Page 108 of Love Me Tomorrow

What scandal?

My fingers tremble as my computer finally kicks into gear and I open the internet browser.Just do it. Type in your name. For the last eight months, my life has been turned upside down more times than I can count—and I’m terrified, downrightterrified, to search myself and discover what someone else is saying about me now.

Boring.

Perfect.

Self-absorbed.

Whoever came up with the saying thatsticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, was a filthy liar and clearly never grew up in the age of the world wide web.

“Do it, Rose,” I order myself.

As though hitting the ENTER button may cause the end of the world, I type in my name like I’m ninety-five years old and have never touched modern technology. Draw in a sharp breath and wait for the page to load.

The first headline hits me like a freight train:“Emails Leaked: America’s ‘Sweetheart’ Has Been Hacked!”

“No,” I whisper, and there’s no one to hear me in my office, but I say it again and again, my chest squeezing, my heart palpitating. “No, no,no.”

My gaze slides to the next article: “Good Girl Savannah Rose Isn’t So Good After All: Forbidden Love, Betrayed Sister, and Messy Love Triangle Breakup!”

And the next:“Is Amelie Rose a Thorn in the Rose Legacy? Leaked Emails Reveal the Mysterious Secrets Surrounding Her Birth.”

I can’t breathe.

I can’t—Oh, my God, I can’tbreathe.

With shaking fingers, I reach up to the high-neck collar of my shirt to undo the top button. I drag in air, in through my nose, out through my mouth. Do it all over again, in the hopes that it will dissipate the oppressive cloud sweeping over me. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t doanything.Panic seeps into my veins, tuning my body like a live wire that might implode at any moment.

Those emails . . .

I wrote dozens of them to Owen over the course of my time onPut A Ring On Itand while I was in Europe. I wrote them riddled with apologies for hurting him the way that I did. I wrote them drunk, with raw honesty as my only weapon as I bared my soul. I wrote them cold-stone sober, my every punctuation, my every paragraph, littered with intent to make himsee. . .

How much I loved him.

How much I worried about Amelie, who deserved none of Dad’s disappointment for something that would never, ever be her fault.

I spilled every dirty little secret—including some of my fantasies. I detailed them with precision. I imagined him devouring every word, his hand sneaking beneath the sheets. Some of the emails were bold. Some were tame. But the nature of them all were the same, always. They started with a greeting and ended with a simple:Yours, forever.

And I wrote them often. Every day, every night, every time he crossed my mind and I wanted someone to confide in, someone to hold me up after hours of pretending I was all too happy to be dating anyonebuthim.

I never hit send.

And now . . . and now—

“This can’t be happening.”

Feeling my stomach churn, I grab the trash can from under my desk and drop to my knees. I make it just in time. My eyes water and my hair hangs in front of my face and my brain seems to have ditched me because the only thoughts flitting through my head are:

How—

—Owen.

Why—

—Amelie.

My stomach heaves again, but miracle of all miracles, nothing comes up.

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