Page 44 of Behind the Scenes

The man released his hold on her arm and held up his hands in front of him. “I just wanted an autograph. Nothing else. I wasn’t trying to do anything to her. She should be used to fans wanting autographs by now. What’s the big deal?”

Lauren took hold of Alexis as she began to shake, and Hunter pushed the guy away so he fell down on the sidewalk. Raising his voice, he barked, “Get the fuck away from her! She doesn’t owe you a damn thing, and that includes an autograph!”

The guy ran off as Lauren hugged her close. “It’s okay. Forget him. Let’s go home.”

Hunter turned back toward her, and with concern in his eyes, he looked at her like he was examining her for damage. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

Alexis shook her head but couldn’t get the words out to tell him she wasn’t hurt. Behind her, Lauren said, “We need to go home now. Can you get us a cab?”

Hunter nodded. “Yeah. I got it.”

He hailed them a ride a few seconds later, and when they were safely inside the backseat of the car, Alexis closed her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. Not even when she began to realize that she would be trapped in that apartment forever.

God, she missed LA. She missed the sun and the beach. She missed home.

She missed being normal.

No one said a word as they rode up in the elevator to the penthouse. Lauren held Alexis tightly in her arms, her left hand gently stroking her hair to calm her. It didn’t work, but she couldn’t blame her friend for trying.

Once again, Hunter didn’t chastise her for running off or blame her for putting herself in the situation where someone could get to her. She didn’t know if she deserved either. Before this whole stalker thing started happening, she could walk out in public like a normal person, even though Paul always told her that the day would come when she couldn’t.

But it never did. Never once did anyone accost her. Not until the stalker started terrorizing her.

Alexis knew she bore some of the responsibility for what happened with that man back there at the gym. Before she grew fearful of everyone and everything, she would have joked with him about not having anything to write with and he would have seen she was a good person he just caught at a bad time. She might have even walked with him to a local store to borrow a pen from the clerk behind the counter, even signing something for that second person, if they asked.

That’s who she used to be. That’s the woman these people wanted an autograph from. Not the terrified mess she’d become after only a few months of her stalker sending those damn letters.

She didn’t want to be this way. Each day that passed without anyone stopping him, she retreated a little more into the safety of her own world. Sure, she broke out from time to time, but each time she did, she was shown exactly why she couldn’t trust people.

Everything Paul had always warned her about was coming true. She’d moved from a home she loved to a city she knew nothing about and still she couldn’t walk freely down the sidewalk. But it wasn’t the place.

It was her.

The stalker had succeeded in trapping her not only in her home but inside herself.

The elevator doors opened, and Alexis walked directly toward her room. She didn’t want to be around anyone now. Neither Lauren nor Hunter could help her. That had been proven back there on the sidewalk outside the gym.

No assistant or bodyguard could protect her from the danger outside or the fear that grew by the moment inside her.

They followed her down the hallway, but she waved them off. “I want to be alone.”

Chapter Fourteen

Hunter watched asAlexis walked slowly down the hall toward her room. With her shoulders drooped, she didn’t look like the confident and strong woman he’d come to admire over the past few days.

“I feel so helpless. I want to help her, to protect her, but even going to the gym is becoming impossible because of this stalker. Before this all started, that guy at the beach and the one at the gym wouldn’t have been a problem,” Lauren said sadly next to him.

He turned and looked at her in confusion. Hadn’t Alexis always had to deal with unwanted attention from her fans? Hunter just assumed all stars did.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“She was never afraid like she is now. When fans came up to her when she was out in public, she chatted with them, took selfies, and signed autographs. She never felt like she was in any danger. But now even one fan approaching her she just gets paralyzed with fear.”

“I can’t imagine her that way,” he said, surprised to hear Alexis used to be so at ease with her fans.

Lauren shook her head. “She was so open to meeting people, but this stalker has changed that. Every day she goes inside herself more and more. She wasn’t even like this after she and Jackson broke up, and that was bad.”

“What happened then?”

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