LIKED - A Dark Romance Novel (Story of Dangerous Obsession and Lust) Read Free Page A

tomorrow, and I’ll do a proper night out on the town to
celebrate our engagement.”
     
    She smiled, but looked away, so he would think she was still angry. He
saw it though. He said, “That’s my Gia. Put on a nice dress and heels for
tomorrow.”
     
    She frowned and shook her head.
     
     
    ***

He was still on the phone as the driver let her out. The limo pulled away
and she sighed in the dark outside her building. It really did stink. The
actual smell of her surroundings as well as the whole situation she found
herself in.
     
    Gia turned and scrolled through her messages seeing lots of notes from
acquaintances about the engagement, but nothing about the movie. There was
nothing from back home either. She punched in the code from muscle memory and
went inside.
     
    No photographers had bothered to follow her home.
     
    Upstairs in her apartment, the garbage onion smell was still there. She
realized that she had left her bedroom window open and she groaned. As Gia
walked through the dark, unlacing the corset behind her and taking her first
deep breath of the night, she froze staring at the shape of a man’s head in the
open window.
     
    She wanted to scream, but her throat felt tight and she couldn’t find her
air. She was a scream queen with no scream left.
     
    Gia turned on the light and saw it was only a hat sitting on the sill. It
was the pink hat with the outline of the blue bells on the front. It was the
hat that couldn’t exist. She almost wished it had really been a person instead
of this.
     
    “Hello?” she called.
     
    The apartment was tomb silent except for distance traffic noise drifting
in the window on the cool night onion air. She finally made herself walk
forward and picked up the hat. It felt new like it had just been made. She
brought it to her face and smelled the inside for sweat. All she could smell
was the onion odor that was everywhere now.
     
    She closed the window and knew that if this was one of her movies, he
would already be inside and waiting on her. She would need to check all the
closets before she went to bed. Gia wasn’t sure what she would do once she
found someone though.
     
    Not someone, she thought, Jack the Liker and the magic hat maker.
     
    She traced the blue bells with her finger. It was the foundation for a
life that wasn’t there anymore – her Kentucky life. It would be the outline for
her career soon.
     
    Gia moved the hat farther away from her face even though she still held
the thing. She whispered. “Not possible.”
     
    She still held the hat by its brim as she pulled out her phone. As she did,
she intended to call Don to come back and get her, but then she realized she
would never get through his string of calls. He would assume she was calling to
fight and not return her call until morning. She thought about calling the
police like any sane woman would do, but then, she opened Jack’s message
thread.
     
    He had given one more response. It was longer than the screen would allow
and she had to scroll as she read it: “I found the hat. I swear they had one on
the wall in the store. After I bought it, I thought about how weird it would be
if you actually saw me. I left early from the premier and drove by your place.
You have location on for your Periscope videos. You might want to turn that
off. I gave the hat a toss toward your window as a joke, but then it landed on
the sill. I freaked out and almost looked for a ladder, but then thought I had
already crossed all of the lines as it was. I swear I am not hiding in a
closet, although I guess that is exactly what a dude that hides in closets
would say. I swear I’m the harmless kind of creepy. I’ll go away and leave you
alone both virtually and in the real world. Hope you enjoy the weird engagement
gift and congratulations on the movie. I was going to pirate it, but I decided
to preorder the Blue Ray, so you will get your cut like you deserve. Sorry I’m
so weird. – Jack the Liker.”
     
    She