She smirks, refusing to give up. “You don’t have to be.” She bites her lip, looking down at Ashley’s lips then back up to her eyes. “Me and you… we could be a ‘we’ again. All you have to do is say yes.”

Kristal leans in to kiss her, but Ashley dodges it just in time.

“Oh, hell no!” I roar, emerging from my hiding space.

“Spencer,” Kristal gasps, shocked. “What are you doing here?” she says, taking a few steps back from Ashley.

Ashley’s head whips around and she pleads, “Wait, Spencer, this isn’t what it looks like.”

“No, Ash, this is exactly what it looks like. It looks like this skank is trying to make a move on you,” I accuse. My fists clench and unclench as I take shallow, shaky breaths out of my mouth.

“I—I’m gonna go,” she stammers, avoiding me and rushing to the door.

“I think that would be best,” Ashley mumbles.

After I hear the door slam, I turn back to Ashley, anger drained away after seeing her beautiful face.

“Sorry,” she chokes out.

I tilt my head to the side. “Why are you apologizing? You have nothing to be sorry about, sweetie.

She smiles at me but it quickly disappears.

I groan, vocalizing her concern. “We’re screwed.”

————————————–

Even though we spent most of the night working, Ashley and I pulled a few strings and talked to her connections. A lot of television shows agreed to pull the ‘breaking news’ coverage for Ashley’s sake after she explained the situation to them. I had no idea Ashley had so much influence in the entertainment industry, but apparently, she had a lot of friends in high places who were willing to do big favors for her. The fact that she was Raife Davies didn’t hurt either. Coupled with the fact that she had big bucks for bribing, I was almost certain there would be few to no coverage on the trial.

We also called up a few of Ashley’s politician friends and convinced them to get their people to talk to people—law people. I have a strong feeling there’s going to be a much more… lenient jury today.  They also warned us that Paula had talked to a few colleagues of theirs, and that she still had more tricks up her sleeves, although they aren’t certain of what they’re going to do exactly, they only know that whatever it is, it’s going to be bad. One of Ashley’s closer friends said that it might have something to do with a search warrant of some sort.