Bob didn’t know when to give up. I always hated that about him. That didn’t change with the divorce.Even after I refused to see him, he kept calling me and trying to change my mind. The texts were more annoying than the phone calls. Somehow, he got even more desperate in writing.I thought about blocking his number. In hindsight, I should have. After all, what use did I have for staying in contact with him after the divorce settlement, other than to ensure that the house got sold?Something inside me couldn’t do it, though. Something too polite or too sentimental couldn’t burn that bridge, despite everything Bob and his family had done to me. And I wanted so badly to beat that side of me into line with the rest of me.Instead, I finally took another of his calls.“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” I all but yelled at him.“Please, Anna, just hear me out,” he said in the most pathetic tone I had ever heard from him. “My mom thinks it would be a goo

 “What are you talking about? I haven’t been on a date with Bob!”Barnett pulled out his phone and, after a few angry swipes, shoved it in my face.“Then what’s this?”My jaw dropped at the headline running across the top of the webpage: FITNESS VLOGGER AND CELEBRITY STYLIST ANNA LEONARD CAUGHT ON DATE WITH EX-HUSBAND Below the headline was a picture of Bob kissing me at the café where we had lunch the day before. What the picture didn’t show was how I tried to reach for my pepper spray or pummeled him with my purse for touching me.Now, the entire incident made sense. The kissing, the hand-holding, Bob meeting up with the reporter afterwards. He had set me up.I pushed the phone back at Barnett.“All of that…all of that is taken out of context,” I said as I struggled to choke back tears.Barnett must have noticed because some of his anger seemed to cool.“Then what is the truth?” he asked.“He told me that Outer U wanted

         In hindsight, my first move should have been to call the police. If I had been thinking straight, I would have called the cops. Instead, I ran over to Barnett’s apartment and started pounding on the door, hoping he had spent the night there. To my relief, he opened the door. He looked as though he had just been about to leave and was surprised to find my fist in front of his chest.“Anna? What’s wrong?” Barnett asked.I couldn’t say anything. I only dragged him by the hand to my door, where I showed him the red X and the note.He stared at the note for a long time.“Well, that is her signature,” he finally said. He didn’t sound overly worried or even mad, more…resigned, as though he weren’t too surprised this had happened but was tired of all of Julia’s shit.I, however, was still freaking out. The more that I stared at it, the more that the red on my door and on the note looked like blood to me. It made my mind go to a m

         Arthur did not let up over the next couple days. In fact, any time we weren’t talking about his own styling, Arthur steered our conversation towards why I should take up Freyja on their offer. Finally, he wore me down.        I called the people at Freyja, they faxed me a contract, and we arranged to film the first commercial over the next week. Arthur was so excited that he offered to come with me to ensure that everything went down without a hitch. I couldn’t really think of a reason to say no. It was his world; he would know how best to navigate. Besides, it would be nice to have a friend there with me, at least on the first day.        So, I let him come with me.        On the first day of the shoot, we took the gold Aston Martin from Arthur’s office to the studio. Gremlins started to tear at my stomach as we parked. I had been to studios before when a client ne

         I sniffled. I couldn’t tell Barnett the truth. He would think I was weak for not being able to handle everything myself.        “Anna, I can hear you crying.”        The softness in his tone broke something inside me. Tears started to flow down my cheeks again.        “I-I don’t know what to do,” I sobbed. “It’s all too much.”        “What’s too much?”        “The commercial, the styling, the vlogs. I’ve only spent a little over a week doing this, and I can’t keep up. I screwed up so badly today.”        “Hey, it’s okay. Just take a deep breath and explain everything that happened.”        I followed Barnett’s instructions. I took a deep breath and then told him everything, from being worn down by the commercial to having to improvise StarRise’s look and her reaction to it.&nb