Her infectious laughter followed them as a buzzing sound came from a nearby door. Eli led Arianna through the door to the back section of the building.
“She seems very nice.”
“She is. She’s worked in this office for as long as I can remember, and I wasn’t lying about her making it run smoothly.” He led her through a maze of partitions. “Nothing gets by that woman.”
“You must be talking about Lisa.” Kieran’s voice came from behind them. They swung around to see him standing there, his hands resting on his thick black belt. “Come on over here. We’ll get your fingerprints done first, then we’ll talk.”
That process went smoothly, and Arianna didn’t need to worry about walking around with inked fingertips since they had a state-of-the-art scanner. Eli stayed by her side through the process then followed her as Kieran led the way to his office.
“Have a seat,” he said, waving to the chairs near the door as he rounded the desk to a large leather chair. “So, I’ve got the notes you found under your car wipers on their way to the lab. We’re only a satellite office here, so we send that kind of stuff to the bigger station. They should have it within the hour, and I’ve sent someone to wait with the car until the technician can make it out there.”
“Thank you so much,” Arianna said.
“Just doing our job, and honestly, this has been the most excitement we’ve had in a while. We’re on it, and we’ll do our best to get to the bottom of things.” He leaned forward on his desk. “Did you think of anything else to add to what we talked about earlier? No one else came to mind who might want to send you a message?”
Arianna hesitated. A part of her really didn’t think David would go to these lengths, but on the other hand, she wouldn’t have thought he’d do what he’d already done to her either. Still, she wasn’t sure about spilling all of that with Eli sitting next to her. It really didn’t paint her in the best light, and she wanted him to think well of her.
“Anna?” Kieran said. “Is there someone else who might be doing this to you?”
She let out a sigh, her shoulders slumping. “That kind of depends.”
“On?” Kieran prompted.
Arianna could feel Eli watching her, but she didn’t look at him, choosing instead to keep her gaze on Kieran. “On if someone was able to track me down here.”
“Let’s assume they could. Who exactly would that someone be?” Kieran’s grey eyes were focused on her so intently, Arianna had to fight the urge to shift in her seat. No doubt he made a good cop with a look like that.
“It could be someone in particular, or it could be one of a few million.”
Kieran’s dark brows lifted at that before pulling together. “Okay. Why don’t you just tell me what you mean by that. This seems to be more complex than I originally thought.”
This time she shot a quick look at Eli. Their gazes met for a moment then Eli cleared his throat. “Uh. Maybe I should go get a coffee or something.”
Instead of feeling relief at the idea, Arianna found that she didn’t want him to go. Sooner or later he’d find out. Maybe it was better for him to hear it from her even though the circumstances were less than ideal.
“I’m a social media influencer.”
Before Kieran even had a chance to respond, Eli said, “A what?”
“I have a significant following on several social media platforms, particularly YouTube and Instagram.”
“How significant?” Kieran asked.
Arianna hesitated again, knowing that the average person on social media was happy with followers in the hundreds or thousands. Most couldn’t comprehend the numbers she was about to toss out. “Almost ten million on Instagram. Around six million on YouTube. Those are the two platforms I’m most active on.”
“Ten million people follow you on Instagram?” Eli asked.
She shifted so she could see him more clearly. No surprise, he looked rather shocked. “Yes.”
“And you make money from that?” This time Kieran asked the question.
“Yes, although it’s not my only source of income. I have a company as well. We’ve developed a line of housewares for the At Home chain of stores. I have also released a line of bath and body products.”
“So you were referring to a fan when you said that maybe someone could find you?”
“I would say possibly a fan turned stalker.” Arianna shrugged. “Though I have to say that I really haven’t had much trouble with that.”
“Much?”
“Well, I get some odd mail once in a while, but nothing really threatening.”
“So, if not a fan, is there someone else?”
“Yes, but again, I don’t know if he’d go to these lengths.” Neither man said anything more, so Arianna took a deep breath and plunged on. “David Meece is…for lack of a better definition…a business partner. We’re in the same line of work—filming for YouTube, posting on Instagram—and our management teams suggested that we…uh…collaborate. We did for awhile, and that seemed to be going fine, but then David wanted things to be different, and when I objected, he got quite…upset. He spilled the details of our collaboration, and things turned ugly between us and also with our fans. That’s why I left LA. I had to get away from everything that was going on there.”
Kieran jotted down a few notes then looked up at her again. “So if I were to contact David Meece, I suppose you wouldn’t want him to be aware of where you are. Assuming he doesn’t already know.”
“I’d prefer not, because not only is it likely that he’d turn up here, he’d probably also reveal where I am to people who might like to know—even though it’s none of their business.”
“Okay. I’ll do my best to make sure he doesn’t find out where you are. It’s possible that I can contact the police in LA to see if they’d make inquiries for me.”
“I would really appreciate that. In any posts or videos I’ve shared since arriving here, I’ve made sure to hide my location.”
“And no one here has recognized you?” Eli asked.
“Well, I’m not famous in the conventional sense of the word, plus I think people just aren’t thinking that I’d end up here.” Her thoughts momentarily went to Julian and how he’d seemed to recognize her. “So far, no, no one has come right out and said that they recognized me.”
“So you’re kind of here to escape a scandal?” Kieran asked.
“Yes. Pretty much,” Arianna said. “I left LA and just drove around a few states, staying only a night or two whenever I’d stop. It wasn’t until I saw the sign for New Hope Falls that I felt drawn to come and to stay for a bit longer. It’s a beautiful place.”
“We like to think so,” Kieran agreed. “Do you think you’re going to stick around for a while longer?”
Arianna glanced at Eli again. “When I first came, I thought I’d just be here for a week or so, but honestly, I kinda don’t want to leave. So far, I’ve been able to handle my business stuff remotely, and I’ve really enjoyed helping out at Eli’s family’s place. It’s helped me to find a sense of calm after the storm that was going on in LA when I left.”
“If I need to check your online presence, would I just look up your name?” Kieran asked.
“Oh, here,” Arianna opened her purse and found her card holder. She slid out a business card then handed it to Kieran. “That has all my information on it.”
Kieran stared at the card before laying it on the notebook he’d been scribbling in. “Thank you for the additional information. I’ll make sure to keep all of this confidential.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Arianna sighed. “I’m not ready to deal with a flood of fans if they find out I’m here. I don’t want to have to leave, but I wouldn’t want Eli and his family to deal with that craziness.”
“We’d be all right,” Eli said, his voice low.
“Having someone find out who I am and then asking for a picture is fine.” Arianna blew out a breath. “But in the hands of the wrong person, it cou
ld create chaos for a lot more people.”
“I’ll let you know what we find out about the fingerprints,” Kieran said. “Then we can decide where to go from there.”
As they got to their feet, Eli said, “Thanks for helping us out, Kieran.”
“Anytime. I hope we can get this resolved quickly, so you don’t have to deal with it hanging over your head.” Kieran held out his hand to her. “And if you need someone to do the bodywork on your car, let me know. I know a guy who could help you out.”
Arianna gave his hand a shake. “Thank you. I might have to take you up on that.”
Kieran walked with them to the front of the building, where Lisa greeted them again. They said goodbye to them both then walked in silence out to Eli’s truck.
Once they were buckled in, Eli just sat in his seat, both hands gripping the wheel as he stared straight ahead. “I must admit, I’m a bit clueless about all of that stuff you were talking about in Kieran’s office.”
“I didn’t start out with the intention of becoming…this.” Arianna tilted her head back against the seat. “I started out doing videos when I was a teen. I didn’t have many friends, so I enjoyed talking to the camera as I did stuff, imagining I was talking to a friend. Stupid, I guess, but the little videos I made and uploaded seemed to resonate with people.”
“What sort of videos do you make?”
Arianna glanced over at Eli, trying to gauge if he was really interested or just making conversation. “I started out doing videos about makeup or showing things I’d bought that people might be interested in seeing, like clothes or stuff for my bedroom. I still do those types of videos, but I also do ones focused on crafts and cooking, as well as some home décor stuff.”
“So that’s why you know how to paint?”
“Yes, I’ve done videos showing me painting my apartment. Of course, I’ve done it without videoing it as well.”
“And when you post on Instagram, you get paid for that?”
“Not all the time, but when I do, it’s because a company has approached me to advertise one of their products. Sometimes it’s makeup. Other times it’s apparel. I always disclose that I’m being paid, and I only do those posts if I truly do like the product. I’ve had some real junk sent to me that I wouldn’t recommend to my worst enemy.”
“I never knew stuff like that existed. I mean, Sarah and Leah are posting stuff on Instagram all the time…well, Sarah mostly, but I doubt they have that many followers.”
“Most people don’t.” Arianna sighed as she stared out the front window, then she turned to look at Eli again. “Most normal people. Some days I wish I didn’t have so many people watching my every move, but this is what my life has morphed into in the past few years.”
“It’s done well for you.” Eli’s hands slid from the wheel as he turned to face her.
“Very well,” Arianna agreed. “But some days I wonder if it’s time to move on.”
“So do it. Life’s too short to do something you don’t enjoy, especially if you don’t have to.”
“Unfortunately, I do have to continue to do some parts of it. I’m locked into a couple of contracts that won’t run out for a bit. Also, I do enjoy what I do. I just don’t enjoy certain aspects of it.”
“Like David Meece?”
“Exactly.” Arianna debated filling him in on all the details. In the end, she knew she had to say something. He could look her up online and find all the information he needed to about what had gone down. It was better he heard it from her than that way. “It’s also the events that led up to what happened with him that I’m not happy about.”
Eli’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
It was now or never, Arianna figured. “Over the past several years, people have become obsessed with growing their audiences, and rightfully so, I suppose, since companies look at the number of interactive followers a person has when deciding if they want to do business with them. Unfortunately, it’s meant that collaborations which used to be done between people for fun are now much more serious. A smaller channel wants to collaborate with a larger one in hopes of gaining a portion of their audience.”
“I guess that sort of makes sense as long as you only view it from a business standpoint.”
“That’s basically the only way you can view it now. I always assume that when I’m approached by someone with a smaller audience than mine, their overture of friendship is based on what they hope they can gain from me.”
“That can’t be a good way to live,” Eli said, a frown drawing his brows together over his blue eyes. “It must be stressful.”
Arianna shrugged. “It was at first. Now, I just assume the worst, and every once in a long while, I’m pleasantly surprised.”
“So what happened with this David character?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Arianna found she couldn’t continue to look at Eli as she shared this part of the story. It was entirely possible that this would change how he viewed her…to the extent that things would become awkward between them.
“I met David at an influencers’ event in LA at the end of last year. He was friendly and easy to talk to, but I knew better than to expect anything like a real friendship to result from our meeting. A month or so later, his management team reached out to mine to see about a collaboration.”
“Were you disappointed?”
“Not really. I think I was more surprised than anything. While David had a smaller channel than mine, it wasn’t that much smaller. Plus, our audiences were quite different. Mine being primarily female while his was more mixed. It didn’t seem like he’d gain a whole lot from me. And then there was the type of collaboration he wanted.” Arianna paused, pulling in a shaky breath before forging on. “He wanted us to appear as a couple to the public.”
“Fake a relationship?” Eli asked, his tone making it clear what he thought about that.
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure about the idea, but my team said it would be good. That our audiences were already on board with the idea.”
“On board with the idea?”
“At our first meeting, some pictures had been taken of the two of us and were posted on social media. It happened again at another event, and the people who followed us started to post about what a cute couple we made. And it just kind of snowballed from there.
“I made it clear that I wasn’t going to make any sort of announcement that I was officially dating him, and I wanted approval on any pictures or video I was in that he’d be posting anywhere. He agreed to that, and we began appearing in each other’s videos, attending events together, and posting couple-ly type pictures on Instagram.”
She chanced a glance at Eli, not surprised to see the incredulous look on his face. He didn’t say anything though, so she continued on with her story.
“It went okay for the next few months. He posted a lot of pictures insinuating a relationship. Things like a picture of a bouquet with the caption ‘Think she’ll like them? #goals.’ Or he’d post a picture of two cups from Starbucks and say ‘Coffee for two. #takingcareofher.’ I wasn’t in those pictures, but I was in enough other ones that people began to put two and two together. Which was fine because that was kind of the whole point of the collaboration.”
“Were you posting stuff like that too?”
Arianna shook her head. “I was only required to post two things a week that would be relationshippy—for lack of a better word. So I’d post things like pictures of him and his dog or two plates on a restaurant table. No cutesy captions though. Unless it was about the dog. That dog was the cutest.”
“So what went wrong?”
“You mean aside from the whole thing being fake?” When Eli just lifted his eyebrows, Arianna sighed. “I began to realize that something was off when he began to pressure me to let him stay over, saying if someone saw him leaving my building, it would add credence to our relationship. Not being comfortable with that, even though he said he’d sleep on the couch, I kept putting
him off. That worked until one night when we’d been up late watching a movie, and he’d been drinking more than I’d been aware of. He fell asleep on the couch, so I just went to bed, planning to talk to him about it the next day. Only, when I woke up, he was already gone.”
“That was a good thing, right? He didn’t end up spending the night?”
“Oh, but he did,” Arianna said. “I’m not always a morning person, so I’d slept in until around nine. I discovered later that day that before he’d left, he’d come into my room and taken a couple of pictures.”
Eli’s eyes widened. “He took photos of you as you slept?”
“Yes. One that was just me sleeping. Another was a selfie that he’d taken, positioning himself in such a way that it looked like he’d slept in my bed. I was livid, not just because of the content of the picture, but also because he’d posted them without my permission, even though that had been part of our agreement. Never mind that he’d invaded my personal space.”
“He didn’t hurt you at all while he was in there, did he?”
Arianna shook her head. “He was quick to point that out when I blasted him about it. We fought over it, and that’s when he told me he wanted us to have a real relationship. That he loved me.”
“You didn’t feel the same way.” A statement, not a question.
“No. I most certainly did not. It quickly became apparent that that had been the whole reason for the…” Arianna lifted her hands to make quotes with her fingers. “Collaboration. I guess he’d hoped that being in close proximity might help me to fall in love with him more quickly.”
“And when that didn’t happen, it went south?”
“Rapidly. As soon as he realized I wasn’t going to agree to a real relationship, he went ballistic. Tweets. Instagram posts. And, of course, a video on YouTube exposing the whole relationship for what it had been.” Her stomach tightened in a knot as she remembered how she’d felt after watching the video. “I was mortified, but honestly, not surprised. I knew it wasn’t a good idea, but I went along with it anyway.”
Arianna felt emotion begin to rise as she thought back to that first day when the realization of what David had done began to truly sink in. Loneliness had enveloped her as she realized she had no one to turn to. Her parents wouldn’t have understood. Her team were the ones who had talked her into it in the first place. And friends? Any of the few she’d had quickly unfollowed her on social media as the scandal had unfolded.
A Love So Real: A Christian Romance (New Hope Falls Book 1) Page 16
