it.
“But you lied about something else?”
“I told you to get your hands off her!” Brandon waved the gun at Jack again.
“Take it easy, man.” Jack eased off the bed and slowly reached for his jeans. “Let’s
have a calm conversation about this situation and—”
“No, let’s tell Morgan the truth and see if she feels like having a calm conversation.”
“You don’t know the truth!” Jack snarled, tendons standing out in his neck, fists
clenched. “You know what this looks like, but you don’t know shit.”
“So you didn’t pursue Morgan and bribe her production assistant, Reggie, to forward
your name and IM to her for supposed use on the show?”
Morgan looked to Jack for a denial. He said nothing.
“Why would you do that?” she asked.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I…”
“Because he wanted to meet you. No, that’s not right. He wanted to lure you to his
side, fuck you, then make sure I knew about it so he could get his pound of flesh.
Literally. Isn’t that right, Jack?”
Thick horror slid through Morgan. She turned her gaze to Jack, hoping, praying for
his denial. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. The guilt on his face came raging
back, digging into his furrowed brow.
Oh, God. Brandon was telling the truth. Morgan’s stomach lurched as betrayal stung
her heart. Shock blanched her blood. “You did…all this to me? For revenge? How could
you?”
Jack opened dark eyes swimming in shame. “The way I planned things…that isn’t the
way it ended up happening.”
The pleading on Jack’s face, the seeming sincerity, tore at her. But she’d believed him
before. And he’d apparently lied.
“Sure it is.” Brandon kept digging up ugliness. “The video footage you emailed me of
you fucking Morgan certainly drove your point home. Thanks for that. I clearly saw her
back against the door, her nails in your shoulders, while she screamed that she’d never
had it better. Well planned.”
Brandon’s sarcasm ripped at the already raw wounds blistering inside her. Jack had
made a video of them? When? Her back against the door, nails in his shoulders… Oh,
God. That first time they had sex, after he’d caught her masturbating in the tub. Had to
be. Jack had filmed that without her knowledge and sent it to Brandon? And he’d
arranged it all in advance. Unbelievable.
Her happiness curdled, froze. Her trust…evaporated in an instant. And he’d done all
that for payback? Unforgivable.
Morgan lifted a trembling hand to her mouth. She was going to be sick. This was like
a nightmare, gut-wrenchingly terrible, something she wished she could just wake up
from. But it was too intense and vivid to escape. Brandon and Jack were playing out some
drama here, with her squarely in the middle.
“You emailed him a video of us… W—why?”
Jack hesitated, clearly trying to gather his words. Or his lies? The question ripped
through Morgan.
“You want to tell her about Kayla, or should I?”
“Brandon, shut up,” Jack snarled. “She knows about Kayla.”
Kayla? Who the hell was… Oh, Jack’s ex-wife. Morgan had never heard the woman’s
name, but that had to be it. Yes, she knew about Kayla, knew that Jack had found his best
friend and his wife having sex on video…
The full implication slammed into Morgan, stealing her breath, replacing it with pain
so intense, she nearly doubled over.
She stared at Jack in dawning horror. “Brandon…he was your friend. He was the one
in the video having sex with your exwife.”
“While we were married,” Jack snapped. “He betrayed years of friendship and trust.”
And it had all hurt Jack’s pride.
Morgan trembled with disbelief, with anger. With pain. Deke put an arm around her
to comfort her. She elbowed him in the gut, clutched the sheet to her chest, and glared at
them all.
Then she zeroed in on Jack. “You betrayed my trust, too. The things you persuaded
me to do…” Her face flushed hot in remembrance. “The way you made me question
everything about myself… Damn it, I believed in you. In us. God, I was an idiot! You
must have laughed a hundred times.”
“I never laughed. Morgan…cher, I never meant to hurt you. I—”
“You never even thought whether it would hurt her or not,” Brandon accused. “You
didn’t care.”
“That’s not true.” Jack eased toward her and reached out to her.
Morgan jerked away from Jack before he could touch her. Anger and anguish