“Me? I don’t understand.” And then her phone came to life and she saw his text.
Don’t look at the internet.
He removed the phone from her hand. “You have to believe that I had no idea this would happen. Not that I’m making excuses.” He inhaled deeply. “There is no easy way to say this and I take full responsibility—”
“For what?”
“They’ve made the link between Aggie and Dr. Kathy. They know who you are.”
Her limbs turned to liquid. “Max? The background check you did—”
“It wasn’t Max.”
“Then how—”
“Last night someone took a photo of us together.”
She cast her mind back but remembered nothing specific. “I don’t understand how that would expose me. And I don’t remember anyone taking a photo of me.”
“You weren’t the target of the photo, I was.” He ran his hand over his jaw. “That was the first time I’ve ever taken a woman to that event. I’m the eternal bachelor. Someone took a photo of me and posted it. It was retweeted a lot, and somewhere in that round of retweets someone recognized you. Someone who was at the Phoenix Publishing party that night, and knew you as ‘Aggie.’ That’s the power of social media.”
She knew all about the power of social media. The good side and the bad.
“How bad is it?” Her mouth was so dry it was hard to speak. “They’ve made the connection and named me?”
“Yes. They’ve talked about your TV role as Dr. Kathy. About how you were targeted by the online community. How you lost your job.” He hesitated. “And that you moved to the US and started Ask a Girl.”
She closed her eyes as the enormity of it descended, along with the implications. “So they know all of it.”
“Yes, and I understand that this is the one thing you dreaded. It shouldn’t have happened and I’m the reason it did.” His tone was raw. “I’m truly sorry.”
She shook her head, numb, and reached for her laptop.
He caught her arm. “Don’t.”
“I want to. I have to know what I’m dealing with.”
The story wasn’t hard to find.
The identity of the woman behind the popular relationship blog Ask a Girl, has been revealed as Dr. Kathleen Molly Parker. Writing under the pseudonym of ‘Aggie,’ Dr. Parker has spent the last three years advising people on how to manage their relationships, despite the fact that she has never managed to sustain one herself. Fired from the hit British TV show…
Molly carried on reading, even though she already knew the content. Only one part was new, and that related to Daniel.
She read it aloud. “‘An ex-girlfriend of Daniel Knight’s commented that “she won’t break his heart because he doesn’t have one.” Mr. Knight was unavailable for comment.’”
Scrolling down, she saw the picture someone had taken of her and Daniel at the summer party. They’d
caught the moment when they were dancing, eyes locked.
No wonder we didn’t notice people taking photographs, she thought. He’d been the only thing in her field of vision and she’d been the only thing in his.
She won’t break his heart because he doesn’t have one.
She stared at the words and then looked away, confused. Why was she focusing on that one sentence when it was the rest of it that was important?
There was an ache behind her ribs.
Shock, she thought. That had to be it. What else could it be?