I stared at the words, my pulse thundering in my ears as I whispered, “I didn’t send this.”
Gage didn’t accuse me of lying. He just gaped at me with an unfocused gaze, his brows drawing together.
“And I can prove it, too.” I dug my cell out of my apron pocket and pulled up our old conversation thread with trembling fingers. “Mine doesn’t have that message. Everything after our texts that morning about dinner are my messages that never flipped to read.”
He took the phone from me, his gaze darting between my screen and his. “What the fuck? How is this possible?”
“I don’t know.” My voice sounded as shaky as I felt. “But something’s very wrong.”
“Damn right, it is. I spent all this time thinking you walked away from me without giving me the chance to explain my plan.”
Although I was curious what he meant by that, his explanation had to wait because a possibility occurred to me. “Pull up my contact information.”
He tapped on my photo icon at the top of the screen, then clicked on the info button. I gasped when I saw the number listed. It was close. Off by only a few digits.
I couldn’t wrap my head around how it had happened, but there was no denying what my eyes were seeing. “That’s not my phone number.”
Gage’s voice was dazed, as though he was piecing things together as he spoke. “Someone must have changed your contact details on my phone.”
My gut tightened, and my mouth went dry. “Who would even do something like that?”
“I can only think of one person who had motive and access.” He heaved a deep sigh. “Vanessa.”
Although his answer made sense when it came to his phone, my mind latched onto the other sabotage that had been done.“But it wasn’t just the calls and texts. What about the boxed-up stuff? The key to my place? Who walked into my apartment and removed any sign you’d been there?”
Gage’s nostrils flared. His movements were jerky as he handed my cell back to me. “Vanessa was with me at the office for the announcement, so the timing doesn’t line up. It couldn’t have been her, which means she must’ve had help.”
Another wave of dread crashed over me. This one was worse because someone had been in my home while they’d carried out a plan meant to destroy us.
I recoiled before I could stop myself, clutching my phone like it was the only solid thing left in the room, grateful that nobody except Gage was here to witness my horror. Only an hour ago, I would’ve been appalled by the thought of him seeing me vulnerable like this. But he was the only person who could possibly understand a fraction of what I was feeling because he’d been impacted by what had happened too.
Except he was the one who’d put us in the position to be betrayed in the first place. Knowing someone interfered didn’t erase the three years I lived believing he’d cut me out of his life. He put Langford Tech ahead of our relationship, and I paid a hefty price for that decision.
I stepped around the counter, putting physical space between us before I did something reckless while I tried to make sense of all this. “Even if someone else made us each believe the other walked away, that wouldn’t have been possible if you hadn’t gotten engaged to Vanessa.”
He flinched and raked his fingers through his hair. “I never planned to go through with it, though. Her father came to me. He said he needed to step down as CEO because of health issues he was hiding from the board. But for the transition to work, Langford Tech needed stability. A unified front.”
I stared at him, wrapping my arms around my stomach. I was finally getting his side of what happened three years ago, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
“Rupert insisted the only thing that made sense was announcing a merger of our families. Something that signaled to the market how solid and mature I was, even at thirty-four. He felt like the future of the company depended on it. He looked like he was about to keel over any minute, and I didn’t want to add any stress that might send him to the hospital. So I agreed, but I?—”
I cut him off before he could rationalize his mistakes. “Whatever you had planned to get out of marrying her doesn’t matter. You didn’t take the time to talk to me before you let them announce your engagement as though I wasn’t a part of your life. We’ll never know if you could’ve gotten me to agree to go along with the charade because I didn’t factor into the decision at all.”
His shoulders slumped, but I couldn’t let myself soften. Not when I could still picture him smiling in engagement photos with another woman while my world collapsed. The humiliation hadn’t faded. Whatever truths we uncovered today, the hurt didn’t vanish.
Those emotional scars were still mine.
“I’m sorry.” Gage’s green eyes burned into mine. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
I let out a slow breath, my heart feeling like it was breaking all over again. “You might not have meant it, but that’s exactly what happened. And unlike you, I didn’t have a wedding to plan or my parents to lean on while I was suffering.”
His face crumpled, but I refused to feel guilty for telling the truth. “It wasn’t like that.”
I couldn’t let him rewrite the past just because the present had blindsided us both.
I forced my voice to stay steady even though I wanted to cry. “This doesn’t change anything. You still chose her.”
“It had nothing to do with choosing Vanessa over you,” he insisted. “I had no interest in her.”
