I’d never experienced anything like it. The barrage of camera flashes disoriented me and all of the photographers were screaming questions at us, some of them truly vile. Alex tried to yell something to me, but I couldn’t hear him. As he’d predicted, we’d quickly gotten separated and it felt like the mob was going to smother me.
Objectively, the things they were shouting about me being a whore, the lewd propositions, didn’t upset me, but there was just so many of them and the flashes wouldn’t stop.
Panic constricted my lungs as I tried to keep moving forward, knowing if I could just reach the car it would be fine, but they’d blocked the way and were aggressively taking pictures instead of letting me through.What I wouldn’t give for a whip right about now, I thought. But even a whip requires room to swing it.
They were so close they were flashing straight in my face. They wanted a reaction and I was determined not to let them see how scared I was.
I forgot about moving forward and on instinct tried to step back from the guys crowding me from the front, only to bump into another photographer whose camera was almost certainly pointed up my skirt from the back. I stumbled, catching my heel on something. I felt it buckle and the stiletto snapped off, sending me tumbling to the ground in a heap.
Not a single one of the bastards tried to help. Instead, the flashes intensified and now they were crowding over the top of me and I had nowhere to go.
With a detached sense of reality, I saw Alex knock two photographers out of the way, charging into the fray to get back to me. He looked angry and massive as he tore through the mob, reaching me in seconds that felt like they would never end.
He extended a hand down and locked his with mine, pulling me to my feet. That hand I’d been so dismissive of only moments earlier now felt like a lifeline, a tether to his steady strength. We started to walk with Alex’s arm thrown protectively around me, but I remembered too late that my heel was broken and started to fall again.
He caught me, and this time lifted me into his arms, holding me tightly against his body as he strode through the press of people. I turned my head to his chest, shielding my eyes from the continued assault of flashing cameras. In that moment, I didn’t think about whether I looked weak or ridiculous. I was just so happy to feel safe again, inhaling the reassuring scent of him in tight breaths as I tried not to humiliate myself by crying.
We reconnected with security when we reached the car, where Alex set me down carefully and I scrambled into the back seat with as much dignity as I could muster. He followed me in, slamming the door closed behind him.
The car seemed overwhelmingly quiet now that the roar of the shouting was dulled, but the flashes continued.
For a few tense moments, I thought the driver wasn’t going to be able to make it through the crowd without running anyone over, but security cleared a path, and suddenly we were driving on the open road, the silence between us deafening as we both simply sat and breathed heavily.
“Was that planned?” I snapped, assuming that’s what the message he got at the restaurant had been. Why let me walk into that unprepared? Did they plan it that way to get an authentic reaction from me? I’d gone from scared to angry, embracing the rage as something to burn away the shame of how pathetic I’d been.
“No! I knew there was a crowd of paparazzi outside waiting for us, but that’s it!”
I studied him, trying to decide whether to believe him. He started to speak again, but his phone went off and he answered it immediately.
He sat tensely, listening for several seconds. “What?! No, she’s not drunk. What the hell, Asha? That’s not what happened at all. We got separated and she fell, probably because one of them tripped her. We weren’t going to make it out of there, so I picked her up and got us to the car.”
I pointed to my broken shoe when I took it off, and he nodded, listening to whatever Asha was saying.
“Yeah, I had to push a few of them to get to her before they crushed her. I didn’t have a choice. It was a shit show… Okay, I’ll call him. But I need you to track down a video of what really happened. Someone there caught it all on a phone or something. I don’t care what you have to do, Asha, get your hands on the footage and get this shit under control. This is supposed to be on our terms.”
He hung up and said, “I’m sorry. I need to call Rami to get ahead of this.”
He held the phone to his ear. “Hey, man, sorry to call late. We just had a run-in with some paparazzi and I got physical with a few of them. Asha says they’re giving statements to press charges. I know this isn’t your thing, but can you find me the right lawyer to squash this? We were ambushed and I only did what was necessary to get Elena out of there safely.”
He paused, obviously listening to Rami.
“I know.”
This pause was shorter.
“Yeah, we’re fine. They’re spinning it that Elena was wasted and couldn’t walk so I had to carry her and I picked a fight. Asha’s working on setting the record straight.”
I’d had no idea how quickly something like that could get out of hand and how unfairly it could be interpreted. From what he was saying, I was being painted as a drunken whore and Alex was an aggressive bully. I pulled my phone out to see what had already been posted, but Alex closed his hand over it and pulled it away, shaking his head as he finished his conversation with Rami.
When he hung up, he said, “Don’t look. Not right now.”
I thought about yelling at him for being an overbearing ass, but couldn’t muster the energy. The rage drained away leaving behind a cold emptiness.
We drove the rest of the way in silence, and I paid absolutely no attention to where we were going as I tried to get myself back under control. I was shaking so badly, I was worried Alex could see it. I was grateful he wasn’t talking either because I didn’t trust my voice.
Each time we passed under a streetlight, I fought not to jump because it reminded me of the flashing cameras.
I flipped back to reality when the driver parked the car in front of my place.
