Sasha logged on to her laptop. Since being thrust into the limelight, she’d gained a new compulsion to check on how the media was portraying her. Pippa’s engagement scandal had made it to the gossip websites, presumably via someone at Amore. Realizing she was on the losing team, Pippa had switched allegiance to Chris, turning him into her media puppet. Through him, Pippa had successfully steered the attention away from any kind of scandal and made it appear as though Sasha had been the manipulator and master schemer, and that she’d been the one to blackmail Thomas into proposing to her through the sex tape.
According to Chris, Sasha was in it for the money and nothing more. The fact that Thomas’s sister, Crystal, was the real leaker of the tape had been completely hidden. Pippa had done incredibly well at minimizing Thomas’s association with his drug-addicted, porn-star sister, but in doing so, she had left only one available villain: Sasha.
The world had lapped it up. No one wanted to see Thomas Lloyd end up with some young nobody, some silly floozy playing at being a journalist. It made more sense—and sold more magazines—for Sasha to be some kind of seductress who’d tried to milk Thomas Lloyd for everything he was worth.
Though Thomas had come out of the whole thing better than she had, it still must have caused him extreme embarrassment. Sasha could only hope it wouldn’t be detrimental to his career. But what kind of man would create a false engagement to someone, just to bury a sex tape, and, more importantly, what kind of movie producer would want to hire such a man?
Sasha’s first place to check online was the celebrity gossip website, Chit-Chat, the place where Chris’s video had first surfaced. There were now over five hundred comments on the video, a large portion declaring such things as Chris ‘is the perfect man’ or ‘sexier than Thomas Lloyd.’ Then, there were the vile comments, the ones that called Sasha a ‘slut’, a ‘fame whore’, and a ‘greedy player.’
Somehow, reading those words about herself never got any easier. It didn’t matter that they were wrong; the fact that there was a consensus amongst so many people hurt Sasha deeply. That Chris had been the one to cause it hurt even more.
Pippa had told Sasha she’d be reviled after Chris’s interview got out, and she was right. Someone had taken stills from the leaked sex tape and drawn huge, red arrows highlighting all of Sasha’s imperfections—her cellulite, a spot on her left thigh, a visible vein. But even now, looking at shots of Thomas’s head between her legs reminded Sasha of the ecstasy she felt being with him.
She felt a tingling sensation spread up through her legs. Thomas had made her come harder than she ever thought was possible. That the moment had been picked apart by total strangers still couldn’t take away from the reality that she’d experienced.
Feeling aroused at the memory and craving what Thomas had once given her, Sasha found a link to the original sex tape. She’d never willingly watched it; she’d just seen flashes of the grainy footage that Kelly had shown her back in the Atomic office. Realizing it was the closest she was going to get to Thomas, she hit play.
Thomas’s kitchen appeared before her. The footage started at the point where he took her face between his hands and kissed her deeply. It was a passionate kiss, one that should have proved to the viewer that there was a real connection between them. If Sasha had just been using Thomas, there was no way she’d have been able to fake that kind of arousal…unless she was a better actor than he was!
Sasha watched on, feeling the vicarious arousal she’d experienced at the time. A thrill of excitement ran through her, as she watched from a new angle the moment Thomas had swiped his arm across the kitchen countertop, sending items crashing to the ground. Even though it had happened to her, Sasha could hardly believe that he’d had such an insatiable desire for her body. Her lips parted, and a little sigh escaped her mouth as she watched him lift her in his strong arms, inch her back onto the countertop, and hitch her dress up to her hips.
Watching her own joy on screen didn’t alarm Sasha or make her feel embarrassed like she thought it would. In fact, it aroused her. She felt the wetness grow between her legs as she remembered what Thomas had done to her body, of the things he’d made her feel. She slid her fingers down to her clit, as she watched Thomas sink to his knees and pull her panties down to her ankles.
Touching herself now reminded her of the feel of his tongue on her clit, of the way he licked her like an ice cream, so gently, so precisely, as though savoring the taste of her. Her eyes widened, as she watched Thomas slide his fingers into her and the way she responded by pulling her knees up either side of his head and flopping backwards onto her elbows. Her body responded in the real world, too, by heating up, throbbing, wanting more. She began rubbing herself faster.
Sasha watched herself climax on-screen, throwing her head back and crying out. It looked amazing and brought the memory rushing back to her, edging her closer towards an orgasm in real life.
She could hardly tear her eyes away from the sight of Thomas rising to his feet and using his fingers and thumb to bring her racing towards another immediate climax on-screen. She watched herself remove her dress and bra and lay—completely naked and willing—in front of Thomas. Her fingers began to move quicker against her clitoris, as she realized she was racing towards a real life orgasm.
Then she watched the moment Thomas slowly ran his tongue across her nipple. It had been enough to push her over the edge back then, and it was enough to do so again today.
Her body quivered and spasmed, as the climax hit her hard and fast. She threw her head back, reveling in the sensation. Thomas Lloyd could still make her orgasm—even when he wasn’t in the same country as her.
Her orgasm faded, and she tipped her eyes back to the screen to see her past-self slumped forward into the arms of Thomas Lloyd. Jealousy bit her. She watched the screen enviously, as Thomas slung his arms around her ass, pulling her into him like a prized possession, and her legs circled around his waist, as though never wanting to let him go. She watched, as he carried her out of shot to what she remembered as one of the most amazing moments of her life.
However, in the real world, Sasha was completely alone. There was no Thomas to hold her in her afterglow. There was just her, in her dark bedroom, alone.
Chapter Twenty Four
Feeling lonely and ashamed, Sasha was about to shut down her laptop when she saw something that made her stop. Through the blur of filthy, disgusting, and downright abusive messages beneath the video, one comment struck Sasha. It was from a user called ‘Mrs. Lloyd.’ It said: ‘Once I find out where that woman lives, I’m going to decapitate her.’
Sasha remembered a similar comment that Thomas had shown her once before. She was certain it was from the same user. It had said: ‘Whoever that bitch is, I’m going to cut her head off with a rusty chainsaw. Thomas is mine.’
Sasha felt cold all over. Though the original message had rattled her, she’d felt somewhat safe with Thomas. He had security and drivers and a team of people to look out for him. But now she was alone, and a total stranger wanted her dead. How could someone get so wrapped up in someone else’s life—a person they’d never even met—to such an extent that they wanted to harm them?
The more Sasha looked, the more she saw threatening comments from the same user. They popped up on every spin-off article on Chit-Chat, on every YouTube reposting of the original video, even on previous videos of Thomas Lloyd from way before Sasha had even met him. ‘Mrs. Lloyd’ had made her online presence known in the comments section of every single article, picture, and video of Thomas Lloyd on the internet. That meant she was more than just a fan, she was a stalker. Her comments also appeared progressively angrier and more threatening. One said: ‘I’m going to hunt you down and make you suffer.’
Sasha slammed her laptop shut. Her heart was racing. Without the electronic blue glow, she plunged into total darkness.
She lay back on her bed, trembling. She had to remind herself that it was just bravado, that it was probably just
some pathetic person feeling powerful behind the protective anonymity of the internet. But what if they did hunt her down? Chris had made it clear that he and Sasha were high school sweethearts. If he blabbed about which high school that was, it wouldn’t take long to narrow down which town Sasha grew up in. That she’d returned to her roots to escape the media circus was inevitable. She might as well have left a trail of breadcrumbs.
Suddenly, Sasha was gripped by anxiety. Had she put her mom in danger by returning to her home? Should she leave just in case? But if she did, where could she go? She’d already written to the landlord of her Chicago apartment, saying she was breaking her lease and moving out. There was nowhere else to go, no one else to whom she could turn. Unless…
Sasha reached for her phone. She flicked it on and the comforting glow of technology lit her bedroom. She scrolled through her list of contacts until she got to the number of Kelly, the editor of Atomic Magazine.
Kelly had tried to milk the whole sex tape scandal. She’d even promoted Sasha after it had leaked, thinking the publicity would be good for the company. It didn’t matter to Kelly that Sasha had run off to a secluded island with Thomas, nor that she had later headed for England. All Kelly needed was her name on the Atomic website, and then she just had to sit back and let the website hits and the ad clicks roll in.
Sasha hadn’t wanted to use her newfound fame before; it had seemed crass to profit from her association with Thomas. However, that was before she was threatened by a crazy, fanatical internet stalker. Things had changed, and that meant Sasha would have to compromise, even if it meant lowering her personal standards.
She hit dial. The phone purred once, then twice, in her ear.
“Well, well, well,” came Kelly’s voice from the other end. She was clearly a little tipsy. Probably half way through a bottle of wine at home with her beloved feline friends, the way she often spent a Friday evening. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you again.”
Kelly had never been one for greetings. Sometimes Sasha wondered whether the woman had ever said ‘hello’ in her life.
“What can I do for you, Miss Sasha Jones?” Kelly added.
There was no beating around the bush. Kelly was a shrewd business woman. She appreciated it when people got straight to the point.
“I need money,” Sasha said, aware of how sheepish her voice sounded. She quickly added, “I’ll work for it.”
There was a pause, followed by a tipsy sounding chuckle. “I don’t doubt for a second that you’d work for it.”
Sasha felt herself lifted by hope. “Then you’ll take me back on?”
There was another pause, filled with the unmistakable sound of Kelly lighting a cigarette.
“I’m not sure you’re what Atomic Magazine is looking for at the moment,” she said in one exhalation, adopting a managerial tone, as though explaining why Sasha had been unsuccessful in an interview.
Sasha baulked. That wasn’t what she was expecting to hear.
“But I thought you wanted the publicity?” she said.
“I wanted the publicity of Thomas Lloyd’s fiancée,” came Kelly’s rebuke. “Not the woman who supposedly blackmailed him.”
Sasha mentally rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Kelly. You know better than most that that’s not true. Thomas and I were legit.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not,” Kelly said, before Sasha heard the sound of her taking another sharp drag on her cigarette. “It’s what people think. You know, the public, the little people who buy the magazine. Right now, the world thinks you’re scum. There’s no place on my magazine for you, Sasha. I could give you Jason Michael’s number. He’s the editor of Ladzz! Magazine—if you didn’t know.”
At that, the phone went dead.
“Bitch,” Sasha muttered under her breath.
As if she’d stoop as low as to write for a misogynistic piece of trash like Ladzz! It was the sort of magazine that had two female writers out of a staff of thirty, and both of them looked like blow-up sex dolls.
Exasperated, Sasha threw her phone down on the bed. Maybe she was being melodramatic? There was always going to be stupid, obsessive fans out there. ‘Mrs. Lloyd’ wasn’t going to harm her; she was just getting a thrill out of trolling her. She didn’t need to reach the depths of Ladzz! Magazine just yet.
She vowed not to look at any of the vile crap on the internet anymore. Google searching her name was making things worse. She just had to wait it out until the next scandal came along and swept this one under the rug.
Mind made up, she curled up under her duvet and thought about Thomas as she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Twenty Five
In the morning, Sasha made breakfast. It felt good to do normal things again. It felt even better to provide care for her mom, like she had done in the past. She couldn’t help but think it was also what she should have really continued to do—instead of chasing a stupid dream in Chicago.
“Oh, I almost forgot, there was some mail for you this morning,” Julia said, as she munched on a piece of toast.
“For me?” Sasha replied, bemused. She hadn’t received mail at her mother’s address since she’d moved out several years ago.
She went to the table beside the front door and thumbed through the letters. She found the one addressed to her. The envelope was handwritten. She opened it. It simply said: Found you.
Sasha gasped and dropped the letter to the floor. It couldn’t be ‘Mrs. Lloyd’—the online stalker—could it? But if not, who else?
Panic started bubbling through her. Whoever had sent this had meant to freak her out. Whether it was an online stalker or not, it was certainly from an unsavory character.
She couldn’t stay at the house any longer, and she couldn’t leave her mom—not now that she’d seen how much help she needed. Both she and her mom had to go somewhere safe. But with Kelly refusing to help her and Chris transforming into someone she’d never be able to turn to again, that left only one option.
Thomas.
Sasha took out her phone and scrolled down to his name. She stared at it, her thumb hovering over the dial button. However, no matter how much she wanted to, she just couldn’t bring herself to press it. Last night she’d been aroused just by watching grainy footage of Thomas Lloyd making love to her, hearing his sexy British accent again would probably tip her into the realm of orgasm.
Instead, she carefully composed a message:
Thomas, I’m sorry to have to do this to you. I know you don’t want to talk to me, or hear from me, but I really need your help. Someone has been threatening to kill me online and today a letter arrived at my mom’s house. They know where I live. I’m scared. I don’t expect you to talk to me but please don’t turn your back on me. Help. Sasha.
After a moment’s hesitation, she hit send and the text disappeared into cyberspace. There was no turning back on it now. She went back into the kitchen.
“Anything nice?” her mom said.
“Huh?”
“The mail. Was it anything nice?”
“Oh,” Sasha said. “No. Just junk mail.”
She screwed the letter up and threw it in the trash, then sat herself back down at the table. However, her stomach churned as she tried to finish off her breakfast.
***
The day gave way to evening. Sasha was jumpy, constantly peering out the windows for any sign of a disturbance. But all was quiet in the sleepy suburb.
She hadn’t heard anything back from Thomas and had been ruminating on her text message all day, flitting between frustration at herself and frustration at him. Had she been a fool for contacting him? Days had passed since they’d last spoken, but instead of trying to patch things up with him, or ask for forgiveness, or see how he was, she’d jumped straight in with a damsel in distress moment. But then her thoughts would flip, and she’d remember how the Thomas she’d grown to know was a deeply caring man. He helped the people around him, even when they let him down—Crystal being a prime
example. If he could spend thousands of dollars on treatment for his sister—who leaked his secret scars to the world—then surely he wouldn’t abandon Sasha at her time of need. Once she’d reached that conclusion, she’d remind herself how wary Thomas was of being used. The reason he’d been attracted to her in the first place was because she had no idea who he was and had no preconceptions about the things he’d done. An inability to trust people was his biggest flaw. Lying to him had destroyed their bond. He had no reason to care for her anymore.
Sasha tried to dampen her ponderings with stupid television programs. Her mom was a fan of home improvement shows. Sasha, herself, hated them. She’d never had time for TV as a child and still hated it as an adult. She was relieved when her cell phone started ringing. But when she realized it was Thomas who was calling her, her relief turned into anguish.
Sasha sat up straight.
“Is that him?” Julia said with a knowing look.
“Yes. I’ll…”—Sasha stood—“…take it in the bedroom, if that’s okay with you. I need some privacy.”
“Of course. I’ve got my television to keep me company.”
Sasha bolted up the stairs and slammed the door to her bedroom shut. She answered the call.
“Thomas.” Thanks to the jog up to her room, she sounded breathless. That wasn’t going to do much for her whole damsel in distress thing.
There was a long pause before Thomas spoke.
“Hello,” he said simply.
It felt like years had passed since she’d last heard his voice. She hadn’t been sure if she would ever hear it again. The relief that he’d called her was almost overwhelming. It was so comforting; his English accent was like a gentle caress, and she had to hold herself back from blurting out, “I miss you.”
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