Jed Wyatt was allegedly four months into a relationship with fellow Nashville-based musician Haley Stevens when he left to join the cast of The Bachelorette, vying for the heart of Hannah Brown.

“We spent the night together the night before he headed to L.A.,” Stevens, tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s issue (on stands Friday), opening up publicly for the first time about their romance. “He told me [the show] was just an obstacle and we’d be stronger on the other side because of it.”

In fact, Stevens says Wyatt was unequivocal about his motives for going on the reality series, for which he applied before they started dating.

“He told me [early on] that he had applied,” says Stevens, 26. “He said, ‘It’s probably not going to happen, but it’s a huge opportunity. I’m only doing this for my music.’ He only did it for his career.”

Courtesy Haley Stevens More

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Continues Stevens: “He wanted a platform. He kept telling me, ‘I don’t want my dad to have to help me pay rent anymore.’ He said he only wanted to be top five … to be a major player so that it would be beneficial.”

(This aligns with what fans watched Wyatt, 25, admit to Brown, 24, during a one-on-one date. “When I signed up for the show, I was so clueless,” he said on a recent episode. “I was open to the idea because I love love. I do, I love the idea of it. But my first thought was this is like a huge platform, and I just want you to know the truth. So I came in with that mindset, but every moment that we’ve had has taken that away and shown me that now more than anything I want to be with you.”)

Jed Wyatt and Hannah Brown | Mark Bourdillon/ABC More

When the notion that Wyatt could potentially be seriously dating another woman came up, Stevens says he was prepared with answers. “He was always so reassuring,” she says. “He told me, it’s not real. It’s acting.”

And so Stevens, who met Wyatt last October in Nashville, stayed in the relationship, and says that even after Wyatt got the call in February that he was officially joining the cast of the show, the two took a romantic trip to the Bahamas, where they said ‘I love you’ for the first time.

The last time Stevens spoke to Wyatt before he began filming The Bachelorette, “He called me when he landed in L.A.,” she says. “He said, ‘I love you, and I’ll call you when I get back.’”