Chapter 1042:

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Cathryn turned this over. It was, she had to admit, exactly the kind of careless, thoughtless logic Andrew would use in a moment like that.

“Nothing happened between me and that woman,” Andrew continued. “The fight had nothing to do with her. Those men insulted me. I reacted. That’s all.”

In fact, Cathryn had already accessed the nightclub’s surveillance system. There were no cameras inside the private rooms, but she had gone through the hallway footage carefully — tracking when Yasmine entered and when Andrew left. The timeline didn’t support what Yasmine had claimed.

“All right,” Cathryn said. “Then explain how Kyla’s underwear ended up in your car.”

Andrew’s expression faltered. He hadn’t expected her to know about that.

“I honestly have no idea how it got there,” he said quickly. “The moment I found out, I confronted Kyla directly. She told me she forgot it in her pocket the night she rushed me to the hospital and it must have fallen out.”

Cathryn’s brows drew together. That kind of garment was far too personal to be left behind by accident. Kyla was lying, and not particularly convincingly.

“Is that why you went to Azure Vista? To confront her about it?”

Andrew nodded. “Yes. My grandmother assumed I’d been intimate with Kyla in that car. She sold it because of what she found. I needed to understand what had actually happened.”

Cathryn began connecting the pieces. The underwear had surfaced while Andrew was away. The photographs of Andrew with Kyla at the office had reached her during his working hours. None of it was accidental. Kyla had been engineering all of it — carefully, deliberately — to make both Cathryn and Amanda believe he was sneaking around behind everyone’s backs. The goal had been to corrode the trust between them. And for a while, it had worked.

𝗙і𝗻𝘥 𝗻o𝗏e𝗅 𝗣𝘋𝗙𝘴 o𝗻 𝗀а𝗹𝘯𝗈𝘷𝖾𝘭𝘀.𝘤𝗼m

The ice in Cathryn’s eyes softened, just slightly.

“So you didn’t go to that nightclub looking for an escort, and you didn’t encourage Kyla to wear that lingerie because you think I’m too dull in bed?”

Andrew looked at her as though the words themselves didn’t make sense. “Cathryn — why would you ever think that?”

She looked down. “Because I’m always too shy to try the things you suggest. I refuse to wear the lingerie you bought.”

Andrew exhaled slowly. “That’s exactly why I love you,” he said. “I only ever suggested those things to watch you get flustered and bury your face against me.”

Cathryn felt the heat rise in her face immediately. “Are you serious right now?”

Andrew looked at her with a quiet, unguarded smile. “Completely. Everything about you in those moments — I can’t get enough of it. Every time I —”

“Stop,” Cathryn said, her face going scarlet. “Don’t finish that sentence.”

Andrew’s smile lingered. “All right. I’ll stop.”

A beat of silence passed. Cathryn looked up again. “If you only went to Azure Vista to question Kyla, why did you let her hug you?”

“I didn’t let her,” Andrew said, his expression tightening. “She threw herself at me the moment I arrived. I pushed her off immediately.”

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