“He did that for you. He thinks your relationship is too stressful for you to handle right now. You were really upset.” Ridley led her to one of the chairs at the kitchen island. “As a matter of fact, you should be sitting down. You’re supposed to stay off your feet.”
Raina sat and laid her head on her arms. “I just feel like everything is falling apart. Nick is gone. The network decided not to pick up any additional episodes of my show. I don’t know what to do.”
“Who are you and what have you done with my real sister?”
“Huh?”
Ridley crossed her arms. “I know you’re going through a hard time but this is not you.” She gestured at Raina. “Where’s the girl who told me to seduce Jackson? Where’s the girl who doesn’t care what anyone thinks and was brave enough to start her own fashion column when she couldn’t find work?”
“She’s gone,” Raina mumbled.
“I don’t believe that. If the network is balking at picking up more episodes, then shop it elsewhere. If no one else wants it, why can’t you produce it on your own? Put it on the Legs blog so people can watch online. I bet you’d attract enough advertisers to cover the cost.”
“I could do it myself,” Raina repeated absently. She sat up as she considered the idea.
Half of the reason she’d declined to film more episodes of the show was because she didn’t really like reality shows. There wasn’t much real about them. Just people with too much makeup on acting as outrageous as possible to attract viewers. That was what the networks wanted to see—drama and bad behavior.
She wasn’t interested.
But if she did it herself, she could take it back to her original vision. If she filmed some candid video herself, she wouldn’t even have to hire a camera crew. She could show her fans what her life was really like and share with them the things she was trying to do in the future.
A true behind-the-scenes look at her life.
“When did you get so smart?” she asked Ridley.
“I’m learning that sometimes if you take a chance, things will work out the way they’re supposed to. Before Jackson came to see me after I was shot, I was on my way to go get him. I just never made it past the door. But I was on my way. Nick isn’t going to come to you. He’s gotten this crazy notion that you can’t handle the stress of him being here. You have to fix this. This is real life. Strong women don’t wait to be saved. Sometimes we have to do the saving.”
Raina leaned against her sister and closed her eyes. “I am really proud of the woman you’ve become, Ri.”
Ridley beamed. “Good. Then take my advice and go get your man!”
* * * * *
THE NEXT DAY Nick logged onto the Alexander Foundation website. He’d been getting email confirmations all morning for new donations. Usually donations came in at a trickle. It was rare to get more than a few in a month unless he’d been speaking at an event or had paid for advertising.
The main webpage for the site showed that he’d received twenty donations in the last hour.
He hit the button for the speaker on his phone. “Kay? Did we run the advertising in the Virginia Chronicle yet?”
“No, that’s not slated to run until next week.”
He glanced back at the webpage. Twenty donations wasn’t anywhere near enough to get him out of the hole they were in, but it was quite a jump from the usual.
He went back to the investment plan he was working on but he left the website open so he could see if anymore donations came in during the day. Maybe one of the donators would leave a comment that would give him a clue where they’d learned about the foundation.
He worked on several client files and then checked the donation page of the website again around lunchtime. His eyes widened when he saw the visitor count. The page had received over ten thousand views since he’d last checked. He looked at the donation meter and his mouth fell open.
They’d received over thirty thousand dollars’ worth of donations.
He scrolled through the comments. Most of them were pretty generic.
Happy to donate to such a good cause!
Here’s my contribution.
Heard about this on the Legs blog. Happy to donate!
With trembling hands, Nick opened a new browser window on the computer. He did an Internet search for “Raina Winters Legs Blog” until he found it. Then he clicked on the page.