Her chest hurt and her stomach cramped every time she thought about the pictures. She hadn’t known anyone was filming her as she’d stripped off her clothes in her hotel room, that they were taking one shot after another of her getting into the bathtub, that even more shots were taken while she’d dried off before slipping on a robe. She had thought she was finally off the clock for a precious thirty minutes in a steaming tub without cameras following her.
She’d been wrong.
Tears started to come again, but she forced them back. She didn’t want to keep falling apart, was determined to pull herself together. Because if she didn’t, then it would really feel like they’d won. Everyone from the guy who’d taken and sold the pictures, to the strangers who said such awful things about her online, to a mother who was just so damned thrilled by how high their social media numbers had jumped in the wake of the scandal.
No, Rosa definitely wasn’t going back. Not until she had made a decision about her next step. But she needed her head to be clearer as she worked to figure that out. She couldn’t stay hidden forever, but she also wouldn’t let herself rush or panic again. She might only have a high school diploma, but she’d been accepted to a great university before she’d chosen reality TV instead. If she’d learned anything from the legal teams her family had worked with over the past five years, it was that a well-drawn plan was always better than something carelessly slapped together.
Which meant that right now, since she was still reeling and hurting too much to make any good decisions, she simply needed to get some clothes and food, then find a place to stay for the night without alerting anyone as to her whereabouts. If she remembered correctly, the motel where she and her father had stayed when she was a kid was only a mile or so up the road.
Fortunately, Rosa carried a stash of cash in her bag at all times. Her just-in-case money. No one in her family liked to talk about the downside to being so famous, but another reality TV star had advised her early on that using cash instead of credit could help buy her a little freedom if she ever needed it.
Of course, back when they’d signed on to do the show—both because their family desperately needed the money and because it sounded so exciting—Rosa had never expected to need that freedom quite so badly.
Grabbing her bag from the passenger seat, she checked to make sure there was no one around before she got out of the car. Fortunately, the heavy rain seemed to be keeping people at home. She was about to put on her sunglasses when she realized that would only make her look more conspicuous.
Her heart pounding a million miles an hour, she stepped into the empty store. A gray-haired woman was sitting behind the register watching a soap opera on the TV that hung in the corner.
“Hello, honey.” The woman looked at her kindly—and with zero recognition. “The storm caught you, did it?”
Rosa nodded. “It did.”
“Well, it’s warm and dry in here, so you just let me know if you need help with anything.”
Rosa tucked her head down so that her wet hair fell over her face just in case anyone came in, then grabbed a hand basket and started looking for essentials. A toothbrush and toothpaste. Some apples, oranges, and microwave dinners. A couple of tourist Tshirts. A sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants with Montauk written down one leg. And a pack of white cotton underwear and socks.
Hoping this would be enough food and clothes to make it a few days while she hid and figured out her next steps, she was heading to the register when she walked past an aisle containing sewing supplies. Unable to resist them, she ran her fingers over the beautiful blues and greens, reds and yellows on the spools of thread. Even when she was a little girl, she’d been totally drawn to playing with her mother’s needles and thread. Not to make clothes, but because she loved to watch patterns and pictures emerge from her stitches. The quality of the thread and yarn here wasn’t great, and there was no embroidery floss, but she could make do by doubling or even tripling the thread. She couldn’t help throwing some spools and a pack of needles into her basket.
Rosa didn’t realize the magazine and paperback section was on the facing side of the aisle until she turned and flinched at her own face staring back at her. Her stomach twisted when she thought about how excited she’d been the first time she’d landed on the cover of a magazine. But back then she’d never dreamed there’d be headlines that shouted, America’s Favorite Bad Girl: Nude Photo Scandal? Or Another Brilliant Business Move for the Bouchards?
Rosa was doubling down on her prayers that the woman working the register wouldn’t recognize her without her usual makeup and couture clothes, when the bell over the front door clanged and shook her back to reality. She needed to buy her supplies and get away before someone spotted her.