my mother left me. Get it appraised by the top expert in the city. Someone with real authority."
He hung up and slammed his fist against the steering wheel.
He couldn't wrap his head around the possibility that this was all a mistake. He had done awful things to her.
He had said the cruelest things. He had forced her to sign divorce papers. He had stood up for another woman right in front of her.
And he had shoved her.
The memory of Charlotte's eyes, that cold, bottomless disappointment, cut through him like a knife.
It felt like an unseen hand was squeezing his heart, making it hard to breathe.
He started the engine, turned the car around, and sped back toward the villa. He had to find her. He needed the truth.