Joe laughed. “You’ve always been such a terrible liar.”
Asshole.“You know what I’m not terrible at?”
“What?”
“This.” I grabbed my cupcake and smooshed it in his face. God that felt good.
He wiped the icing out of his eye. “Real mature, Ash.”
I took another cupcake and did it again.
“You know what? I was going to give you two days to give me a refund, but you just cut that time in half.”
“A refund how? You took everything from me in the divorce. I’m barely scraping by.”
“If the money isn’t in my account by midnight, the sex tape goes live. Enjoy Rosalie’s birthday. Thank God she didn’t live long enough to see how much of a slut you are.” Joe got up and walked away.
For a second I just sat there, completely stunned. Not that anything he’d done was surprising. Joe had just acted completely like…Joe. I tried to yell something mean at him, but my mind was blank. My body shook with a combination of rage and sadness. I buried my face in the towel and sobbed. Big, fat, ugly tears.
I wanted to just crawl into the lake and drown. How could I have fallen for Joe’s trick? For a few minutes I had genuinely thought that there was some shred of decency in him…that he had actually come here because he cared about me and didn’t want me to be alone. But really he had just come here to shit all over me. And to do it on today of all days? He wasn’t just an asshole. He was heartless. He was the devil. How could I have ever fallen for a man like that? What did that say about me?
I could dwell on that later. But for now, I had bigger issues to deal with. Because if I couldn’t come up with $200K by midnight, then the most mortifying footage of me was going to be all over the internet. I’d never be able to show my face in public again.
“I’m sorry, Rosalie,” I said into the air. “But I have to go take care of this. And next year, after Marty finds you, we can come back here together.”
I took one last look at the castle and then typed out a text to Tanner. “Can you be at my place in ten minutes? I need your help.”
Stalker Problems - Chapter 44 - Refund Emergency
Thursday – May 25, 2023
Tanner was waiting for me outside my apartment building. Concern was etched all over his perfect face.
“Is everything okay?” he asked as I approached. He frowned even harder, presumably because of my puffy eyes and running make-up.
“Not really.”
He pulled me into a hug. I felt so safe in his arms. His big, stupid, stealing arms. I pushed him off. “You lied to me.”
“About…?”
“Joe’s credit card. The shoes. You said the card got declined.”
“Oh, right.” He looked so pleased with himself. “Yeah, I did lie about that.”
What the hell, man?“I need you to undo whatever you did.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because Joe came to the park this morning and threatened…”
Tanner waved it off. “Don’t listen to him. The police will laugh him out of the station.”
“What?!” I screamed. People were starting to stare at me. “Now I’m gonna get arrested?! Since when is it illegal to make a film of yourself? I was over 21. I can prove it.”Right?Was there some law I didn’t know about when it came to filming solo sex tapes?Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Tanner lowered his eyebrows. “Whoa, slow down. Illegal film? What are you talking about?”
“What areyoutalking about?” I asked.
