She doesn’t want to email on her own laptop, doesn’t want to let this darkness slither in because, for her, social media can be an evil that permeates everything it touches.
Rose had always found it hard to process the avalanche of social media comments on the show. They ranged from messages of wild approval to ones where anonymous people suggested ways in which she might be tortured and killed.
It’s why she has almost no online presence any more, why Mercedes runs the retreat and Villa Artemis’s accounts.
Rose sends the email then turns to Adriana.
‘Tell her to alert us if any more messages come in,’ she says. ‘Don’t block them. We need to watch this carefully in case it escalates.’
‘Yeah,’ says Adriana, staring at her phone. ‘Mercedes is saying that perhaps if we can get some of the guests to postgood reviews on their social media it would be helpful. If Keera could say something, it would be amazing. She’s got so many followers—’
Rose shakes her head. ‘I can’t ask her to do that,’ she says firmly. ‘It’s unethical. I’m her therapist and I can’t profit off her just because she’s famous.’
Adriana looks abashed. ‘I know, sorry,’ she says.
‘We’ll have a place on the webpage where they can leave comments afterwards but that’s entirely up to them,’ Rose says. ‘Now, let’s forget this. We are not going to let some random idiot get us down. Agreed?’
Adriana manages a shaky smile. ‘Agreed. It’s just—’
‘I know,’ Rose says. ‘Scary. The unknown.’ She dons her therapist’s face. ‘We will come through this.’
As she speaks, Rose realises how happy she’d been before this threat. What an idyll her home on Corfu has been.
The past five years have flown by, once they’d had the idea for Villa Artemis, and the idea had blossomed into something, they had worked night and day to make it a reality.
‘I hate that this can destroy everything,’ Adriana says. ‘You’ve lost so much already, Rose.’
‘I’m OK,’ Rose says, which is a definite fib.
‘If you still had Theo in your life, it would be easier,’ Adriana adds.
Rose shakes her head. This is an old argument from Adriana.
‘Far too much time has elapsed,’ she says, which is what she always says to her sister. ‘Even if I got in touch with him, Theo will have moved on. He’s probably married. He left first, Adriana. He left before the show imploded.’
‘But you don’t know if he’s married, do you?’
‘I’m happy here on the island,’ Rose says, which is totally true.
‘Corfu has worked her magic on you,’ Adriana smiles. ‘It worked for me and now for you.’
‘Maybe I’ll find another man like Christos,’ Rose jokes.
Adriana laughs delightedly. ‘There is no other man like him. The gods had the mould destroyed, he is perfect. Theo sounded perfect,’ she adds.
Rose suddenly feels as if she might cry. What is wrong with her?
‘He was perfect and I screwed it up because I never managed to tell him the truth. That ship has sailed,’ she adds firmly. ‘I can’t go back there. I wasn’t honest with Theo. I couldn’t tell him the truth at first and then later … later, it was too late.’
‘If you told him now, he’d understand,’ Adriana says. ‘You lied because you had to, not because you were trying to deceive him.’
Rose loves Adriana’s hopefulness but Theo is a part of her history now, not a part of her future.
‘I doubt that he’d forgive the lie. Either way, let’s forget about Theo,’ she says now. ‘We’ve got a week to put Villa Artemis on the map. Nobody’s going to mess with us!’
She hugs Adriana again, a fierce hug as if everything is all right and they’re an unstoppable force together.
Rose has to sort out this threat on Instagram. It’s a serious threat.
