Chapter 9 Tangled
BECCA’S POV
My hands. They wouldn't stop shaking. The photos swam in my vision, all those smiling lies, and my throat squeezed shut like I was choking.
"Where..." I had to swallow hard. "Where did you get these?"
"Right on my desk. Just waiting for me." His voice was hoarse, his eyes were red…his fist was clenched.
Perfect, he was too angry to understand.
Well played Carmen.
"So? You planning to look me in the eye and tell me this isn't what it looks like? That you haven't been crawling back to him every chance you get?"
"Mark, I swear to God, I haven't"
"Then what is this?" His voice didn't just get louder, it shattered, a raw, wounded sound that felt like a physical blow.
His palm hit the desk with a crack that made my whole body flinch. "
Explain this to me! Why are you all over him, laughing like it's nothing, when you told me he was your past?"
Why did he caree???? We were merely having a fling together and he is reacting this way.
"They're fake! Mark, this is what I was trying to warn you about! I heard them, Carmen and Olivia, in the break room. They Photoshopped these. They're working with Asher to…"
"So now you're dragging my sister into it?" He interrupted. Well I could say he was freaking disappointed in me.
I bet it would be worse when he realized I wasn't lying.
"Right. Of course. How fucking convenient."
"I am not lying! I heard them with my own ears. They said they 'fixed the timestamps,' that they were planting this crap for you to find…"
"Stop." He cut me off, his hand slicing through the air between us. "Just stop. I don't know what you're playing at, but I'm done. I can't do this."
The tears came then, hot and helpless, streaking down my face. I couldn't wipe them away fast enough. "Mark, please. You have to listen. I haven't seen Asher, I wouldn't…"
The door just swung open. We had visitors.
Carmen sailed in, Olivia fluttering behind her like a nervous moth.
"So sorry to barge in," Carmen said, her voice dripping with a sweetness that made my stomach turn.
Her eyes, though, were pure triumph. "But I thought you should know, Mark. I saw her. With that man. Last Thursday. They were at that little café, looking... Well, let's just say they weren't discussing the weather."
My whole body went cold. "You're a liar."
Like this wasn't enough, she came to play fake witness.
"Am I?" She tilted her head, all fake concern and wide eyes. "Olivia was right there. She saw the whole thing."
Olivia nodded, her face a careful mask of sympathy. "I'm so sorry, Mark. I wanted to tell you sooner, but Carmen thought... We needed proof first. That's why we…" She bit her lip, a perfectly rehearsed hesitation.
"That's why you what?" I demanded, my voice shaking with a rage that made my bones feel brittle.
"That's why you faked these photos? That's why you've been trying to destroy me since the day I walked into his life?"
"Becca, that's enough." Mark's voice was flat, dead. Devoid of any feeling at all. "You're just digging the hole deeper."
I looked at him then. And what I saw in his eyes broke me. Doubt, sure. But worse was that flicker of deep, personal hurt.
The look of a man who thinks he's been made a fool.
He believed them. He actually chose their story over mine.
"Get out," Mark said, his gaze still locked on me but his words meant for them. "All of you. Now."
Was he sending me out of my own office?
Well it's literally his building Becca.
I didn't want to argue so I packed up my things.
Whatever was happening, I really hoped it wasn't going to affect my career.
Carmen shot me a glance, a quick, vicious slash of a smile before she swept out, Olivia scurrying after.
The door clicked shut.
I turned back to him, my last bit of hope crumbling to dust. "Mark, please. I am telling you the truth. Those photos are garbage."
"You just happened to overhear her?" He shook his head, a bitter, disbelieving smile twisting his mouth. "Five minutes before I walk in here with this evidence? That's one hell of a lucky break."
"It's not luck! She planned it this way! She wanted you to find them before I could get to you,"
"Or maybe," he said, his voice dropping to something low and wounded, "you're the one who's lying. Maybe you've been playing me from the start. Maybe that's why you kept me at arm's length, why you never really let me all the way in. Because you were still his."
It felt like he'd reached into my chest and ripped something out. "How can you say that to me? After everything we,"
"After everything, I don't know what's real anymore." He gathered the photos, shoving them back into the envelope like they were toxic. "I thought I knew you. I thought what we had... Christ, I thought it was real. But maybe I was just an idiot."
"You weren't wrong," I whispered, the world blurring through my tears. "What we have is real. This is just Carmen playing her…"
"I need space." The words were a final brick in a wall. "I need to think. To figure out what the hell is actually true."
"Mark!!!"
"Please. Just... leave me alone."
He walked out. He didn't look back.
Okay, so he just left my office.
The second the door closed, my legs folded. I dropped into my chair, sobs racking my body, my shoulders shaking so hard I thought they might come apart.
Carmen had won. She'd planted the bomb and lit the fuse, and now the wreckage of our trust was scattered everywhere.
The quiet in the office was suffocating.
I dragged the back of my hand across my wet face and looked at my desk.
A coffee stain was seeping into the corner of some report. A pen had rolled to the floor.
A crumpled sticky note with his quick, slashing handwriting, "See you at 5." was lying there like a relic from another life.
We planned dinner tonight but now he was just... gone.
But then, something solid clicked into place inside me.
I wasn't the girl who apologized for existing anymore. The one who folded herself into smaller and smaller pieces just to make other people comfortable.
Carmen wanted me shattered. She wanted me defeated.
Not anymore.
If Mark couldn't see the truth when it was screaming in his face... if he preferred their poisoned version of me... then I was done fighting for a spot in his life.
He wasn't the only one with questions.
What about that business card I'd found? That vague "wager" he'd never properly explained? The secrets he kept so close to his chest. Maybe he was so ready to believe I was a liar because his own hands weren't clean.
Maybe we were both idiots, fumbling in the dark.
Maybe this whole damn thing was a game from the beginning, and neither of us knew the rules.
IIf I couldn't save what we had, then I'd save what was left of me.
Just like I'd always fucking done.
The resolve was a thin shield against the agony.
I stumbled out of the building, the world a watery mess of rain and my own tears.
I barely saw the street, barely heard the city sounds, my mind replaying the shattered look in Mark's eyes on a devastating loop.
Blinded by heartbreak, I stepped into the crosswalk.
I heard a sound of a vehicle coming towards me, I bet I didn't notice earlier..
I turned.
Headlights blurred my vision
Time stopped.
My breath vanished.