Her brother would be hurt if he thought she had information and hadn’t shared it with him. Still, Cara thought sipping the rich liquid, there was no reason it had to be right this second. She didn’t want to start the day with an unpleasant conversation with her eldest brother.
Settling on the sofa with her coffee, Cara opened her phone and began absently scrolling through social media. If a job hunt was in her future again, she needed to update it. Her bot-boyfriend had liked more pictures on her account. However, the latest comments were slightly different, more specific to the movie she was working on—I’m looking forward to seeing your talent on film—which was a little weird, but not overtly creepy. Was she being paranoid?
Amara’s voice in her head, Cara clicked on the account name. Ice washed over her. The only account it followed was hers. That doesn’t mean anything, she assured herself. There is no way whoever sent her the messages last year could have found this account. Different name, different city… But her family followed her, and now so did Amara.
Is that why this had started up again? Had he found her?
Cara had accounts on each of the main platforms. They were strictly limited to following other professional accounts and a few celebrities. Afterthe incident,she deleted all of her personal social media accounts. It wasn’t only the constant stream of images of her friends having a good time—a life she was no longer a part of—that bothered her. The main reason had been that she couldn’t bear for her face to be on the internet anymore.
After Cara was bombarded with messages from people who had seen her photos, she wanted to crawl into a cave until everyone forgot what she looked like. Most of the messages were lewd. There were even some from adult magazines offering her a feature. Of course, they wanted full nude this time and were willing to pay her. By this time, everyone knew that of all the Bloom siblings, Cara was the one who was broke.
The worst of the comments by far had come from one account. It referenced things no one should know about and always ended with the phrase ‘See You Soon.’
Cara had begun to feel watched but kept her fears to herself. She already felt so guilty about adding to her brothers’ stress with her tabloid scandal; she didn’t want to worry them further.
Cara intentionally used a sprig of honeysuckle as her contact picture and never included anything personal, only pictures of work she’d done. It was unlikely someone had gone to such great lengths to track her down, but she blocked the new account for good measure.
In the message portion of the app was an invitation from Skye, begging Cara and Wes to join her that night at one of the luxury hotel bars in Buckhead. It was Skye’s extra line about afriendshe wanted Cara to meet that made her wary.
Cara didn’t feel like socializing. Last night had been intense, but as her fingers hovered over the keypad, ready to type out a thanks-but-no-thanks, she found herself instead telling Skye to send her the details.
Why shouldn’t she have some fun? They’d been working almost nonstop. Message sent, Cara washed her coffee mug, dressed, and brushed her teeth. Finally, unable to justify putting it off, she clicked on Declan’s number.
She glanced at the clock. He was probably at work. Cara crossed her fingers for voicemail, worried how Declan was going to react to the news of her confrontation with their stepmother.
The phone clicked, and Cara opened her mouth to leave her prepared, upbeat message when she heard her brother’s voice, “Morning, Car-Bear.”
Cara froze.
Crap.
She must have been silent too long because her brother sounded amused when he said, “Hello? Cara?” Then louder, “Did you pocket dial me? Cara?”
“Oops, sorry, Declan! I dropped my phone.” Cara winced at the ridiculous lie.
“No problem,” he laughed. “What’s up? You don’t normally call me on a weekday.”
“We got some unexpected days off, so thought I’d call and see how everything is going.” That much was true.
She heard a splash of water and then the sound of wood scraping. Cara couldn’t imagine what in his glass, minimalist office could have caused that sound. “What are you doing?”
“I’m on the river.” Declan said it in an offhand tone, as if it weren’t groundbreaking news that her brother wasn’t at work on a weekday morning.
“Do you see any pigs flying near you?”
“What?” Declan sounded bewildered, but Cara couldn’t help chortling when he finally got the joke and groaned. “Ha ha. Very funny.”
“So, that’s a no?” She couldn’t resist. “What about locusts?”
“I took the morning off. You act like it’s the most unheard-of thing and yetyoucalledme.”
Cara went silent, humor forgotten.
“Is everything okay?” The wood scraped again, and she knew he was pulling the oars up.
Shit.She should have gotten it out while he was distracted.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I shouldn’t bother you while you’re on the river. You’ll need both hands.”
