Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“He’s impossible,” Vanessa exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air as her cousin topped up her wineglass. “Controlling even. Absolutely intolerable.”
Natalie had arrived three hours ago with two bottles of prosecco and Pad Thai, and now, both of them were more than a little tipsy. But it was exactly what the doctor ordered.
“Mmm,” her cousin murmured, sipping slowly from her glass. “Sounds perfect.”
“Ha! Not even close.” Vanessa downed a long gulp, trying to drown her thoughts of him. “He’s a brute.”
“You like him.” Natalie lifted a knowing eyebrow.
Damn, those eyebrows were flawless. Vanessa made a mental note to ask where she had them done, once she was finished fuming.
“Never,” she snorted. “He’s the worst.”
“Uh-huh,” Natalie hummed.
“Seriously, Nat! He barged into the hall like he was Jack Bauer on hour twenty-three. Did that intimidation thing he does, simply by standing there, and then handed Murray a hundred in cash and told him to leave us alone. Oh, and he also offered him a job.”
“Sounds awful,” Natalie replied, once again sipping her prosecco. This time with a sly grin. “Is he single?”
Vanessa’s stomach tightened at the image of her cousin and Jordan…together. She pushed the thought away, clenching her jaw.
The more she replayed yesterday’s incident, the more complicated her feelings became. Yes, his macho display was irritating as heck, but he’d diffused the situation in minutes, saved Rory from having to cough up money she didn’t have, and given Murray a chance to redeem himself by helping the team.
Then there was the matter of him waiting for her after practice—for three evenings in a row.
He’d stood with her inside The Link’s foyer while she waited for Anderson.
Only when she was tucked safely inside the SUV, did Jordan get on his bike and disappear into the night.
She didn’t know where he went. Home probably.
But it was a pattern, and one that seemed far too considerate to ignore.
“You sound like you’ve gone too deep down the alphahole BookTok tunnel again,” Vanessa slurred, setting aside her prosecco and picking up the cooled takeout box of noodles.
“Well, fictional or not, I’d say it’s better to be in too deep with an alphahole than the typical asshole that you always seem to get messed up with.”
Oof, that one stung. She discarded her noodles, appetite gone. “Well,” she murmured, “I’d rather not be deep in any hole if I can help it.”
Natalie choked back a laugh. “Yeah, I sure bet you’d rather have the alpha deep in your hole instead.”
Vanessa gasped. “Ohmigod, you are so sloshed.” She threw a napkin at her cousin, who dissolved in a fit of giggles against the couch cushions.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. That was bad.” With half-hearted regret in her eyes, Natalie held her hands up in surrender.
After a few sobering breaths, her giggles subsided.
“All I’m saying is, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have a strong alpha-type around for a while.
Especially with all the weird social media stuff and flower drama and, well, everything. ”
Halfway through the second bottle of prosecco, Vanessa had spilled everything to Natalie about the night at Silk and everything after.
“It could all still be a coincidence,” she whispered.
“You know what’s more likely?” Natalie leaned in, looking serious.
“That sick fuck is obsessed with you, and your kiss with Jordan set him off.” She sat back, having made her point.
“It happens all the time, and not only on the true-crime podcasts I’m addicted to.
It’s scary shit, and you need to be careful with this phantom who’s been leaving comments. ”
At first, Vanessa had thought the messages had stopped, but she’d discovered something much more concerning.
An anonymous user had been lurking on her Instagram for ages, liking every post, commenting on most of them. They had no profile, no posts, no followers, nothing.
None of the comments were overly threatening or crude. Most were the positive, encouraging notes a friend might leave. But the thing was, she’d never replied. Not once. Yet, they kept coming.
It was all…off. No direct proof that the red roses had come from whoever the unknown user was. No connection to the second unknown user’s weird comment on her flower post. But the coincidence felt too strong to ignore.
“The comment I received on the flowers was from another ghost account. There’s no way to connect them to the one that’s been liking and commenting on all of my other messages.”
“Well, Ness, you know what they say about coincidences,” Natalie replied with a know-it-all smirk. “There’s no such thing.”
“Who’s they, Nat?” She couldn’t help teasing her tipsy cousin.
Natalie was like their mothers, always referencing the elusive they, as if they wrote gospel. Natalie shrugged and hauled herself up.
“The smart people,” she said matter-of-factly, then checked her watch.
“Okay, I gotta go. I have an early appointment tomorrow. But seriously.” She swayed as she pointed at Vanessa.
“You need to start telling someone, and by someone, I mean Jordan. And check in with the police as well. This shit needs to be stopped before it gets out of control.”
“No way I’m telling Jordan. He’ll tell Joel, who’ll tell Lucy, who’ll then have a fit.
” No one needed that. “And what would I tell the police? I have absolutely no proof of anything. It’s all creepy, weird online stuff right now.
People with any kind of social media following deal with far worse.
” Stacking takeout cartons and grabbing the empty prosecco bottles, Vanessa stood and made her way to the small kitchen.
“Tell Maria,” Natalie called on her way to the apartment door. “She’d be all over it.”
“Ha, funny, Nat.” If her mother had even a clue of what Vanessa dealt with online, she’d lock her in her childhood bedroom and force her to spend the rest of eternity listening to variations of I told you so.
Her mother had been against her modeling lifestyle from day one.
In fact, she’d been against almost all of Vanessa’s life choices.
Which was part of the reason she made some of the choices she did when she was younger.
Knowing she was defying her mother’s wishes was mildly satisfying… when she was a teenager.
But the more she’d gotten involved in the modeling world, the more she’d come to love it.
The thrill of the photoshoots, the opportunity to work with some of the greatest design visionaries in the world, the high of walking the runway, had become addictive.
Turned out she had a talent for it, and a passion to match.
Soon her rebellion had become a career she’d grown to love.
Acting had been less satisfying, but at the time, it was all she believed she had left.
Vanessa wandered back to the living room in time to see Natalie trying to pull on her knee-length boots. With her white faux-fur coat on, and her long blond hair streaming down her back, she looked like a tipsy polar bear. In the cutest way, of course.
“Chances are high that this is all made up in my head and I’m scaring myself needlessly. My true crime loving cousin is not helping.”
“Do not.” Natalie jabbed her finger in the air and swayed dangerously. “I repeat, do NOT gaslight yourself. If you feel off about this, there’s probably something to it.”
Not second-guessing her instincts wasn’t her strong suit. Probably had something to do with those assholes she let into her life. If you heard lies about yourself long enough, you started to believe them.
Natalie swung the apartment door open and gasped. “Holy fuck! Does this mean he’s here?”
Dread rushed along Vanessa’s spine until Natalie tossed a look over her shoulder as she pointed across the hallway. “The bike. That means alpha-boy is here, right?”
The rush turned immediately to something warmer, darker, until it erupted in her chest because, yep, there was Jordan’s matte-black bicycle leaning against the wall next to Sean and Ivy’s door.
“He’s rabbit-sitting.” It was a ridiculous thing to say, but it was what came to mind.
Natalie waggled her eyebrows. “He could be kitty-sitting.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, has anyone ever told you that you turn into a teenage boy when you get drunk?” Vanessa ushered her inebriated cousin to the staircase at the end of the hall. “You have an Uber, right?”
Natalie tapped her phone. “Here now.” When she teetered precariously, Vanessa tucked her arm under hers to help her down the steps.
“Are you still planning on leaving me once you redeem yourself in the fashion biz, cugina?”
“Absolutely.” She’d never been more certain of her plan than she was now. As soon as she got enough good press, she was heading back to New York. A fresh start was needed all around.
Pushing open the door, Natalie puffed out her lower lip. “I’m gonna miss you.”
“Last week you said you couldn’t wait.”
“But that was before I wanted to set you up with alpha-boy,” Natalie whined.
“Can we stop calling him that?”
“Would you rather I call him your kitty-sitter?”
“Get in the car.” She pulled Natalie in for a bear hug before not so gently shoving her through the doorway toward the Uber.
Vanessa waited until her cousin was safely in the Uber and it had pulled away before she closed the door. As she did, the cold that had gripped her earlier flooded back, crawling up her spine and landing with a sharp, icy prickle at the nape of her neck.
With her heart hammering in her chest, she scanned the shadows. The street beyond the window was dark, empty. No one is there. It’s all in your head. You’ve had too much to drink.
A blinding burst of light hit the corner of her vision. Familiar but unwelcome. Was that a camera?
Her heart slammed into her throat. Panic surged through her veins as she raced up the long staircase.
Had she fully shut the door? The thought hit her like a punch to the gut as she whipped her head around to check. The sudden movement caused her to lose balance. Her foot caught on the edge of the stairs.
And pain exploded through her shin as a scream ripped out of her throat.