“Which gained him even more sympathy.” Daniel was starting to seriously dislike Rupert. “Did he call to see how you were holding up with all this going on? Did he tell the press to leave you alone?”
“He was too hurt to think about anyone but himself.”
Or too selfish. “What about the show? You carried on presenting?”
“Yes. I recorded the show on my own while he was off sick, but people were outraged that I was carrying on with my life when his was ruined. I was followed to the supermarket, to the gym. People I’d thought were my friends waded in and fed the media with stories. A couple of my old boyfriends joined in.”
“None of your friends stood by you?”
“To be fair, the attention was hideous and then it escalated. The public started a campaign—Dump Dr. Kathy. There were literally millions of people who didn’t know me and had never met me, hounding me and the TV company, saying that I shouldn’t be allowed to do the job. That I shouldn’t be described as an expert on relationships when I’d never had one myself. They were judge, jury and executioner.” She spoke faster and faster, her distress almost painful to watch. Valentine clearly thought so, too, because he shot to his feet and trotted to her side, nudging her with his nose, checking she was all right. She stroked his head, calming down a little. “And I didn’t particularly love being in the spotlight but I did love the show. They picked people who genuinely struggled to find a partner. These weren’t self-obsessed narcissists who wanted to make a name for themselves on TV, they were real people with real problems. My skills genuinely helped them and I felt as if what we did was truly positive, so to have all that taken away—they made me look like a fraud.” She hesitated. “I suppose it tapped into all those fears I’d buried, about not being enough. They made me feel as if I was lacking. But the worst thing was seeing Rupert looking so awful. It reminded me of the way my dad had looked in those first awful weeks and months after my mum left. I couldn’t bear to think I’d broken Rupert’s heart the same way my mum broke my dad’s.”
“So you resigned from your job?”
“No, they fired me and I was left with nothing but a bucketful of guilt, low self-esteem and a permanently damaged reputation.” She breathed. “And I had all these feelings. Feelings I’d buried. Feelings I didn’t want. About how it had felt when my mum left. About how I wasn’t capable of falling in love.”
“You should have sued them.” He kept his anger under control. “So they fired you, and then what? Did you look for another job?”
“Who was going to hire me? I was a pariah. Fortunately the show had paid well. I had savings. Enough to support myself for a while. So I moved here, kept a low profile. I stopped using the name Kathy and called myself Molly, my middle name. I was so afraid the press would track me down, or someone on social media would find me and broadcast my whereabouts. I closed all my online accounts. Fortunately, the media lost interest. I guess once they’d destroyed me, ripped away my reputation and my job, and driven me from my home, they were satisfied. No one seemed to care where I’d gone.”
“You knew people in New York?”
“I didn’t know anybody. And that was a good thing. I moved into a tiny walk-up in Brooklyn, paid cash and cried myself to sleep for a month. I didn’t leave the apartment except to buy groceries. And then one day I decided I’d punished myself enough. I started the blog just for me, as a way to get my confidence back. To begin with I posted the questions myself and answered them. Then real ones gradually started to trickle in. If I’m honest I never expected it to grow the way it did. And the attention it gained got me more attention. My blog was featured by a couple of big news sites. People started asking questions. I refused interviews. I never put a photograph up. There was nothing that could associate my name with Aggie. I wasn’t interested in any sort of publicity. When I was approached by Phoenix Publishing, I made it clear I didn’t want my photo or real identity used.”
“So you kept your name out of it.”
“Yes. Fortunately writers use pseudonyms all the time. I don’t have my photo on the book jacket and I don’t do book signings or personal appearances, so there’s no way my face will be recognized. I’ve covered my tracks and been careful. I’ve rebuilt my life. And then I met you. I should have known I couldn’t hide forever. Whenever you’re hiding something you don’t want people to know, you can be sure it’s going to come out.” She rolled onto her side and buried her face in the cushions. “You should probably go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice was muffled. “Anywhere. I’m sure you don’t want to be here.”
“This is exactly where I want to be.”
“I screwed up so badly.”
He couldn’t work out if she was crying or not, so he eased her away from the cushions and pulled her into his arms. “You didn’t screw up. None of that was your fault. And I’m impressed that you not only survived, but thrived. That’s an experience plenty of people wouldn’t have recovered from.”
“I ran away.”
“No. You removed yourself from the line of fire. That’s sensible, not cowardly. Clever tactics. When your enemy attacks, you make yourself small.”
“Sun Tzu?”
He smiled into her hair. “I’ll make a disciple of you yet.”
“Earlier tonight, you were angry. You said I’d given bad advice to one of your clients. What did you mean?”
“I was wrong. After we talked this evening, I went back over some of your older blogs and I found his letter and your answer.”
Her brow wrinkled. “How? It’s anonymous.”
“I know this person. I recognize the way he writes. The way he thinks. And you were right, your advice was general, not specific.”
“But he took it to be specific?”
“He took it in a way that suited him and used it to manipulate his wife into staying with him.”
“Oh no.” She looked wor