I kissed her so I would have something to do with my mouth besides blurting, “I love you, Elena.”

She broke the kiss laughing. “You’re going to have to feed me before we start that again. You don’t want the dominatrix to get hangry.”

While I worked on making us something for breakfast, she was transfixed by her phone.

“Ugh. What the fuck? ‘Alex Chase’s Dominatrix Girlfriend Goes On Bender’,” she read. She told me the other headlines as she scrolled through everything we’d missed while we’d been away. I felt guilty I’d brought her into this messy world even though she’d chosen it.

I smiled wryly and shook my head. “I warned you not to do that.”

“Yeah, well. I’m apparently not good at following instructions.”

I fed her a bite of omelet. “I wouldn’t say that. You followed instructions perfectly last night.” The look she gave me was pure lust. “And Asha has it under control. Look.”

I turned my phone towards her and hit play on a video that showed us emerging into the crush of photographers. I looked relaxed even though I hadn’t been, patiently working my way through the crowd behind security. In the video, Elena froze like the proverbial deer in the headlights, immediately getting surrounded and overwhelmed.

It was a rookie mistake to get separated from security like that, but she was in fact a rookie, which was easy to forget because she always seemed to know what she was doing. I should’ve insisted on another exit or been more focused on staying with her. I’d thought the brunt of it would be directed at me, but they’d wanted a reaction out of her.

It was hard to watch when they got in her face and she fell, looking scared. In the video, you could see the second I realized she wasn’t behind me anymore. I charged back through the crowd, bodily moving anyone who didn’t get out of the way, still looking deathly calm, but in reality I’d been frantic to get to her.

She groaned. “I look like a dipshit and you look like some kind of fucking action hero. Holy hell, it’s so swoony when you scoop me into your arms that if I hadn’t lived it, I would’ve said it was staged. Maybe tone it down a little next time, Fabio.”

She was giving me shit, but she nuzzled into me adorably as she said it, so I didn’t mind one bit.

Asha had booked us as guests on The Zuri Show, the most popular daytime talk show, which was hosted by Zuri Michaels, a woman I deeply respected and knew would be on our side. It was the best-case scenario for setting the record straight and taking back control of the message that was reaching the public.

I was hyper conscious of the way people were reacting to me when we got to the studio lot and were escorted back to a dressing room where we could hang out while they were getting ready for us. I usually tried to ignore the deference and stares, but I could see Elena watching people closely and it made me feel kind of weird about it all. She’d gotten to see how normal things could be between us when we were camping and I didn’t want her to lose sight of that again.