When Ashley awakens, she finds that she is extremely cold. She feels stupid; summer in the Hamptons is over, and she's still wearing her favorite summer clothing even in winter.
She also realizes Daniel no longer lies beside her.
She giggles as she remembers how they had been drinking hard last night – he had just broken off his engagement with Emily, or rather, she had, giving him back his ring after Ashley herself had outed her kiss with Jack to daniel. She tried to bring up conversation about his now ex, when she suddenly felt him incredibly close to her and she could taste him on her lips.
Of course, it came as a complete shock – Daniel Grayson, kissing me? His hired help? – but she quickly came to her senses and took advantage of the situation. She was already thinking of how a marriage and divorce would skyrocket her to socialite status.
Of course, it wasn't just to continue her plot.
Ashley was a young girl who could not help but find Daniel Grayson, well, hot. She did have fantasies about him, like one of her catching him having drunken sex with Tyler, which she might not have minded one bit. She did wonder what it would be like to touch those famous abs that she could only previously see through paparazzi images of horrid quality…
She had him. She had her chance.
And she knew she wouldn't fuck it up.
…
There's a knock on the door that interrupts Ashley's fantasies and plotting.
It's noon now, and Ashley has changed into her newest pair of silver earrings and yellow halter top. She answers the door, only for her to do a double take when she sees who is there.
"Ashley, hi!" the girl squeals, throwing herself into Ashley's arms.
"Oh… Eve… what a… nice surprise." Ashley replies, awkwardly returning the embrace.
Ashley knows Eve as the unpopular girl from before the Hamptons when she and Emily worked at the Met. She has no idea what Emily thought of the girl, but she does know for sure that she could not stand her. Ashley finds her simple looks, choppy hair and nasally Brooklyn accent to be a sign she would despise the woman, and despise the woman she did.
Ashley quickly fakes a smile. "Well, it's really nice to see you."
"Like, ohhh my gawsh, you too! Like, where have you been all this time?"
After an unbearable half hour hearing of Eve ranting about her unfaithful ex (Who would stay faithful, never mind date you? Ashley thought), Ashley finally discovers why this annoyance has come back into her life: she wants to participate in Hamptons party planning.
"What? You want to be a party planner here?"
"Ashley?"
Ashley's unwanted re-encounter with the girl is (thankfully) interrupted by the sound of her new lover's voice. Ashley turns and sees he is wearing a V-neck tee and grey sweats, the clothes he threw on after leaving the penthouse. She sees tears are streaming their way down the Grayson son's perfect face.
"You alright, Daniel?"
"My mother, she… I think she might be dead." He sniffed. "And Charlotte overdosed last night."
She stands from her seat and proceeds to his side, wrapping her arms around Daniel's shoulders. She ignores the shocked look on Eve's face, which she knows is the result of discovering Daniel Grayson's presence here, never mind the fact that her "friend" is his lover.
"I'm sorry, I know how much you loved them."
"How terrible…" Eve half-blurts, half-growls.
Ashley grits her teeth but keeps her cool as she suppresses her massive urge to burn Eve like one of Victoria's bandage dresses.
"I-If now is a bad time, I'll talk with you later, Ashley."
"Thank you, Eve."
When the annoyance has left, Ashley kisses Daniel's cheek and pulls him into a light embrace, only for Daniel to nearly crush her as he sobs into her shoulder. The two sit down on the couch.
"Do you know what happened?" Ashley asks. She feels Daniel's feet, cold and bare, brushing against her leg. She strokes his hair.
"Charlotte OD'd last night. Dad told me Mom was on a plane that crashed along with the SEC and his mistress Lydia Davis. He saw the news on in Charlotte's room and guessed she tried to kill herself."
"You have to believe in Charlotte, Daniel. She needs you now more than ever. Don't give up hope that she'll pull through."
The pair kiss, and Ashley gets up.
"I'll give you some space."
"Thanks."
…
After this is out of the way, Ashley groans as she realizes she will have to deal with the annoyance from the Met when she returns. She turns her phone on and sees she has received three unread texts from Eve. A bigger question she has is how exactly she got her phone number.
"Where R U?" Ashley whispers as she thumbs through the texts.
"Can we like have lunch sometime?"
"R U that hottie's girlfriend? Like, ZOMG, ur both soooooo cute!"
"Why, god, why?" Ashley moans.
Ashley is particularly resentful of the fact that Eve once described her as her "bitch" on Facebook. Eve arrives hours later and pulls Ashley into a hug, erupting with giggles and shaking. Bloody hell, Ashley thinks.
For the next hour, Ashley finds herself making sick fantasies about Eve falling off a balcony, getting hit with a tire iron, being shot on a beach, getting on a plane that crashes or overdosing on pills, as the girl's gums are flapping non-stop as she bouts off that Hamptons party planning can get her close to Daniel. He's mine, stupid bitch, Ashley thinks.
Eve doesn't help her "friend's" case when she ignores any attempts made by the British girl to console her that she should try someone else as she works at Grayson Global and no longer plans parties.
It eventually gets to a point that she complains to Daniel about harassment, and borrows Big Ed from Nolan to keep Eve away from Grayson Manor. However, this is no obstacle to the wretched girl, who decides to visit Ashley through the convenient world of text messaging. Ashley quickly becomes tempted to destroy every phone in the world.
Even when she reports Eve for harassment, the girl refuses to stand down. A note signed by "E.F." manages to find its way into the Manor's mailbox, with a threat to Daniel's life, an enclosed check of $500,000 and a demand to move back to Croydon.
…
"S-She really hated me?"
"Yes. Ashley never liked you. She always saw you as annoying and as a nuisance."
"But… how could she?" cries Eve over the phone. "We were like, best friends and bitches together!"
"Ashley doesn't have friends. She only uses people to advance her career. All she wants is to be a socialite just like Victoria and Lydia."
"I-I can't believe this."
"Daniel is no better. He may seem to be innocent, but trust me, there are skeletons hidden behind that fancy suit. You might be in danger now for chasing away his girlfriend. I left a bag for you with a fake ID and passport in the plant pot outside your hotel room."
"T-Thank you, Emily. You're much more of a friend than Ashley!"
"No, thank you, Eve. You've been a great help to me."
Both callers hang up. Emily smiles with wicked glee as she knows she has removed another obstacle to her plans. It had repulsed her to see Daniel and Ashley in a relationship. She suspected that Ashley was planning to get pregnant and claim it was the baby of Daniel or Tyler to cause a media shitstorm.
She doesn't worry about Eve going rogue now that she's become involved. Emily always saw a darkness in Eve Fleischer that she could use to her own advantage. She also knew that Eve was much more emotionally unstable and, unlike "Amanda Clarke", would take advice to leave seriously.
As Emily crosses a thick red X over Ashley's face on a picture of the two together, she feels more victory for her part in the etching of destruction into another life.
"Now if I can just remove Amanda…"
…
A/N: I had meant to put this up for a long while now. This is how I predicted the character of Eve might turn out. Note that while the actress playing her will be Brianne Howey, I initially predicted Josie Loren due to the fact that she has a nasally New York voice and she's worked with Josh Bowman before (on the show Make It or Break It). Guess we'll see how she turns out tonight.