by K. A. Linde
Standing with her arms on her narrow hips, Bekah was talking to a team of lawyers as well as her daddy and another Bridges associate Lexi had seen around but still didn’t know his name. Bekah looked like the queen bitch she was in a knee-length black pencil skirt with a long-sleeved cream blouse tucked into it. Her nude heels were on the shorter, more modest side. The only jewelry on her body was the pearls in her ears. Her makeup was light, and she had her natural blonde hair pinned back, out of her face.
Victim.
She was always trying to play the victim. It was how she got away with everything. Sugary, sweet outside, but a sour, rotten human being on the inside.
Out of the corner of her eye, Bekah eyed Jack and Lexi, dropping her gaze to where their hands were linked before flitting back up to their faces. Bekah didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. Lexi could see the contempt on her face from a mile off. She pushed Jack toward Richard, who was standing off to the side and fumbling through a stack of papers in his hands.
“Good, you’re here,” Richard said, his face drawn and tense when he looked at Lexi.
“Right on time,” Jack said.
“I see that you still showed.”
Lexi bit her lip and nodded. The look on Bekah’s face had been enough to know that Lexi was needed here. In a way, it was deeply satisfying knowing that while Bekah had married Jack…she had never really had his heart. He had just been fighting his love for Lexi all along. He certainly hadn’t found what he was looking for in a match with the Bitch.
Richard blew out heavily. He looked like this case was causing him a lot of grief. Lexi hadn’t picked him because it was going to be easy. She hoped he wasn’t losing his grip.
“There have been some last-minute changes. Sorry to repeat myself, Lexi, but I wish you would have stayed home.”
“Last minute?” Lexi asked, furrowing her brow.
“What happened?” Jack asked. He crossed his arms, his jaw set. He looked like he was ready to get right down to business.
Despite the situation, Lexi smiled, admiring the man that he had become.
“It seems the judge has allowed the Bridges to admit some last-minute evidence into the case,” Richard said, shaking his head. “In all my years…”
“Fuck,” Lexi said, feeling the other shoe drop. She knew that packet had felt incomplete. What was the Bitch hiding?
Richard handed Jack a packet of information, and Lexi glanced over his shoulder to read what it said. She skimmed through the legal jargon that warranted Bekah admitting new evidence after the designated discovery period. Lexi’s mind was already trying to figure out how to get this thrown out. There was no way this could be admissible in court. Why had the judge allowed Bekah to submit this?
Because Bekah owned the judge.
Lexi had suspected before, but this seemed to confirm it in her eyes. No judge would have just allowed Bekah to produce new material without some serious justification. Bekah was strategic in holding back this information. She didn’t want anyone to see it until the day of. She didn’t want to give Jack a chance for a rebuttal. Now, they only had an hour before court was in session to discuss what to do with the new information…unless they requested a change in date.
Looking at Jack just then told her that there was no way he would agree to that. He was ready to be rid of Bekah. He would go through with it even if it were against his better judgment. When would they next get a court date? Bekah wouldn’t push for a quicker date, knowing that Lexi and Jack were together. She would delay, delay, delay.
Lexi pinched the bridge of her nose, understanding then why Richard looked more run-down with the weight of this news.
And then, Jack flipped the page.
Her mouth dropped open, and she braced herself against Jack’s arm. It was a photograph of her and Jack. They were at the beach. She was wrapped in his arms, her head resting on his chest. She couldn’t tell from the angle that she had been crying. It just looked like they were together…really together. The next ten pages were of that night.
Lexi’s heart raced as she looked at each one individually. These were from so long ago.
The next picture was of them at the D-Bags show. Shit! Whoever had taken the picture had somehow zoomed in enough to get their hands laced together. She had completely forgotten about that. It had been friendly. It hadn’t been anything at all. It hadn’t happened like that.
Jack flipped through the pictures, one at a time. There were dozens of them together—some in his apartment, others at lunches together, one of him opening the door to her office after-hours. Lexi felt herself hyperventilating. Bekah had been tailing them. With the quality of these, Bekah must have hired a private investigator.
Then, Jack turned to the back, and they both stared slack-jawed at a picture that, while it was grainy and hard to see, was unmistakably them. Neither would ever forget that night. Lexi’s back was pressed firmly against a wall, her red dress hiked up over her hips with her legs wrapped around his waist. There was no mistaking what was going on.
She was so shocked by the sheer volume of pictures and the story being told that Lexi couldn’t even get her mind working to tell Richard how much this was complete and utter bullshit. Jack had to get these thrown out. It wasn’t true, but goddamn it, from this storyline, it looked believable to even her. Lexi could account for every moment when these pictures had been captured. None of them were doctored, but also none of them were of her and Jack cheating…except for the last one.
“No,” Lexi said, shaking her head. “Let’s find a room to talk this out. It’s a false trail. She’s planted a false trail. She’s fucking falsifying evidence. Oh, I’ll skin her alive!”
“That’s a great idea,” Richard said, gesturing for them to walk down a hallway.
Lexi could hear the lilt in Bekah’s laughter as they walked away. It took every ounce of Lexi’s strength not to turn around and claw the Bitch’s face off.
They stepped into an open room, and Richard closed the door.
“Are either of you going to explain this to me, so we can have a starting point on how to address it?”
“Have the judge throw it out! It’s not permissible.”
Richard shook his head. “We need a plan of attack. The judge has already agreed to keep it. He took one look at it and said it was too important not to include.”
“What was their reasoning for not having it earlier?” she cried.
“The private investigator was waiting for video footage that was held up,” Richard said, shaking his head. “Bullshit. That’s how I know it’s all wrong. So, one of you needs to start explaining. We don’t have time.”
Richard yanked out a chair and took a seat. After retrieving his legal pad and a pen, they launched into the story. They explained every single picture in complete detail. Neither of them wavered in their stories because it was the truth. For once, they had absolutely nothing to hide.
“And the last one?” Richard asked, raising his eyebrow.
Lexi looked at Jack, and he sighed and nodded.
“It was the night before I proposed to Bekah,” Jack said.
Richard dropped his pen. “You’re really not helping me.”
“It’s the truth though. Bekah knew about it before we got married.”
Lexi chimed in. “I was there. I told her about it. I can name almost ten people who were witness to that.”
“It’s too late for witnesses, but this will have to do. Is there anything else either of you can think of that would change the tides? They’ll work this storyline pretty hard. I can already tell.”
Jack and Lexi glanced at each other, trying to decide if there was anything else, but there wasn’t.
“All right. This is what we’re going to do…”
This entire thing hinged on whether or not they could prove that Jack hadn’t cheated. If he hadn’t signed that damn prenup with Bekah—saying that if either of them cheated, the one at fault had to pay the other a sizable, crippling
amount of money and give up all of the assets—then none of this would even matter. It would be a normal fifty-fifty split, like every other divorce.
Forty-five minutes later, when they were called into the courtroom, they had a game plan for how they were going to approach the new evidence. Lexi took a deep breath, and Jack grabbed her hand again.
He squeezed it lightly and smiled down at her. “Don’t worry. We’ll get through this. Lying never seemed to work. Maybe telling the truth will do us some good,” he said with a wink.
Lexi smiled weakly up at him. She wanted to have his optimism in that moment, but this had gone from good to bad to worse in a matter of minutes. She didn’t want Bekah to demoralize Jack…to tear him down until there was nothing left. Lexi didn’t want to think Bekah was capable of it, but Lexi didn’t know. She just didn’t know.
They left the room behind and walked down to the entrance of the courtroom. Bekah smugly walked in before them. The way she looked at them made it seem like she had already won.
Lexi didn’t know what it was about that look, but it sparked a light bulb in her mind. She pulled up short, yanking on Jack’s arm, as he tried to continue walking forward. Lexi was shaking her head, realizing what she had been missing.
“Lex, come on,” Jack said, urging her forward. “It’ll be over soon.”
“I have to get something. I just remembered…” She trailed off.
“What?” Jack asked, his eyes trained on her.
She was sure he could feel Richard staring daggers at them.
“I know what can help. I’ll be back,” she said, turning to leave.
“What? Lexi,” Jack called.
She stopped and turned back around.
“What is it? What should I tell Richard?”
Lexi smiled and whispered into Jack’s ear.
Jack laughed and nodded. “All right.”
“Tell him to be ready,” she said before turning and jogging out of the courthouse.
Lexi missed almost everything, but it didn’t matter.
She had found what she had been looking for. She hadn’t been sure that it still existed or that it would be enough, but she had to try. Jack would try for her. As long as the judge allowed them to contribute more information to the case, then they would be in the clear. If Bekah had completely bought out the judge of all sanity, then nothing they did would help anyway.
Lexi eased quietly into the courtroom and took a seat in the back. She didn’t need to move forward until Richard called for her.
Lexi tapped her foot impatiently. The adrenaline was pumping through her veins, and she felt the familiar rush that she got right before putting the nail in the coffin on a case she had been working on for a long time. And Bekah certainly was a case Lexi had been trying to crack.
Bekah sat on the stand. She had already been sworn in, and her attorney was asking her questions. Bekah looked the part, and it turned Lexi’s stomach. She had been coached well. Lexi didn’t even hear the question her lawyer had asked, but she heard the speech Bekah gave then. It was clearly well rehearsed.
“Cheating is never okay, but in marriage,” Bekah said, dabbing at her eyes, “it is so much worse. In marriage, you made a commitment before your friends and family and God. You signed a legal document with the state, acknowledging that you’re family now. It’s different. Why waste all of that time and love? Nothing destroys you that much, and if it does, then you should turn to your partner.”
Bekah looked over at Jack then with what she was trying to pass as true sadness. While Bekah’s act was good, it was still just an act.
“Your partner,” Bekah repeated. “Not anyone else. That’s what your partner is there for. If the partner is not, then you should at least have the decency to talk through it. Don’t put the other person through the ringer for your own inadequacies.”
Lexi was pretty sure she was going to throw up if she had to listen to another word of the bullshit Bekah was spouting. Yes, what Bekah was saying was true, but the context was all wrong. Jack hadn’t done anything!
Bekah continued talking about the photographs and telling the easy story that was spun out of the pictures. Lexi knew it was coming, but she still couldn’t keep from cringing.
“No further questions.”
Phew! Richard’s turn. Finally.
“Ms. Bridges,” Richard said, standing and walking up to her, “did you ever purchase anything for Ms. Alexa Walsh, who is pictured here?” He slapped one of the photographs down in front of Bekah.
“I’m not sure how that’s relevant,” Bekah answered snootily.
“Simple question, Ms. Bridges. Did you or did you not purchase anything for the woman pictured here?”
Bekah’s eyes flitted to her attorney, then to her father seated directly behind the attorney, and then to Lexi. Lexi broke out into a challenging smile.
“No. I don’t believe I did,” Bekah said.
Lie. And under oath.
“Really?” Richard asked, raising his eyebrows. “Your honor, I would like permission to submit two pieces of evidence before the court and request a subpoena for Ms. Bridges’s credit card history.”
“I object,” Bekah’s attorney cried, standing and throwing his fist down. “New evidence is not permissible during court proceedings.”
“What new evidence?” the judge asked. “And why a subpoena? Explain yourself, Richard.”
Richard gestured for Lexi to move forward, and she rose to her feet as Richard continued speaking.
“Ms. Bridges claims that my client had an affair with this woman. While only a few pictures, grainy at best, show my client having any sexual relations with Ms. Walsh, we can prove to you that these pictures were taken before my client was married to Ms. Bridges since Ms. Bridges herself purchased the dress in the photos.”
“I object,” her attorney said again. “There is no reason to admit this into the file.”
“If we had had all of the evidence you were bringing to the table by the discovery deadline, then we would have easily obtained this information and had it on file for you,” Richard cut in.
“Quiet, both of you,” the judge said. “Let me see what you have.”
Lexi handed Richard the folded red silk material of the dress she had worn to Jack’s birthday party all those years ago. It had been tossed to the bottom of her closet in New York—out of sight, out of mind. But when she moved, she had put it in a box with a bunch of other stuff that she had never unpacked. There it still lay when she had recovered it to hand to Richard.
Next, she passed him a picture she had taken off her dresser. She had felt bad about taking it without talking to Ramsey, but he hadn’t been home, and she hadn’t moved her stuff out yet. She and Ramsey had been standing together at Jack’s birthday party. A passing photographer at the event had taken the photo that night, and in the background, she could just see the birthday festivities and the Happy 25th Birthday, Jack banner hanging across the back wall. It was faint, but it was there. There was no mistaking it. Lexi had always hidden the picture behind some of the others that cluttered her dresser but Ramsey had always liked it…so she had kept it. Now, she was glad that she had.
Richard passed the evidence to the judge and explained each of them thoroughly. Lexi thought that Bekah and her attorney were going to combust. She had never seen Bekah fraying at the edges like this. Bekah was going to have an outburst. Lexi could see it, and so, she just smirked at Bekah.
Take that, Bitch!
The judge looked at the picture and the dress and shook his head. He was muttering under his breath to himself. Lexi couldn’t make out what he was saying, but she thought she might have heard, Damn kids. Maybe she had heard wrong.
“Ms. Bridges, would you be willing to submit a copy of your credit card history to the court from the time this picture was taken?” the judge asked.
Bekah swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Lexi could hear the fear in her voice. She was sure the judge saw it
all over Bekah’s face. Falsifying evidence, lying under oath—Bekah was surely adding up all the things that had gone wrong in her plan.
“Good. We’ll take a short recess for me to determine whether or not to proceed with this new evidence or to reconvene at a later time when this can all be properly processed,” the judge said, slamming the gavel down and giving them a short break.
Richard and Jack followed Lexi back out of the courtroom and into their room once more.
As the door closed behind them, Richard started talking. “That evidence is going to push the outcome to a fifty-fifty split,” he said confidently. He looked practically giddy with relief. He had been pretty sure that Jack was going to get screwed out of everything.
Fifty-fifty was way better than losing Jack’s entire livelihood to a Bitch who didn’t even need it!
“Good,” Jack said. “We don’t need to push for anything more than that. I just want it to be over with.”
“She’ll have to back down. The judge looked like he was going to have to use the evidence after Bekah’s comments,” Richard said. “Good thing you thought about the dress.”
Jack found Lexi’s hand once more and pulled her closer to him. “It is good.”
“I didn’t want her to get away with it,” Lexi said softly, her brown eyes meeting his baby blues.
She wished in that moment that they were alone and this was all over. She just wanted to start over with Jack. After today, they would finally be rid of Bekah and the past and could think concretely about the future.
They spoke for a few more minutes about what to do going forward, and then they were called back into the courtroom. Lexi took the seat directly behind Jack this time. It was clear she was part of this hearing whether or not Richard had wanted her to be. He was probably thanking her at this point since, based on the prenup, the offending party would have to cover his attorney fees.
The judge ambled back into his chair and took a seat. “I’ve decided to include the evidence into the file as long as Ms. Bridges produces the proper paperwork. We’re going to break for lunch and return in an hour.” He banged his gavel down and disappeared as quickly as he came.