Chapter One
Abigail
It had been a long week for me, and I was looking forward to seeing my old friend Sienna this evening for her hen party. I was so pleased that she was going to marry Jayden King. From what I had seen of him in the few brief meetings I’d had, he adored Sienna, far more than her prick of an ex-husband William. He was exactly where he deserved to be, rotting in a prison cell after what he did to Sienna. All I knew was Jayden was an amazing father to Amelia and their new son Benjamin, and he took care of Sienna. That was all that mattered to me.
I was heading to my hometown of Sittingbourne in Kent. I didn’t live there anymore and had no family there, but it had the best beauty salon I’d ever been to. Whenever I got the chance, I would come down here to have all my beauty treatments done. Being a famous model, you would have thought I would prefer the upmarket salons in London, but they never gave me the service that Bodylines had always given me, even before I was famous. There weren’t that many places I could go in the world where I wouldn’t be recognised and hounded by fans. My hometown was one of them, though. Yes, I was acknowledged, but most people just let me go about my normal business. The odd person would say hello, but then they would just leave me alone. That was another reason why I loved coming home occasionally.
I pulled up into the car park, parked up, and headed into the salon. As soon as I walked in the door, I found Michelle there waiting for me.
“Hi, Michelle. It’s been too long.”
“Hi, Abi. Too long. Come on upstairs and we can get started.”
That was the other thing I loved about being here. The girls always found me somewhere quiet to be, away from the prying eyes of the locals. I may have said that I was mostly left alone, but there was always that chance that someone would come into the salon and bother both me and the rest of the clients there. So, this was as much for the salon’s clientele as it was for me. I followed Michelle upstairs, and she made short work of wrapping my nails to remove the gel polish. The only stipulation I had wherever I went was that they only used CND Shellac on my nails, to the point that I often carried it around with me to make sure they didn’t try to use something else.
As usual, we chatted about what was going on in our lives. It wouldn’t be that long before I would be changing beauticians for a while with Michelle being pregnant. I was excited for both her and Joe, but also sad that we wouldn’t be able to have our little chats in the afternoons that I was here. I was looking forward to meeting the little man, though, and getting my cuddles in. In my line of work, motherhood wasn’t something that I had really contemplated, especially with not having a man in my life. But someday I hoped that time would come, and when it did, I would retire gracefully and perhaps start up my own agency. But I had to find the right person to spend the rest of my life with first, and that didn’t appear to be happening any time soon.
Michelle was just finishing off my facial and getting ready to continue my nails when there was a knock at the door. She got up to see who was there and found Thelma standing there with a massive bouquet of flowers in her hands. Not paying attention to the exact flowers that had been sent, I assumed that Joe had sent them to Michelle.
“Someone’s a lucky girl, Michelle.”
Thelma immediately corrected me. “Actually Abi, they are for you. Well, for Lila Goddard, anyway.”
I looked at both Michelle and Thelma, shocked.
I was never put in the booking system as Lila. Always as Abigail. How could anyone know that I was going to be here today, and at this exact time? I got up from the bed and walked over to Thelma, who was standing there with a dozen white roses, and froze.
It was always white roses. It couldn’t be from him, could it? I felt my anxiety start to rise, my heart beating out of my chest as I took the envelope that was resting within the bouquet and opened it. I couldn’t help the gasp that came from my mouth as I read the contents.
My Darling Lila,
These roses are pale to your beauty.
Until we meet,
Your Secret Admirer
I stood there staring at the card in front of me. This was the third time this week I had received white roses from my secret admirer. It was starting to get out of hand and extremely worrying. It didn’t matter where I was in the world, the same flowers would arrive when I was on a shoot or making a public appearance somewhere, and they would always be from “Your Secret Admirer.” I had already gone to the police about it, but they wouldn’t do anything because I hadn’t been threatened. Hell, I didn’t even know what the guy looked like. My hands started to shake as I held the note in front of me. I must have worried the ladies standing in front of me, because I felt a hand rest on my shoulder.
“Abi, are you okay? You look as white as a sheet.”
I gazed over at Michelle, who looked concerned. I passed her the card that had accompanied the flowers. She immediately responded after reading the note.
“Abi, have you gone to the police about this? This isn’t just some crazed fan. This is serious.”
I was starting to realise just how serious this was. The problem was that there was nothing the police could do about it. They had already told me that much.
“They aren’t interested in it unless he makes a threat towards me. I am going to my friend’s hen party this evening. Her fiancé is one of the owners of a private investigation company. They met because he was protecting her from her husband. I was going to talk to her.”
Thelma sounded just as concerned when she spoke. “I really think you should, Abi.”
“I will, Thelma. Please place the flowers in a vase to decorate the salon. I really don’t want to keep them.”
Thelma took the flowers and left me alone with Michelle. My heart was still beating irregularly, but I couldn’t let him get to me. I couldn’t stop my life because of an obsessive fan.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I could hear Michelle’s concern in her voice, but I didn’t want her to worry about me. I knew she had enough to worry about with the upcoming birth of her son. Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves and beating heart, I responded to her.
