Chapter 3

I honestly wasn'tsure where to begin telling Tom what had happened with me and my super fan. "Well, I know who she is. I mean I know of her." Figuring the most obvious place was the beginning, I started to explain exactly where I had first met up with Natasha.

"She was a fan of the boy band I was in and I met her once about fifteen years ago. It was an event that had been organised by the official fan club. She won a competition to have a date night with all five of us."

Tom took out a notebook and a pen and started to scribble down anything of value. "Did anything happen while she was with you all, between you or any of the other members of the band?"

"Christ no," I dismissed, shaking my head. "She was a child, nothing at all happened with her. We each gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and we draped an arm over her shoulder as we posed for photos of the evening for her. Nothing else."

Tom nodded to confirm he was listening.

"Her name is Natasha Gibson, and she is very much obsessed with me."

He put his pen down and looked at me with an intensity that made me uncomfortable. "There was nothing that ever happened with you which could have triggered her obsession? And let me make something very clear before you answer, I'm not here to judge you, I'm here to help you. To do that I need to know everything, even if you think it's not something you should be sharing."

Knowing what was at stake, I wouldn't dream of hiding anything from Tom. "Not a thing. The only contact I have ever had with her is that one time I've mentioned. She's not my type. Believe me."

For a moment there was a hint of something on Tom's face, like he was going to ask more about it but had instantly thought better of it.

"So, what was the first contact you've had with her recently?"

I thought about it. It had been so easy to overlook the initial interaction with her because at the time it really was innocent. "Umm, I guess it would have been a congratulations card that came in after the news I had been signed by 45RPM broke. I have a post office box for any fan mail."

More notes were written. "And then?"

My cheeks puffed out with a sigh as I tried to remember the next thing I had received from Natasha. "A birthday gift three months later. There was a stuffed bear and a card, again that came in via the mailbox."

"And what's the standard way mail like that is handled?"

"It comes in and gets opened by an assistant. We have a few standard little cards which we reply with. They're printed out postcards, but they have a little message on them from me, and it's made to look like I wrote it."

"A nice touch for your fans, I'm sure they love it. But in this case, it probably made it easier to fixate on you. She might have been able to convince herself that the card really was from you. That she was someone special."

The thought I had done anything to make this worse made my blood run cold, especially when I was only trying to honour the support from fans. I nodded absently. "That might be something we need to look at going forward. I really don't want this kind of thing happening again."

Tom looked at me sympathetically. "I think with the nature of your job, things like this are something that may keep coming up. But we can certainly look at how to protect you from them and try to dissuade any attention like this in the future."

The fact there could be more problems after this hadn't crossed my worried mind. Did he really think this could keep happening? Had I been so na?ve about this when I was in the band, because I had thought nothing like this had happened before? Or was it just that the management had been very good at hiding it all from us?

Tom seemed to understand what I was thinking, and he smiled. "It's not something to be concerned about," he explained. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

I didn't know what it was about the way he made his promise, but it seemed to soothe the raw and worried nerves within me. Despite the comments he had made to reassure me the concerts should go ahead, and how nonchalant he had initially seemed, that one simple statement of not letting anything happen to me, washed all my fears away.

"Mr Thatcher," I started.

"Please, call me Tom. We will need to work together closely, and calling me Mr Thatcher seems far too formal for that," he interrupted with a warm smile.

"Okay," I continued. "Tom, I need you to be honest with me. How bad do you think this can really get?"

"Honestly?"

I nodded.

"In an ideal world, I'd have been on board sooner and none of this would have got this far. But the fact that you're acting on it now is something that can only work in your favour. The limit this person is willing to go to, to achieve her end goal is something we won't actually know until we have more information about her. I promise you one thing, Lennox. We will be ready for her, and nothing is going to happen to you."

Again, his words seemed to give me comfort where I wasn't even aware I needed it. I didn't know if it was the lack of sleep or the extra time needed to process just what the fuck was going on, but the gravity of the situation had started to crush me.

"So, what happens now?" I asked, needing to distract myself.

Tom scratched his brow and looked at me. "Well, the idea is that you and I pretty much become stuck together like glue. If you're in a hotel, you're in a suite with two bedrooms, or interconnecting rooms. If you're on stage, I'm just behind the wings. If you need transport anywhere, we take my car and I drive."

"That sounds," I searched for the right word, "intimate."

His steely grey eyes sparkled in what I read as amusement. "It can be somewhat, yes, but there's more we need to cover here before we get to that part."

I wasn't sure how I really felt about that. The man's attractiveness was not lost on me, but I also didn't want to make this any more complicated than it already was. I didn't want to sound dramatic about it, but the fear in me didn't want to dwell on the fact my life could actually be on the line. Thinking about it like that took way too much out of me and after how little sleep I'd had the night before, I didn't have the energy in me to spare.

Needing to distract myself I changed the subject a little. "So, what more do you need to know?"

"What was the first thing that wasn't sent to your post office box and where was it delivered to instead?"

"It was flowers. A big bright bunch came to the independent studio I use, close to my home."

"Does anyone know you use that location? Was it reported anywhere?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so. I wasn't aware of anything." I couldn't think of anyone who knew I used that particular one, even Alex and Johnny had assumed I would work in their buildings.

Using the independent studio was part of my therapy in the last few years, long before I was back on the music scene. I hadn't seen anyone hanging around outside. There were none of the usual paps standing about outside. I guess that didn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of things in the days of telephoto lenses and tip offs. I didn't know anyone who worked there who would do that. I trusted them.

Tom made more notes, and I was suddenly aware of the fact that all the information he was getting here would be checked on. I made a point of trying to avoid the news stories about me. The British tabloid press was absolutely relentless in their hounding of people, and it really felt more like you were being hunted. I was so focused on my recovery and everything I had going on to make me a better version of myself that I hadn't thought about any of it for a second.

"I have to be honest with you, Tom. I try to avoid the press as much as I can. I try not to be anywhere that might get me in the papers. If I do happen to actually end up being snapped, I try to make sure I don't look at any of the stories and the bullshit they write, because honestly, half the lies they print aren't true."

He smirked at my joke. "Noted. I can't say I blame you on that one either. I saw first hand just how they could be with how they tortured Alex over that dickhead Phillips. I'll be making sure we know exactly where they are and what they're saying from here on out, however."

I gestured my acknowledgement of his comments.

"I'll be checking up on it to see if there was a potential leak around that time. I'm kind of hoping it was in the press, and she was just opportunistic instead of any other possibility."

"That she's been following me around you mean?"

Tom's mouth pulled into a grim line, and I took it as his confirmation that was exactly what he'd been thinking.

"Right." The thought of being followed made the bile rise into my throat. Suddenly my head felt light, and the room started to spin.

Before I registered what was happening, Tom was in the chair beside me and had a hold of my hand. "Hey, hey – take a deep breath in through your nose." He took a huge sniff in, flaring out his nostrils. "Out through your mouth." He exhaled deeply. "Come on, Lennox," he encouraged.

Somehow, I found the will to copy his breathing, and the world stopped spinning just a little bit.

His other hand settled on my shoulder. "That's it. It's okay, you're just having a moment of panic and anxiety. This will pass, just keep focusing on your breathing. In and out. In and out. That's it."

He had just talked me down from a panic attack I wasn't even aware was starting. He was at my side so quickly I hadn't even noticed it. Something about that soothed me more than his actions and him getting me to work through some breathing techniques. Any doubt I'd had about this man's ability to keep me safe disappeared in that single moment.