“Jasper.” Lucie smiled. “I trust him. But you do realize this is another problem, right? And how should it get handled without …” She looked at Ryan then. How was it supposed to be handled without revealing the guy she calls Ryan is actually Derrick? And how many people are going to think that the real Derrick has been playing around with Stella undercover?
Jasper ran his hand through his hair. “He’s going to be so pissed. Thank goodness you have faith in him. This could have been a disaster.”
“Well, how do you want to proceed?” Lucie asked with a small frown. They needed to start damage control immediately, but how exactly would they do that? One thing was for sure … she was not going to have his name dragged down. When he returned as Derrick, the rumors would be all over the place. They needed to get it cleaned up now.
CHAPTER 44
The four of them returned to the celebration. People were dancing and enjoying the food. Lucie was surprised that no one seemed to notice their disappearance.
“It’s normal for us to have to leave abruptly sometimes. No one thinks anything of it,” Jasper said, winking at Lucie. He looked at the table where Stella was still seated. The group decided the best way to handle it would be for Jasper to act confused about it and insinuate that Ryan has another girlfriend. He would even bring up going to Ryan over them being together. That should be enough for her to backtrack her story.
Lucie took the lead and left the three men to go and sit back at the table while she waited for Prince Derrick to come and suggest they take a selfie together. This would be a way to initiate the conversation.
“Lucie.” Ryan slid his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s take some pictures. I want to have lots of memories to show our children one day.”
She giggled up at him. “Children? How many do you plan for me to have?”
“As many as you’ll let me make.” Ryan grinned down at her, holding his phone out.
“Here I’ll take them for you,” Jasper said, walking up with Aedan.
“This is my brother Aedan. He’s single, by the way.” Lucie winked at the girls sitting at the table while Aedan made his move.
“Care for a dance?” Aedan smiled at Stella, tilting his head toward the dance floor.
“You can’t have her, Aedan. She has a boyfriend.” Lucie watched as another girl jumped up and walked over to Aedan.
“I’ll dance with you though,” the girl said, grabbing onto Aedan’s hand and leading him to the dance floor. Lucie smiled. That part wasn’t part of the plan but that was where improvising came in.
“You have a boyfriend, Stella? Who?” Jasper asked.
Stella took the bait and excitedly brought her phone out. The rest of the girls at the table groaned and got up, not wanting to relive her mushy stories. She flipped to the pictures of her and Derrick and showed them to Jasper. Lucie watched his brows furrow as he analyzed the pictures.
“You’re dating Ryan?” Jasper looked up at her as she smiled bashfully. “Are you sure you two are a couple? Because I think he has a girlfriend.”
Stella giggled. “That’s me. I’m his girlfriend. You can go ahead and flip through the pictures there. I even have some videos too.”
Lucie felt her confidence dwindling by the second. She was so certain before that this was all untrue. But somewhere deep inside of her, doubt was cracking through. She kept trying to tell herself she trusted Derrick. But there was video evidence too. What was she supposed to do with that?
She watched Jasper’s face closely. He seemed a bit confused by what he was looking at. She stood up so that she could view the phone from behind his back and watched the pictures flipping across the screen until a play button appeared.
One of the videos was of Derrick laughing with Chaz and Enzo as Lenny struggled to stand after drinking too much. She saw another video of Tonya and Zach dancing around a campfire. Then she could hear a voice that sounded like Sabrina talking as the video continued. It was clear Sabrina was now recording on the phone in a slurred voice. There was a part that zoomed in on Derrick poking a stick at the fire while Stella sat at his side. And as the camera moved, at the very end, you could see Stella’s head lean onto Derrick’s arm. They were no longer in the picture at this point as Sabrina tripped and quit recording.
Jasper moved to a final video. It was of another day and the elite soldiers were getting ready to depart. The video moved as Stella walked around, saying her goodbyes to everyone. When she got to Derrick, the video moved off him as she wrapped her arms around his neck. The phone was now pointing down at the ground but the voices continued to record. You could hear her say “I’m going to miss you.”
A male voice was heard saying, “I’ll think about you every day.” Was this Derrick’s voice? It was hard to tell.
“Last night was incredible. I’ll hold onto the memory until we can be together again,” Stella’s voice rang through sweetly.
Lucie watched as Jasper’s grip on the phone tightened. His eyes flickered dark as he stared at the video.
“Wait for me. I love you.”
Lucie felt numb as those words echoed into her ears. Jasper growled and looked up at Stella.
“That isn’t Ryan’s voice,” he said angrily.
Stella smiled sweetly. “Whose voice is it then?”
