Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
ISABELLE
A week after I leave the castle, I now have the evidence I need to take Tristan down.
Maybe.
Just as I anticipated, Lily wasn’t the first woman Tristan manipulated and tossed aside. He has a long list of women, at least a dozen, who fell for his charms and realized he wasn’t truly in love with them , but what they could give him.
Seven of them are willing to come forward. Two of them want to remain anonymous, but the other five are ready to put everything on the line for the sake of protecting other women.
The problem is that people don’t always believe women who come forward about their manipulators. Sometimes it even backfires and the women get made to look like they’re trying to get attention, and the man in question gains popularity. I just hope that isn’t what happens here. At the bare minimum, I hope that the Family Entertainment Network won’t want to associate themselves with Tristan when his reputation is in question.
I flop back on my couch, having finished my last phone call with the fifth woman who wants to tell her story. Tomorrow morning we’ll contact Allegra at Inside Scoop, the same company who published my interview, and hope they’ll run the story.
Jen is still working in her office, tying up all the loose ends. I close my eyes and try to relax, but I don’t think I’ll be able to until everything is out in the open.
I haven’t even tried contacting Adam yet. But he hasn’t tried to call me either. Once everything is exposed, I’ll call him. Right now, I wouldn’t know what to say. I can’t let him know what I’m planning, but I also don’t want to lie to him.
I hear Jen step into the living room and open my eyes. She leans against the doorframe, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “You kept something from me,” she says.
I sit up. “What do you mean?”
“There’s one more woman for our list.” She stares me down. “Lily Stone.”
“How…” I swallow. I didn’t think she’d be able to find her connection to Tristan now that she’s been locked down. “How did you figure it out?”
She fixes me with a no-nonsense glare. “Really? You didn’t think with my ‘super tech skills’ that I’d be able to put that together? Adam punches Tristan, Lily goes incognito, and now you’re on a rampage to find these women who Tristan manipulated. It’s pretty clear.”
“When you put it that way…” I run a hand through my hair, calculating my words so I don’t break my promises to Adam.
But Jen makes it easy for me and starts talking. “Here’s what I think happened: Tristan manipulated Lily into falling for him, said something to Adam about it at the Goldies, and Adam punched him. Somehow Adam got to Tristan and convinced him to let Lily go, and Tristan dropped the charges in exchange for them not saying anything.” She smirks at me. “How was that?”
“Pretty impressive,” I admit.
“If we can get Lily to talk—” Jen begins.
I shake my head. “She can’t. It’s in the contract.”
Jen sighs. “Well, I just called and left her a message.”
“Jen!” I jump off the couch. “Adam will kill me if she says anything. It’s not just the contract. He doesn’t want her to face the public backlash.”
“She doesn’t have to say anything. We might have enough evidence without her. But her story is the most compelling, and it clears Adam’s name. You know I’m right.”
She is. We both know it. But that’s a line I’m not willing to cross.
Jen looks down at her phone. “She’s calling me back.” She answers the phone and puts it on speaker. “Hi, Lily. I’m here with Isabelle.”
“Oh, hi. Hey, Isabelle.”
“Hey, Lily,” I say gently.
“Thanks for calling me back,” Jen says. “So, I’m not sure if you’d be interested in helping out, but I think it would really help Adam’s case.”
“I just told Jen about the contract,” I say. “She didn’t know that you weren’t legally allowed to say anything before she called.”
Lily is quiet. “I never signed the contract.”
It takes a minute for her words to sink in. “Wait…what?”
“I never signed.” Her words start rushing out. “The negotiations were rushed, and I was never included in the conversation. I was sent a copy after both Tristan and Adam signed, and there wasn’t even a line for my signature. But I wasn’t planning on saying anything anyway, so it’s not like it mattered.”
“And you still don’t have to,” I say. Jen narrows her eyes at me, but I continue. “It would cause a huge tidal wave, and I don’t want to pressure you into anything you’re not comfortable with.”
Jen sighs. “Agreed. It’s your decision entirely.”
Lily is silent for a long time, and I wonder if she hung up. “I’ll think about it,” she finally says.
“Thank you for even considering it,” I say. “Hopefully the few women we have who agreed to speak up will be enough.”
“I hope so,” Lily says. “It’s good to hear from you, Isabelle.”
“You, too. I’ll have to come meet you in person one of these days.”
“Hopefully with Adam,” she responds, a teasing lilt to her voice.
I chuckle. “Yeah, I hope so, too.”
The next day, Jen and I sit in front of her laptop at the kitchen table, anxiously awaiting the article. Allegra said it would be published this afternoon. I’ve been a ball of nerves all morning, hoping that they write something that makes Tristan seem like the pig he is.
Robby, Jen’s boyfriend, came over too. He’s sitting on the couch playing video games, oblivious to our nerves. Jen explained the situation to him, and while he’s sympathetic, I think he prefers his fictional world to our real one.
I refresh the website again. “It’s up!”
At the top of the page is an article with the title:
ALLEGATIONS AGAINST TRISTAN JACKSON SURFACE FROM MULTIPLE WOMEN.
I click the article, and Jen and I lean forward to read. The article is pretty straightforward, reporting that Tristan Jackson has been keeping multiple girlfriends at the same time, misleading them into falling for him and then dumping them when he’s achieved whatever goal he had in mind.
By the end, it’s made clear that he didn’t do anything illegal, just…a little sketchy.
I turn to Jen. “Do you think this is enough?”
She winces and shrugs a shoulder. “I’m not sure.”
Robby walks by us, sipping on an iced tea. His game must be over. “What’s going on?”
“The article just got published,” Jen replies.
Robby stands over her shoulder, scanning the article. “Honestly, I don’t know if this will make him actually look BAD.”
“What do you mean?” I reply.
“There have been a few stories exposing guys who act like this. Dating multiple women at the same time, manipulating them into thinking they’re ‘the one,’ and if anything, it just makes him more desirable. Guys admire their skills, and girls want to be their next conquest.”
“Ugh.” I sit back in my chair in disgust. “What’s wrong with this world?”
“I’m not condoning it,” Robby says quickly, straightening and putting up his hands. A little bit of tea sloshes on the floor. “I’m not one of those guys.”
“Don’t worry, we know,” Jen says, a small smirk on her face. Of every guy I’ve ever met, Robby is probably the furthest from a ladies’ man. He’s our lovable nerd.
“So, now what?” I ask.
Jen shrugs and looks sympathetic. “We wait, I guess.”
We sit and stare at the computer screen. I’m not sure what we’re expecting to materialize, but nothing happens. I should probably do an Internet search of Tristan Jackson’s name to see if there are any opinion articles written in response, but my phone buzzes on the table, startling us all.
“It’s a text from my dad,” I say, furrowing a brow. I spoke to him once when I got down the mountain, letting him know I’d be ready to start shooting soon but didn’t say anything else about my plans. It was better to leave him in the dark. I unlock the screen and see the following words:
Dad
My house. Now.