3

It was just before sunrise when Mara finally settled in the bath with an open bottle of wine. She looked at the beautiful label, two things occurring to her at the same time. First, she couldn’t properly pronounce a single word on it, and second, if Richard knew she was going to chug a three thousand dollar bottle of wine, he would have had a stroke. She was going to do it anyway while she waited for the confirmation email from her assistant. The first gulp went down smoothly, dry, and a little tart as it calmed her nerves. She took another long drink before resting her head against the lip of the tub, her arm dangling over the edge.

After a long night of police questioning, only to find out that her attacker had escaped police custody, Mara was going home on the next flight, and there wasn’t a thing Richard or her publicist Nadia could say to change her mind. To hell with strategizing to change the narrative before it got out. To hell with putting a spin on anything. She didn’t care how it would look to the public if she didn’t release an official statement. If the blogs plastered photos of her torn dress and teary eyes without proper context, it said more about them than her, and if the paparazzi were waiting outside of her hotel, it didn’t prove she was putting on a show—only that the media was willing to strip her trauma down for headlines—as if she needed any more reason to run away from the spotlight.

The police had no leads. They promised to keep her updated on the ongoing investigation, but Mara couldn’t sit around and wait for another visit, not if he worked for whom she thought he worked. It was the sole reason she didn’t tell anyone the full story. She hadn’t explained why he had attacked her, claiming that she didn’t know. The best reason she could give was to call him a stalker, a self-proclaimed fan who would go to any length to meet her.

Mara sank further into the hot steam curling off the water’s edge. Her ankles throbbed. What was she doing? Lying to the police, if only to protect her own muddy past, was a dangerous gamble, as was pretending that the man hadn’t promised to reach out soon. He wanted her help for whatever reason, and she didn’t know what that meant. She couldn’t dip even a single toe back into that life. She knew better, seeing firsthand what it meant to be in for a penny, in for a pound. All the things she’d done to get free would be for nothing.

She almost dropped her wine, bringing it back to her mouth until her mind fuzzed. What had they hired him to do if not kill her? What could they possibly want after all this time? To scare her? They certainly didn’t need her money or connections. They had plenty of their own. She'd had a knife to her throat at an event full of security and money, yet all she had to show for it was the lack of any leads and a bandage over her sliced skin. She rubbed the cotton until it angered her. This was supposed to be the bright spot of her career, hell, maybe the highlight of her life, and it soured overnight. Now, she was stewing in her tub like the world was ending.

Mara reached for the bath tray, grabbed the remote, and clicked on the television. She shouldn't look, she knew that, but the urge was too strong to fight. She changed the channel and waited through the commercials until the evening news loop started. The breaking news bulletin slid across the screen, and she sat up. Mara didn't really care what the anchor was saying as she watched the images come across the screen. There was a ten-second clip of her entering the bathroom, several pictures of her being carried out to the vehicle, and one of her slumped over in the backseat. No one had even bothered to blur out the damage to her dress. A text dinged from the tray, and she glanced at her phone.

Saw the latest news. Great publicity for 'Fated Love.' Rest up. She fought the urge to throw her phone across the room. Richard meant well, she told herself. His job was to protect her career.

She understood it.

Respected it, even.

And still, it hurt.

Mara polished off the bottle and tried to list all the great things Richard had done for her. He wasn't being compassionate at the moment, but perhaps she shouldn't expect him to be. He was her agent, not her parent. As she was about to shut the television off, one last photo flashed across the screen. This one was an enlarged image of the loading dock where a broad-shouldered man in a dark tux was casually walking toward the street exit. In the photo, he turned directly toward the camera as if to say, 'Hello, Amara, I’ll see you soon.' The television zoomed in on his eyes, hidden by the mask, while the anchor listed a number for contacting police if viewers had any information. The longer she met that frigid stare, the more claustrophobic she felt.

Mara turned off the television and discarded the remote, but the image remained. She shivered, the bath suddenly too cold. He was still wearing the mask that brushed against her cheek. He had the hand that held a knife to her throat casually tucked into his pocket. It sickened her.

The police were supposedly still interviewing everyone in attendance that night, including the staff, and they were hopeful for another lead. But they warned that kind of intensive investigation would take weeks if not months. Did she have months to hide away in fear?

What would the police do to find a man who'd been wearing a mask when the eyewitness herself couldn’t tell them much more than that he had blue eyes? Mara hung her head in defeat. The police had recommended hiring security to keep her safe until they had a suspect in hand. Mara knew it was a solid enough plan, but it chaffed. She did her best to keep her private life separate, to keep herself isolated from the public eye. Bringing a stranger into her sanctum felt wrong. Whoever guarded her would see more behind the scenes than anyone.

Mara sighed.

Her mind went back to the list of candidates Richard emailed an hour ago. She needed to choose one of them to shadow her. It wouldn't have seemed so daunting if it wasn't for the fact that she was going home. She didn’t want a stranger in her house. Maybe if she stayed in L.A.? Mara shook her head. Nothing seemed stupider than staying right where her attacker expected her to be. She groaned, closing her eyes. Could she really tolerate sharing her space with a stranger until this whole situation was resolved? She tried to imagine what it would be like to sit through the security selection process and came up short. It was impossible to know how people were going to be when they weren't wearing their professional persona. Could she trust it?

Richard had initially resisted the idea of a personal bodyguard because he said it might be bad for her image to have a burly man around her all the time. But after the officer insisted it would be an even worse image if she wound up dead, Richard quickly changed his tune. Nadia had hesitated, too, before agreeing that it would give credence to the claim. It helped prove Mara wasn't pulling a publicity stunt. Apparently, that line of thinking was already making its rounds online.

As if she would ever do something so terrible for clout. Maybe she should forget about the bodyguard. If people online were this crazy over speculation when they knew precious little, what would prevent someone from selling information on her private life when they had access to far more?

Mara focused on the sound of her breathing when another ding sounded on her phone. She snatched up her phone again, hoping it wasn’t Richard with another plea for her to stay in the city. She swiped to find it wasn’t a text. To her surprise, it was a social media direct message from an account she didn’t follow. The issue wasn’t getting a DM—her professional social media pages got them all the time from bots, burner accounts, fans, and businesses alike. Fiona, her social media manager, handled those inboxes, though. Mara never even saw most of those messages, let alone have notifications set up for them.

No, the issue was that the DM came through on Mara’s own burner account—the one with no picture and a username full of numbers and letters. The one no one knew about, where she could view and comment on funny videos without implicating her brand.

The one she used to follow her critics and keep tabs on her competition. No one had ever messaged her on the burner account before. She clicked the notification bubble and immediately froze. Don’t run, Amara. Don’t make me chase you. The sender had the security photo of her attacker set as a profile picture. Her stomach dropped.

He was showing her exactly how much he knew. Too much. Her real name. Her burner accounts. He knew she was planning to leave. Did he know about the property she bought? Mara had shuffled it through a few layers and shell companies to keep it hidden. No one else had ever seen the property, either, but was that enough to guarantee he wouldn’t find it? That he wouldn’t show up unannounced in the middle of the night?

Hire the first name on the list, Mara texted Richard in a rush. It was all she could manage as she stumbled from the tub. Of course, she was going to run, like any other prey trying to save its life. Only a slaughter animal would stay in its cage and wait for the blow. This time, if he came for her, she could at least ensure she wouldn’t be alone.