Read Online InHap*pily Ever After (Incidental Happenstance) by Kim DeSalvo - Free Book Online Page B

bubble up inside her. No matter what happened in New Zealand, she
knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Dylan had never once forgotten about
her, and that he loved her with his whole being.
    Now
it was Will’s turn to butt in. “What did she do, Dylan? How did she break you
up?”
    “Well,”
Dylan continued, “we were on the other side of the world, obviously, and our
internet and phone reception was sketchy at best. We lived in this little village
unto itself; we were a good distance from the nearest town, and kind of our own
entity. She used that to her advantage. It started, as far as I can tell, after
she had her assistant take Jessa…she’s my assistant…to Auckland for the weekend
and convinced her to buy some sort of unique scarf.  Then she bought another
one just like it, and paid an actress that apparently looked a lot like Jessa,
to hand out my mobile number at the airport. My phone started ringing off the
hook—suddenly fans were calling to chat, and Penelope convinced me to ask one
of them how they got the number. When they described Jessa to a tee, right down
to the damn scarf, I started doubting her.” He shook his head, remembering his
rage that day, and how he sent Jessa packing without giving her a chance to
explain anything. One more thing he’d suffer for a very long time to come.
    “This
woman, Angela—who was Penelope’s assistant—managed to play it up so that I
believed it, and I fired Jessa on the spot. Angela was full of apologies, and
volunteered to be my assistant for the rest of the time we were there. It
didn’t leave me much of a choice, really, which was their plan all along. That
started the domino effect.” He took a deep breath. It was all still very fresh
in his mind, and Tia was hearing it for the first time. He knew he couldn’t
shelter her from the truth, but he certainly didn’t relish the idea of telling
her the details, either. They had a relationship built on honesty, though, and
he wouldn’t lie to her. It would all come out eventually in court, and he
didn’t want any surprises when that fiasco got rolling.
    “I
had no choice but to change my mobile number, and Angela volunteered to take
care of it for me while I was away from the village for a few days filming some
scenes out in the wilderness.  She changed Tia’s number on the SIM card so I
couldn’t reach her, and they sabotaged my computer. They hired some teenager to
plant some sort of virus and sent both of us emails, supposedly from each
other, saying that we were done with the relationship and wanted to sever all
ties.”
    “We
both believed it,” Tia sighed. “Even though in the back of our minds we didn’t
think it could be true, there was no other explanation at the time and we
weren’t able to get a hold of each other to figure it out.”
    “I
was beside myself,” Dylan continued. “I had sent Tia a ticket to join me in
Australia for the holiday. I wanted to introduce her to my parents and show her
where I grew up—but the next part of their plan cut off our only remaining form
of communication—letters. I wrote Tia just about every day—sometimes twice in a
day. I put in pictures of our summer with every one; to remind her of the time
we spent together, and to hopefully keep the idea of ‘us’ in her mind. I was
begging her to call me; to come to Australia so we could work it out. I knew it
took weeks for the letters to reach her, but it was all I had at the time. 
Angela, in the guise of being my assistant, was taking care of the mail, and it
turns out that Penelope was stealing all the letters I wrote to Tia.” He turned
to her, and pulled her in closer, taking her hand with his free one and looking
her in the eye. This was going to hurt her, he knew, and there was no way to
shelter her from it. Not for long.
    “She
was erasing Tia’s name on the letters and writing in her own; cutting Tia’s
face out of the pictures and putting her own photos in their places. It was