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Lara finished drying the pots and pans, hanging them back up on the rack above the island, before walking over to where her phone was charging on the dining room table.
Lara’s pulse quickened when she saw seven texts from Nina who she specifically told not to get in contact with her unless it was an emergency.
Nina
Charlotte’s all over social media right now because of these photos. Check this link.
That was sent about two hours ago, and the texts became increasingly more urgent, ending with one in all caps.
Nina
PLEASE CHECK YOUR MESSAGES!
Lara clicked on the link, and her stomach fell as she read the headline from the tabloid’s website, ‘Charlotte Dixon’s Steamy Weekend With Mystery Younger Woman.’
“What the fuck,” Lara whispered as she flicked through the photos, one after the other of them kissing on the deck or in the jacuzzi.
The entire weekend, Lara hadn’t seen another soul. Who got these photos?
They must have been hidden in the woods.
Lara covered her mouth with her hand, her pulse racing as she tried to figure out what to do. She had to tell Charlotte. Obviously. But there was no way that she was going to take it well. She’d told Lara how safe she felt out here.
“Lara?” Charlotte’s voice carried down the stairs.
Lara skimmed the article, which was extremely light. So, it was just the photos really driving that headline, but it was enough.
Lara exhaled as she tried to put on a brave face as she climbed the stairs to tell Charlotte.
24
Charlotte folded her last blouse and zipped up weekend bag, knowing that she could take her time waking up tomorrow, that she was ninety percent packed.
She heard Lara’s footsteps on the stairs just as she lifted her bag off the bed.
“Sorry for shouting down at you like that,” Charlotte said, leaving the bag out of the way in the corner of the spacious loft.
“It’s fine.”
Charlotte turned. There was something off about Lara’s voice, and her body language only backed up Charlotte’s gut feeling. Lara was hovering by the stairs, her hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans.
“Oh,” Charlotte said as she padded over. “That’s not a good look. What kind of garbage have they made up about me now?”
Lara took a deep breath. “Have you ever had any problems with privacy here?”
“No.” Charlotte sat on the edge of the bed. “Never. Why?”
“This is why you’re trending,” Lara said, reaching behind her to slide her phone out of her back pocket and handing it to Charlotte.
Charlotte could feel the heat coming to her face as she read the headline, a dull ache forming somewhere above her eye. “Fucking bastards.”
Charlotte handed Lara her phone, her jaw clenched as she tried to process the fact that thousands of people were sharing that article and those photos.
“We should leave tonight,” Charlotte said, pushing herself off the bed. “There shouldn’t be anyone out there now. Not in the middle of the night.”
She immediately went into survival mode. Even though she wanted to figure out how this could have happened, that wasn’t important right now. The fact was that it had happened. That a least one photographer had been out in the woods the entire weekend, watching them, photographing them, and selling those photos for the world to see.
If something like this had happened years ago, Charlotte would have been more concerned about her image, about people finding out that she liked women, but right now, that didn’t matter.
