“It was the very next day. What he’d done hadn’t hurt me enough. He was looking for something else.”
“How did you find out that he’d posted the video?”
She swallowed what was in her mouth. “Oh God, it was horrible. I was in the middle of getting a pedicure, just hoping to relax for thirty minutes and forget about the messy breakup, how awkward it was going to be to see Ethan every morning and deliver the news without every viewer we had reading in our body language that we suddenly couldn’t stand each other. I was also worried about how we were going to keep our little problem from coming to the attention of Heidi and others at the studio. And on top of that, my mother was falling apart because she’d just learned my father had moved in with another woman. So there I was, closing my eyes and thinking I had a much-needed chance to recoup, when the woman next to me started whispering loudly to her neighbor on the other side. They’d say something to each other, crane their necks to get a better look at me, then nod and whisper some more. Finally, I said, ‘Excuse me. Is there something wrong?’”
He lifted his omelet out of the pan and onto a plate. “Did they tell you?”
She frowned as she stared at the bite she held on her fork, her mind obviously back in that nail salon. “The woman closest to me said, ‘Aren’t you Emery Bliss?’”
“You must’ve thought they recognized you from seeing you on TV,” he said as he brought his plate to the table.
“I did. I was sort of flattered,” she said, looking slightly embarrassed. “But then the other woman said, ‘Is that really you in that steamy video online?’ I told them that I wasn’t in any steamy video, that I was a news anchor and they must’ve confused me with someone else. Then she and her friend started laughing. They left it at that, but kept shooting each other these side-eye looks as though the joke was on me. And it was. Right about then my phone started to blow up. I was getting calls and texts from almost everyone I knew—‘Oh my God! What’s going on? Have you seen it?’”
“That must’ve made you sick to your stomach.”
“It did. I’ll never forget what it felt like to click on that first link and see myself naked.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I felt like throwing up. And so many people on Facebook and Instagram were calling me a slut or making fun of me. It felt as though everyone I knew—even those I didn’t—were gathering around me to taunt and jeer and throw rocks.”
Again, Dallas had to fight the urge to contact Ethan and take this fight into his own hands. “Did you call Ethan and ask what was going on?”
“I did. I called him immediately. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I’d pass out, and my mind was reeling as I tried to figure out who’d recorded us, and who would hate me so much that they would post that video online.” She laughed without mirth. “It wasn’t until I talked to him that I realized.”
He shoveled a forkful of omelet into his mouth. “That it was him?”
She nodded. “He wasn’t upset at all. He was smug, almost gleeful. So then I began to catch on. I realized he was the one who’d recorded it and put it out there—to punish me for breaking up with him.”
“Did you accuse him?”
“I did. And he laughed. He’s lied about laughing since, when I tried to tell Heidi about that call,” she explained. “But that was exactly what he did.”
“Too bad you didn’t get it recorded.”
“Now you know why I’m hoping he’ll do something like that again.”
“The guy deserves to have his ass kicked,” Dallas ground out, once again feeling the desire to do just that.
“What he deserves and what he’s getting seem to be two very different things. I can only hope this lawsuit will make the situation a bit more fair.”
“When will you need to meet with your attorney?”
“I don’t know. So far we’ve been taking care of everything via Skype.”
He got up to pour himself some more coffee. “If you ever have to drive to LA, I’ll go with you, if you want.”
“I would love that. Thank you.” She checked the time. “I’d better get a move on. I don’t want to be late for this interview. It might be the only job I’m able to get,” she added with a rueful laugh.
“Good luck with it.”
She rinsed off her plate and put it in the dishwasher. “You don’t have to go to town in the next ten minutes, do you?”
Although she kept her eyes on what she was doing instead of looking at him, he knew where she was going with this. “No. But I’ll take you.”
She smiled at him, obviously relieved. “Thank you. I have my car, but... I don’t know. It’s easier to be with someone who’s supportive—helps me feel like less of a pariah.”
“I get it. And I don’t mind.”
She started to leave the kitchen but stopped at the last second. “By the way, don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re not fulfilling your end of the bargain.”
He was just getting up to rinse his own plate. “What bargain?”
“You said I could ask about you as long as you could ask about me. Well, I’ve told you just about everything there is to know about the nightmare I’m going through—I’ve even told you the embarrassing stuff—but you haven’t said a word about yourself.”
“I’m not that interesting,” he joked, hoping to pass it off that easily.
She arched one eyebrow. “Does that mean our friendship only goes so deep? I share and you encourage?”
He thought of the night before, when he’d held her against him in an effort to comfort her, and
