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“Jesus, how many notifications can you get at one time?” Markus’ voice was exasperated when the pinging of my phone’s alerts took off as we got closer to L.A. and regular cell service.
I snorted as I made a face at his handsome profile.
“Is the studio harassing you again?” he asked.
“No. More like everyone who has seen photos of us at the resort in Ojai and is now contacting me for comments.” I was proud of how calm I sounded, very mature. “I’m looking at the pictures now.” The tension in my voice was unmistakable and he did a double take as he looked over at me. My hands started to shake and I almost dropped my phone as I saw the worst yet.
He craned his neck, attempting to see while still navigating the twisty backroad from the resort to the highway.
“Pull over, Markus,” I ordered, my attention frozen on one very, very private moment immortalized on my screen for other peoples’ benefit.
“Seriously? Now? How bad can it be?” he asked.
“Now!”
He pulled off to the side of the road and I wordlessly handed him my phone. Slowly at first, then more frantically, he swiped through picture after picture of us on our private vacation. Most were blurry, shot at a distance, and we were barely distinguishable from any other couple. Some, however, were closer. A few from the lounge at the hotel showed us holding hands and laughing over drinks. Fine. But the ones shot with a telephoto lens of us in the tub on our private balcony were not fine at all. He looked over at me hesitantly. “Fuck, I don’t know what to say.”
“No? How about, ‘I’m so sorry, Alina. This is incredibly fucked up. I can’t believe someone managed to photograph the two of us fucking in a hot tub and sold it to the world.’ That would be a great start.”
He smiled at my impression of him, then straightened up. “We had a crew on site and that resort is known for its privacy measures. I’m not sure how these photos were taken.” He frowned and pulled out his phone, started typing. “I’ll text my team and have them file papers.
I sat in silence, staring out of the window as I waited for him to slap out a fast order to his people to get on top of the story, have the pictures pulled wherever she could, as soon as she could.
“They say they’re on it already and getting cease-and-desist orders out.” he said after a fast back-and-forth.
“Fine. Let’s just get back to your place. This will pass, right?”
He grabbed my hand and brushed a kiss across my knuckles. “It will, I promise.”
The rest of the ride was quiet as we descended back into the real world. Our getaway already seemed to be in the distant past, and my memories were now tainted by the media’s involvement.
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