I force a smile.
“Cole, I hate this,” Freya says, shifting closer and wrapping her tiny, warm hand around my thigh. “I really hate this. But…I’ve survived Rowan Conaway before, and I’ll do it again. All he wants is attention, and I don’t have any intention of giving him any.”
“No, I agree. I just fucking hate that he’s doing this to you.”
She nods in agreement. “It was inevitable. Taking this job, being here with you, it was always going to catch up with me eventually.”
“It shouldn’t,” I argue fiercely.
“No, it shouldn’t. But that’s not how Rowan or his PR people work.”
Silence falls between us as the reality of the situation continues to press down on us.
“Have you spoken to Hailee?” Freya asks before finally taking a bite of her breakfast.
“No, but she’s been blowing up my cell since sunrise.”
“You should probably return her call.”
“She can wait.”
Freya lifts a brow. “She’ll just turn up here. You know that, right?”
“She won’t,” I say confidently. Hailee knows how fiercely I protect my private life; I think the world would need to be crumbling beneath my feet for her to do that.
“You should eat,” she prompts when I continue to sit, holding my food.
We sit side by side and eat in silence as our minds race at a million miles a minute.
Every bite I take tastes like cardboard. I’m so glad I ordered in; I’d hate myself for thinking anything Freya cooks is tasteless like this. I know it’s not the food, it’s the circumstances we’re eating them in, but still. I want to enjoy every single mouthful Freya makes me.
She doesn’t speak again until she’s balled the paper up and thrown it in the bag.
Holding her hand out, she asks. “Can I please see what’s online?”
I don’t want to. I want to wrap her up in cotton and protect her from every single word that has been said about her for the public to read. But I don’t.
Digging my hand into my sweats pocket, I pull my cell out, unlock it, and pass it over.
I watch her closely as her eyes scan through everything written about her, the photos, both new and old. The images of her looking happy with him make me regret not punching the motherfucker in the face when I had the chance even more. And I can’t say it’s much better looking at the more recent ones of the two of us. I had no idea there was someone hiding in the shadows, invading our privacy.
There are images of us out walking, outside the store the day I picked her up after I bought her car, us leaving the dog shelter with wide smiles on our faces, and, of course, last night. But not just from our entrance at the event. There are also images of us leaving the apartment and getting into an Uber. At the restaurant, laughing with friends. Our short relationship has been documented from almost the beginning. But how? The only people who knew Freya was even working for me were close friends. How did someone?—
“You fucking asshole,” Freya sneers.
I rear back, shocked at hearing her curse.
“What?” I ask, leaning over her shoulder to look at what she’s found.
She’s at the end of the article she was reading, and there, in black and while, is the journalist’s name.
Levi Cox.
“Levi…wasn’t that?—”
“Yes,” she cries, jumping to her feet in favor of pacing back and forth. “Oh my god, I’m such an idiot. He…he…all of it waslies. That’s why he was at the store that day. He followed me. He knew…he?—”
“Freya,” I breathe, stepping in front of her and taking her shoulders in my hands. “It’s okay.”
