RUSH (Montgomery Men #1) - C.A. Harms Page 0,55
mother died when Kinsley was six years old, but her father passed about nine months ago.” I looked up at Beckett, and he passed me copies of the death certificates of Arthur and Francine Palmer.
“Apparently her father was the only thing keeping her in Miami.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why would she want to leave her husband when she needed the support of her family the most? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I need you to give me more time to look into this further, Ash. I know there has to be more to this story than what her husband is saying.” Beckett looked back at me with a serious expression.
How could he ask me to do that? Now that I knew even this much about her, the only thing I wanted to do was confront her. I had to find out why the hell she lied and continued to lie every moment we were together. If Beckett had been in this situation, he would have done the same.
As Beckett began to gather the documents and pictures, I snatched them from him.
“Ash,” he said in warning.
“I wanna look through them some more.” I felt like this was a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. I’d never suspected that Beckett would find the things he found. She lied about who she was, her name, where she came from. Hell, she even lied about her parents. And if that wasn’t a big enough mindfuck, she was also married. This was the biggest mess I’d ever been a part of.
The name Jase Hellman practically glowed on the marriage license that lay on the top of the pile I held securely in my hands.
Beckett reluctantly released his hold on the documents and I lifted the envelope and slid the papers safely inside.
“Just give me a few days and I promise I’ll have all the answers you need,” he assured me, but his reassurance did nothing to tame my anger. I just wanted to ask her why. I wanted to know how she could deceive me into feeling so deeply for her without a shred of guilt.
Mindlessly I stood from the chair, still looking down at the envelope in my hands.
“I truly am sorry, Ash. I’d hoped from the beginning that you were just being paranoid.” I looked up to find my brother looking back at me with regret. The three of us were close, and we hated it when one of us was unhappy and we couldn’t do anything to help.
“I know, Beck.” I did my best to show him my appreciation, only it was hard with all the thoughts rolling around in my head. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”
I left his office, hoping I had the strength to do as he asked. But the moment Murray asked me where I wanted to go, I rattled off her address and turned to stare out the window as the car pulled away from the curb.
I chose not to go to the office the next day.
Instead I logged into the office calendar from my cell and postponed all my appointments, then sent each person an email letting them know that unforeseen circumstances had forced me to reschedule. Then I shot an email to Lex to let him know I had decided to make my business trip to L.A. a weekend getaway to the same location.
I sent one more text, then turned off my phone and drowned myself in a bottle of scotch to escape all the fucked-up shit I had stumbled upon.
KINSLEY
IT HAD BEEN HOURS SINCE Ashton left me with my lies spilled out on the floor before me.
Hours since I was left with nothing but emptiness.
None of this was fair.
Jase.
My life.
The loss of my father.
And now the loss of Ashton.
I sat in the center of my living room floor, unable to cry and trying to feel something, anything, other than the anger rippling through me.
I told him from the beginning that he and I wouldn’t be good together. I tried to push him away and make him understand that my life had no room for a man.
But he persisted, and his determination to make me see that we could work out had finally won me over. Now here I was, a pool of regret, as everything I’d predicted turned out to be right.
And I was angry.
Damn it, he should have left me alone.
I pushed off the floor and walked toward the kitchen in search of my keys.
I left my apartment without a backward glance and with one goal in