Monday
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Saliva shoots from my mouth like venom. Fury courses through my body. Alexander stands frozen in front of me, water dripping from his naked body.
It was bad enough being made to sign an MNDA, but this?
A criminal background check. My resume. A list of previous addresses I’ve lived at. A scan of my passport. A bank statement. Several screen shots of social media posts. My father’s death certificate. Key information on each marked with a yellow highlighter.
It’s a whole new level of invasive.
“Let me explain.” Alexander’s wet hand reaches for my wrist.
“Keep your fucking hands away from me.” The growl in my voice echoes off the marble walls. He pulls his hand back, his pupils dilating.
All evening I’ve been thinking about getting to know him better, how to be more intimate, only to find out he already has all he needs to know about me in this folder.
“Let me get this right,” I start, taking a deep breath. “First, you make me sign an MNDA, which won’t stand up in a court of law by the way, just so you know. And now you’ve got a dossier on me.” I wave the folder in his face.
My heart pounds against my chest, and I take another deep breath to temper my anger.
“You’ve got to understand—I’m doing this because I like you,” he says. There’s tension in his voice, matched by tightness in his shoulders. As I watch, he twists his fingers, then seems to realize he’s doing it and stops.
Oh no.I’m not falling for that.
Twisting it round and blaming me.
I’ve been gaslit far too many times by my mother, father, and Ryan, to fall for it now.
“Bullshit.” I throw the file down to the ground. The pages scatter across the floor, all over Alexander’s clothes and the bathmat.
I can feel the grip on my anger slipping out of my hands, but I need to stand up for myself. I don’t care if he’s famous. If he lacks trust. That doesn’t give him a free pass to do whatever he likes without repercussions.
“You know trust is earned, not commanded, right? Banging on about not being able to trust people, yet here you are doing the same exact thing. Sneaking round, trying to find information about me behind my back.”
My mind drifts back to when I’d found him in my room.
Was his innocent explanation about leaving a note really why he was in there?
I shake my head, not wanting to lose my focus on the issue at hand.
“It was management who wanted me to vet you before anything happened.” His voice fades away to a whimper as he begins to shake. He reaches for the towel hung up beside him,flinging it over his shoulders, but leaves the bottom half of his body exposed.
Is he mocking me?
“Stop blaming everyone else.” I cross my arms over my chest, for a little extra bolstering. “They may have wanted to, but you could have said no. You could have come and asked me whatever you wanted to know, but you didn’t. You went and hired God knows whom to dig up all that stuff on me instead.”
I nod at the papers scattered across the floor.
I’m still dumbfounded by how they managed to get ahold of everything.
“You have no idea what it’s like to be famous. Not knowing who’s selling stories on you. How paranoid I get, wondering if people want to know me for who I actually am or for who they see in their phones. For what they think I can give them.”
Alexander reaches for another towel, gripping it tightly as he wraps it round his waist. He sniffs hard as he brings his hands up to his face and wipes at his eyes.
His actions pulls at my heartstrings, but then I wonder if this is all an act. After all, there was a movie script next to the dossier folder on the table outside.
Is he trying to act his way out of this?
