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Kennedy:Talk soon?
Blair:Count on it.
Before I put my phone on to charge, I decided to do a quick check of my social media accounts. I had an assistant who used to run those for me, but I’d let her go before moving here—although I’d made sure she was set up with another actress I knew would treat her well first. Now, I was on my own.
I scanned anything I was tagged in. Unsurprisingly, my absence from an annual party held by a wealthy socialite had been noted. Sources close to me apparently claimed we were on the outs. I smirked. Total bullshit. But that was what you got. Most of the so-called news about me was fake these days.
I’d been mentioned in a review of a film I’d starred in that had recently premiered. According to the review, my performance had been the only thing holding a lackluster plot together. My lips twitched. I’d have to pass that comment on to Gray, since he’d written the screenplay and it would no doubt amuse him.
I opened my private messages and scrolled through. It looked to be mostly notes from fans. I replied to a couple, but I decided to leave the rest until later. I needed a good sleep or my head was going to explode.
But then something caught my eye. A message from a user with a generic name followed by a bunch of numbers. There was a video attached. Dread formed a hard pit in my stomach as I clicked onto it. The clip was only a few seconds long, but that was all it took to make me gag as a stranger jerked off over a photograph of me. The photo looked to have been taken at the airport, shortly before I’d boarded a flight to come here.
I dropped the phone and ran to the bathroom, emptying the contents of my gut into the toilet. I wretched again, then wiped my mouth, slammed the lid down, and flushed. I rinsed my mouth at the vanity, then sank against the wall and buried my face in my palms.
It washim.
That photograph hadn’t been in any tabloids. As far as I was aware, nobody other than my trusted friends, family, and former employees even knew I’d left the country, which meant he’d been following me. Watching me.
A shudder ran through me, and my stomach threatened another purge. I rose onto shaky legs and went to the kitchen for a glass of water.
It wasn’t the first time he’d sent a video like this, but it was the first one I’d seen. My assistant had found the others and flagged them with security before I’d known they even existed. If he’d held true to form, it would be the kind of recording that self-deleted as soon as it had been viewed once.
Regardless, I finished my water and went back to my phone to let the company who managed my security know. They replied that they’d see if they could trace it, but I doubted they’d find anything. They never did.
ChapterFour
LIAM
I sawyou in a magazine today, and it sucked. Please stop putting your face where I can see it. - Unsent text message from Liam to Kennedy
“Please tellme you’re not thinking about Kennedy.”
I glanced up from where I was ensconced in one of the armchairs at the Fire Station to find Asher standing over me. “Of course not.”
He sighed and sank onto another chair. “Liar.”
I gave a half-hearted shrug. “I can’t help it. I want to know what it means that she’s back in town. It must mean something.”
I’d spent years trying to get over her, and it felt like they might as well not have happened. The wound she’d caused by leaving felt as raw as it had when we were young. Although, perhaps it had festered a little.
We’d had something real. Something that mattered.
Or so I’d thought.
I’d never been able to work out what had been true and what must have been in my imagination because, if we’d loved each other the way I’d thought we had, she’d never have cut me off so abruptly.
“It means she’s selfish,” Asher said without an ounce of doubt in his voice. “If she gave a crap about you, she wouldn’t be here, stirring up old feelings.”
I frowned because I got where he was coming from, but I also didn’t understand why she’d be here if she’d moved on without looking back as I’d once believed.
“Stop thinking so hard,” he chided. “It shouldn’t matter why she’s here. You need to steer clear of her so she can’t get her claws into you again.”
“I know.” I grabbed my water bottle and drank just so I’d have something to do with my hands. “But I never connected with anyone like I did with her.”
“And you never had your heart broken that badly either,” he reminded me.
It was true. Maybe if she’d simply vanished from the face of the earth, I’d have eventually gotten over it—although I doubted that—but when I’d unexpectedly seen her in a film a couple of years later, while I’d been visiting a friend in Christchurch, all of those old hurts had resurfaced. I’d wanted to walk out as soon as I realized who was on the screen, but I hadn’t been able to make myself move, so I’d sat there and watched her pretend to fall in love with another man. I’d known it was fake, but I’d seethed, and when they’d kissed, something inside me had broken. Perhaps they’d been acting, but she’d still kissed him for half the world to see.
