I stared at the phone in his hand and, as if on instinct, swiped out my hand to snatch it from him.

Of course, he already knew that I'd do that and pulled it away just in time.

My jaw tightened angrily, "Josh you can't do this!"

"Why not? So you can continue to sleep with Derek for the rest of your life without even giving me a chance?" He lifted his chin in determination, "No, I can't just sit here and let that happen!"

"So your planning on ruining my marriage instead?" I countered.

He didn't even fumble at my words, staring at me with an intensity that confirmed his true intentions.

I threw up my hands in frustration, wishing that I could wring his neck instead. Anything to shake some sense into him.

"Why don't you understand that I love him!"

"You just think that you love him," Josh said, the determination in his eyes growing fiercer.

God. Didn't he get it? I didn't want him. Didn't want to be with him. And never again would I want to.

The jangling of keys at my doorway and the muffled voices behind it caught my attention. Panic was flooding my veins at hyper speed.
My gaze swung frantically back to Josh, still holding his phone in his hand.

"Give it to me!" I half-shouted, trying to mask my anger with a hushed tone so Derek couldn't hear.

Josh looked between me, the door and then back to me, disgust all over his face. He shook his head at my suggestion and gave me a look that made me feel like I was acting crazy, instead of trying to salvage my marriage.

He's going to ruin this for me.

He's going to wreck everything.

As the lock turned on the door, the sound reverberated through my bones and made me jump into action.

"You have to hide!" I said frantically, searching the room left and right for a good place that Derek couldn't notice.

Josh stared at me like I had two heads and then narrowed his eyes in a nasty glare. Apparently, he didn't like that suggestion either.

"I'm going to tell him." Josh said stubbornly.

The fire in my veins turned to ice.

Flashes of Derek's heartbroken face popped into my head when he realized that I had cheated on him. Right after we had consummated our marriage too.

"You can't!"

My fingers were trembling and I was shaking. My eyes were getting blurry with tears. The thought of losing Derek forever spinning on fast forward in my mind like a bad dream.

"I can. And I'm going to get you back." He said, unfazed by my desperation.

I crumpled backwards, shrinking away at the nightmare I knew would unfold in a matter of seconds and hoped that I could wake up from this horrible dream.

I covered my eyes, not wanting to see the anger on Derek's face just as my front door swung open. There was a deep, ebbing silence and nobody said anything. Maybe my prayers were answered. Maybe it was all just a bad-

"Evelyn?" Josh asked, incredulously.

Evelyn?

My eyelids snapped open to reveal shimmery, brown haired Evelyn gawking at Josh. Her gaze slid over him, like she didn't believe what she's seeing.

In all honesty, I didn't believe it either.

My panic button hit overdrive as her eyes moved to me, standing almost directly behind him. I felt like a burglar in a bank, caught red-handed with the proof of my crimes written all over my face. Evelyn may be a real bitch, but she wasn't stupid.

She connected the dots in a split second, flicking her tongue across her top set of perfectly aligned teeth. All the different ways she's planned on holding this over my head in the future flit over my mind.

But then something unexpected happens.

Derek walks in behind her, arms full of grocery bags. There's panic all over his face as he closes the door shut. He hasn't seen me yet.

"Eve don't, she'll see you!" He says, alarmed.

Eve?

I clutched onto the front of my shirt, the same way that I've seen Noah do a thousand times before he's about to break down. I can feel the tears coming just as Derek turns around and looks at my guilty expression.

"What's he doing here?" Evelyn asked, springing the question that is most definitely on Derek's mind.

Derek didn't say anything. He's quiet, but I can hear the gears work around in his head, jumping to conclusions before anything is even said yet.

Josh ruins it all, "We love each other."

My eyes are wide with frustration as all eyes snap to Josh. Him and Derek are having a heated glaring contest that I fear will quickly turn into a who-can-punch-each-other's-face-in-the-fastest contest.

"I don't believe that," Derek muttered in a calm façade through a storm of lightning flashes behind his green eyes.

I fiddled with my fingers,unsure how to diffuse the situation before it escalated any further. But I'm not sure I can.

Josh kept going, "We've had three years together before you came along and she didn't forgot about me the second you showed up!"

Josh is ranting in a voice that is much angrier than I've ever seen him, "She told me all about your," he points at Evelyn with irritation, "little plan weeks ago. We've spent hours together in little café's and restaurants thinking up ways to get out of the situation too."

Derek is looking at me with a scrutinizing gaze and asks me if its true or not. My inability to answer and yanking at the front of my shirt gave him all the information he needs.

"I love her much more than you ever could have," Josh is saying, "and so does she!"

Josh whipped out his phone and I let out a strangled cry, once again reaching out to grab it. He lifted it away and quickly hit the play button. The silence that filled the air next is interrupted by mine and Josh's angry voices.

"I'm still in love with you Kate. But you haven't answered any of my texts or my letter that I sent you." Josh said.

"I've been busy," Comes my mousy reply, sounding even guiltier than I thought it had when I said it.

"Too busy to be with the man you love and care for?"

"I am with the man I love and care for!"

"Then why did you kiss me at my house?" Josh's voice was demanding and I flinched, knowing there was no getting out of it now.

Everyone heard it. My eyes slowly slid over to Derek's and he looked right at me, calculating all of my movements in his gaze. The tight grip he has in his jaw isn't letting up and he keeps it clamped shut like a vice.

I want to reach out and touch him. Tell him that it's all a big lie. Anything to get that horrid look off his face. I hate seeing him look betrayed.

There's a stretch of silence in the tape and I think that maybe it's miraculously broken or that Josh has finally decided to shut off the damage. I'm wrong. The tape continues.

"I knew you loved me!" Comes Josh's next debilitating phrase and the sickening smooching sound of his lips on my cheeks. It's a fact that Derek already thinks that I kissed him on the lips at least twice now. I can see it in his expression.

I want to die. Derek hasn't said another word and I desperately want him to do something other than give me silence, even though I deserve it.

Josh shuts off the tape in a conspicuous movement that no body else but me sees and I feel like bashing his head in. It was a clever tactic that he used because he turned it off before I got to the part where I tell him that I still love Derek and before the part where he blackmailed me.

Evelyn swings around to Derek in the first ungraceful movement I've seen her do in her entire life, "I thought you said you could stop this from happening!"

"I thought I could too," Derek mumbled, trying to rub the pain away from his scrunched up forehead.

I'm clenching my arm in a grip so tight that I can feel it go limp from the lack of blood.

"We still can," I say pathetically, finally finding my meek voice, "We can fix this."

"How?" Says Evelyn shrilly, picking at the thought I've been avoiding for weeks.

She blows her head off on a one-player screaming match, ranting about how I always got in her way in high school and I'm doing it again now.

She's in my face, her spit is flying around and I'm looking at Derek helplessly.

He thinks I don't love him.

The thought breaks my heart. I don't want him to believe that.

"She ruined our entire plan!" Evelyn screams to Derek.

I don't even hear her, Derek's heartbroken face is the only thing I can focus on and how its tearing me apart.

"What plan?" Josh questions.

Now I hear it.

I look up expectantly at Evelyn curious to know what Josh is talking about.

"You weren't supposed know," She says, her shouts quickly dimming to low whispers, like she didn't want to say.

"What plan?" Josh is grilling Evelyn firmly with his voice and shooting daggers that make her squirm. I'm getting anxious to know just what's going on. She's going to crack. I just know it.

Thankfully, Josh doesn't have to ask a third time.

"The plan, dammit!" She screwed up her face and pointed to me, "She was supposed to be with Derek and I was supposed to be with you!"

The instant wrinkle of Josh's nose tells me all I need to know about how he feels about her. Any other day I would have laughed, but the new revelation has me reeling.

"Your sick!" Josh said disgustedly, inching away from her.

Evelyn shrivels backwards like she's been attacked.

There's this terrible, hollowness inside me that's eating away at all the tenderness that I'd managed to resurface for Derek in the past weeks.

I turn to Derek, my guilt morphing into rage, "That's true then? You planned this from the start?"

"I loved you," Is all he can say.

My breathing is suddenly too fast and the world seemed to be spinning around way too quickly.

"The contracts? Are they real? Did you know about those too?"

"They're real," Evelyn confirms defeatedly and for once, she doesn't make fun of my misery, "We planned it all before Derek ever came to your party."

This is unbelievable.

A planned attack.

With Evelyn no less.

Of all the people in the goddamn world to choose from he picked Evelyn! Didn't he know that we hated each other?

My heart is cracking apart and I can feel the angry, pathetic tears forming behind my eyes.

"Get out." Is all I can say.

"What? Why?" Josh asked, shocked.

"GET. OUT." My scream echoed off the walls so loud that even I flinch.

Evelyn practically runs out the door and Josh follows a little more reluctantly. All that's left is Derek in my living room. He doesn't meet my eyes and instead keeps them trained on the ground.

"You too, I want you gone."

"Whatever." He said, walking out and slamming the door behind him.

-------------------------------------------------------------

"Your sure your okay?" Cass asked sweetly.

"Cass," I warned, using a low tone that usually made her stop.

She had asked me continuously whether or not I was okay after Derek had come back to town. And I was fine. Absolutely perfect actually. Nothing could be better than this day. Really. I just wish she understood that.

"Sorry," She said sheepishly, "But I just wanted to make sure that you were-"

"Fine?" I offered, "Yes, and don't worry."

"New topic?"

"Yes," I answered in relief that she was finally off my back.

"Okay, um how did that report with you and Evelyn go?"

A small rock that was on the sidewalk came close to my shoe and I kicked out with all my might. It skittered around far and hit the tire of a car parked on the road.

"I dunnoe actually. Mr. Brown still has to finish marking it."

"Okay, well I hope you did great." She said.

My house neared into view from our walk home and then something caught my eye. On our lawn was Derek and Callumn arguing about something.

Callumn is really angry. He's got a terrible scowl and his face is so red it could be a stick of dynamite. Derek seems equally angry as well and his hair is sticking up more than usual.

I look at Cass and exchange warning glanced with her. As if led by telepathy, our feet both lift off the ground at the same time, racing toward my house.

We're both there when Callumn suddenly tells Derek never to come back to our house again.

"Your so fucking sour Cal, you know that even your little girlfriend wants to have me." Derek spat.

I cannot believe my ears and Cass looks so offended that I want to hit him for hurting her.

"Look, I'm sorry we didn't get your sister back alright! But you don't have to put on this act that you don't care about anything."

Derek's face almost mutated into a bull seeing red, "Don't fucking talk about her. You don't know a goddamn thing about me or my family. So shut up."

He turned and walked right past me like he didn't see me.

"Derek!" I shouted, but Derek pretended he didn't hear me and kept walking to his car.

"Leave it alone Kate." Callumn warned, his eyes telling me not to continue.