Alicia Martinez is determined to keep a low profile. After a tough year, she deletes all of her social media and retreats to the small coastal town of St Andrews in the hopes of starting over - and avoiding her tumultuous past.
Oliver Hogarth is a...
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Oliver awoke to the sound of banging on his door.
"Oliver Hogarth! Open this door right now!"
Oliver blinked sleepily. He must be dreaming; there was no way that Alicia Martinez was knocking on his door. She hated him. Still, he wasn't opposed to seeing more of dream Alicia — even if she was shouting at him — so he rolled over and buried his face in the pillow.
More pounding. "For god's sake, Oliver, open up!"
Hang on.
Oliver raised his head, squinting at the door. No, this was definitely happening in real life. What the hell was going on? He pulled on a pair of grey trackies and a white tee-shirt, stumbling towards the door.
Alicia was waiting on the other side.
"We're in the tabloids," Alicia blurted. "Someone must have tipped off a photographer, that night at the observatory." She barged into the suite. "It's really grainy, but my name's in the article, which means that Greg will have seen it, and I'm meant to be caddying today so I can't even leave and—"
"Woah, woah, slow down," Oliver said. "Take a deep breath." He steered her to a stool by the counter. "Tell me again. But slowly."
She did.
Oliver filled up two cups of water as she spoke. By the time Alicia had finished, Oliver was gripping his glass so tightly that he thought he might break it. How the hell had a photographer known where to find them?
"Who tipped the bastard off?"
He wracked his brains. There were only a few options: Hattie, Antony or Brooks. None of which sat particularly well with him. Alicia shrugged.
"I don't know," she said. "Does it matter?" Her leg was jiggling. "Greg will be on his way already. I know he will."
"I don't understand." Oliver frowned. "I thought you and Greg broke up."
Alicia stared down at the glass of water in her hand. "I wasn't entirely honest with you earlier about Greg." She set it on the counter. "Remember when I said that he was popular? And you assumed that's why I hated the spotlight?"
"Yeah."
"Well, that's not all of it." Alicia pushed up a bead of condensation on the glass. "After the break-up, Greg kept looking for me. He would wait outside of our house at night, or outside of my classes. I started doing all of my tutorials online, so he switched to calling all of my friends and harassing them. And then my Mum. Eventually, I agreed to meet with Greg just to put a stop to it, and he said..." Her voice cracked. "He told me that if I tried to leave him, he would hurt me. Or someone that I loved. He mentioned Tess, specifically."
Oliver felt sick. "Leese..."
"Anyway, I shut down all of my social media accounts so that he couldn't find me here." She swallowed. "He's convinced that I can fall in love with him again. That I'm in some sort of denial."
