I grimaced at her words. ‘Why?’
She whirled on me. ‘Why? Because I hadnothing.I grew up on a housing estate, with drug addicts for parents who never bothered or even remembered they had a daughter. When I got older I realised that men liked how I looked. I was thin and pretty.’
‘You used him for his money,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘Don’t you dare fucking judge me. My whole life, I’ve been trying to get out of that hellhole I grew up in. To not become another statistic, a girl-gone-bad.’ Her arms flew out around her before she pointed a sharp finger at her chest. ‘I didn’t have the privilege of a good education. I’m not smart enough to have a job that pays more than a fucking waitress.But I know men.’ Her tone levelled. ‘I find out what they want, so I become what they want.’
‘There’s no excuse for what you’ve done. You’ve destroyed someone’s livelihood.’
She barked out a laugh, ‘Don’t be so fucking naive. The world is built on people using other people to get ahead. I haven’t done anything that others before me haven’t been doing for years.’
‘Why the drugs? You had him, you didn’t need to do that. What was the point?’
Ashley stood there, glaring at me. I could see her rage building, she just needed pushing over the edge.
‘With all your plotting and planning, why on earth would you substitute out the most famous man on the team, for the guy that sits on the sidelines?’
‘Because he was never going to fucking marry me!’ she cried. ‘Most guys in his position want a girl who they can fuck, who looks pretty and who bolsters his ego. Perfect trophy wife material.’ She scoffed, like the idea of a real connection was laughable. ‘But his family never liked me, and when his arsehole of a brother decided I wasn’t good enough for his brother I was screwed. Oliver was never going to propose to someone his family didn’t approve of. Oh, but he was happy to keep me around for the sex. I had to do something! If I left him, I’d have wasted a year of my life, what was I going to do? Go back to having nothing. I couldn’t do that. Cole had always liked me, at least I think he did, so when I went to him, telling how Oliver really was behind closed doors, he took very little convincing. The drugs were just the icing on the cake.’
‘Oliver never hit you, did he?’
My pulse sped up wanting her to admit it. I’d thought it would take more probing to get her to talk. Apparently, all of this was just bubbling under the surface, waiting to spill out.
Another cruel laugh. ‘Oliver’s barely capable of being rough in bed, he couldn’t raise a hand to me if he tried.’
‘But you were happy for the world to believe he was abusive? You were happy for all of his relationships and his career to go up in flames? Because you wanted fame? Money?’ I shook my head.
‘Security.’ Ashley nearly shouted. ‘I wanted the security of knowing that I would never have to scrounge my sofa for spare change for enough money to eat food that day. To never have to go back to my fucking parents who tried to sell me like I was meat to be flogged. I wanted that security… and now I’ve got it.’
I frowned, then watched with growing horror when Ashley splayed a trembling hand on her stomach.
‘You’re…’ I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
‘We’regoing to be fine. Cole would never turn his back on his own child.’
My heart broke for a man I’d never met. For the man that still, despite everything, meant so much to Oliver. Blood pounded in my ears as I beheld the woman before me. A woman with no remorse for what she’d done, the lives she’d irrevocably changed. Ashley touched her flat stomach once more, drew back her shoulders and sniffed primly.
‘If that’s all, I've got somewhere to be.’
She turned around, flicking her perfectly styled beach-wave hair behind her like a punctuation mark and headed for the door. Before she reached it, Rosie stepped out from behind the hallway. Holding her phone in her right hand and a look of disgust on her face that mirrored my own.
‘Not so fast, Cruella.’ She cocked a hip, in her element.
Ashley stopped short. ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘The person who owes Ben a date thanks to you.’ Rosie’s head tipped back and she sighed to the ceiling.
‘Oh get over it. It was all for the greater good,’ I said as I wandered over to them.
Rosie glared at me. ‘He thinks Andrew Tate has, and I quote, “some pretty interesting points”. The dude’s a walking red flag.’
I indicated with my eyes to Ashley who was staring at Rosie with a bewildered expression.
Rosie shook her head as if just remembering why we were there in the first place. ‘Right. Look princess, you’re going to print that retraction. The jig is up. This is gonna be sent to everyone who needs to see it. To unfuck the lives you’ve damaged.’ Rosie turned her phone and pressed play.
It showed Ashley from behind, but you could clearly hear her voice.
‘Oliver’s barely capable of being rough in bed, he couldn’t raise a hand to me if he tried.’
