One Last Time(89)

“Unreal!” Scott throws his hands up.

“You called who?” Noah asks. “How did you even get details?”

She rolls her eyes. “Scott had a monitoring software installed on her phone. It’s how we were able to sneak around without you knowing. You sent your little text exchange about Noah’s real name and I knew there was something there.”

I gasp. “What? You had that installed on my phone?”

He was tracking me? Was there no limit to what he was willing to do? I feel as though I’m living in the Twilight Zone. These people are out of their freaking minds. I’m truly stunned and feel a little stupid. All this time I’ve been living away from him, but he’s been monitoring me?

“This is fucking crazy!” Noah raises his voice. “Let’s go, sweetheart. This is illegal, and we’re going to my lawyer.”

Scott grabs my arm to stop me. “Kristin, please.”

“Don’t fucking touch her.” Noah puts himself in front of me again, almost chest to chest with Scott, who releases me immediately.

“It was what we got for Finn when we gave him a phone. I didn’t know it was on yours.”

Jillian snorts. “Yeah, right. Anyway, I have access. I got his real name and the rest was cake. Your dead girlfriend’s parents were all too willing to talk to your new girlfriend.” She grins at Noah.

Holy shit. She really is unglued. She called Tanya’s parents, said God knows what, and then sent the article. I have never in my entire life wanted to physically harm someone as much as I want to hurt her right now. I wish I had been diabolical enough to record this. Then maybe we could’ve done something legally against her. But we came here thinking it was Scott. And for better or worse, he’s Aubrey and Finn’s father, taking him down only hurts them.

But this is a horse of a different crazy . . . the certifiable kind. She needs a straightjacket with her next OBGYN visit.

“Are you insane? What the hell is wrong with you?” Scott screams at her.

The list is endless.

“You pushed the wedding back after seeing her with him one time!” She yells back in his face while pointing to Noah. “I know you still love her! You love her, and you’re going to leave me!”

“So, you go through my text messages and decide to fake an article? Do you even understand how irrational this is? You got him! You won, Jillian!” I shake my head. Scott isn’t a prize, but she clearly thinks he is. “He’s all yours, I’ve got the man I want, and it is not Scott. But what more do you want? You slept with my husband and got knocked up by him, but yet, you still have to find a way to make my life miserable? Why? What did you think you were going to gain by doing this?”

She rolls her eyes and ignores me.

“Answer me!” I yell.

She turns to Scott and glares. “I didn’t wait two years for you to get rid of her to be second place!”

Maybe if she went after, oh, I don’t know, a single man, she wouldn’t have had to wait at all. Instead, she chose a man with a wife and kids. She’s a real peach.

Jillian’s eyes meet mine, and I clench my fists. “He picks your stupid kids over me. He picks you over me.” Her voice is dripping with disdain, and I lose it. It’s time for Mama Bear to come out. No one talks about my babies like that.

I move closer to her, keeping my hand in Noah’s. I might need him to restrain me. “Don’t you ever talk about my children. You’re a homewrecker that will never be happy in your life. You want what other people have but don’t take care of what you do have. You see, I’ve won and you’ve lost. Noah is still right here, and now Scott sees you for what you are—a spiteful bitch.”

I will never understand someone capable of doing this. I turn to my ex-husband, a forty-one-year-old grown man who is allowing a twenty-four-year-old to ruin his life, and throw out my demands, “She is to be nowhere near my kids. If you want me not to call my lawyer, then you better figure out how to make that happen because I won’t allow her to be part of their lives or mine.”

“You’re not going to have to worry about that. She won’t be around anyone for much longer.”

There are consequences to every choice we make, some are positive, like leaving Scott and finding Noah. Others are negative, like choosing to be a sneaky, paranoid, whore and ending up with nothing. I’d say I’ve made some of the better decisions.

Noah is the treasure chest after the shipwreck of my marriage. We may not have had a map leading us to the X that marks the spot, but we have one another as guides.

I look back at him and smile.

“Ready, sweetheart?” Noah grins.

There’s nothing else that they can do to me. I’m not the girl I was all those years ago. I don’t play games or allow people to run my life. I’m stronger with Noah beside me, but I’m also strong on my own. Standing here, watching these two, makes me realize how much better my life is. My relationship isn’t perfect, no one’s is, but Noah and I don’t want to hurt one another.

Even when we were tested, we found our way through it. He flew thousands of miles just to work it out.

I love him more than I knew I could love another man.

“I’m ready. Everything is behind us now.”

He leans in and kisses my lips. “Damn right it is.”