Page 8 of The Unfluencer

When Chance reaches me, he’s all smiles as he takes out his left AirPod and pulls me up into a full-body hug, swinging and squeezing the life out of me. As he sets me back on my feet, though, he glances over my shoulder with this goofy grin plastered all over that pretty-boy face.

“So, it’s like that, huh?” He drags a hand over his tapered, dark beard. “Still out here busting balls and taking names, I see. Everywhere you go, leaving a trail of hearts behind you, huh?”

I shrug, flashing him a guilty little smile. “Something like that.”

“Oh, damn.” He stumbles back, super dramatic, pressing his fist to his.

“Boy, what do you want?” I ask, glancing at the time on my phone. It’s almost four o’clock. “Is there a reason you stopped me from leaving?” The happy-hour rush is starting to pour in, and that’s my cue to go.

Chance tilts his head, and again, he looks past my shoulder, eyebrows drawing together. At first, I think he’s listening, hearing something in his right AirPod. But then he throws me for a whole loop.

“Do you know Easton, personally?” he asks, seemingly out of nowhere, until he jerks his chin over my head.

My pulse skips.

Slowly, I turn and my eyes draw straight to the man I once sculpted out of thin air.

Dark brown eyes, rigid posture, an expression so far away it’s hard to believe he’s here in the flesh, and a mouth outlined and filled with perfectly symmetrical precision—I know already from staring at his photo longer than I’ll ever admit to anyone because it would sound crazier than I feel right now.

Like we’ve got history, all over again, my body hums, skin buzzing. My belly coils tight like it’s trying physically to reel me closer, where we can, what? Pick up where I put my entire foot in my mouth, fooling around with the universe? Jesus, I really joked about the universe fixing a married man’s “trouble in paradise,” and then his wife died.

Yeah, I need six feet, at all times.

“No, I don’t know him.” I quickly turn back to Chance, who… doesn’t believe a word. “Just of him.”

“Well, it damn sure seems like Easton wants to know you,” he says with a smarmy grin, and instantly, I know I’ve got to nip whatever his raised eyebrows are suggesting in the bud.

“Uh, I don’t know that man from Adam,” I say, desperately thinking about exit strategies that don’t include being face to face with a man who I’ve never actually met… outside my fantasies.

The funniest part? Since that night in the Fairchild courtyard celebrating New Year’s Eve with my divas, since that devastating notification dropped about Sherry’s passing, Warner Easton and I now live and work in the same city, but I’ve gone out of my way not to cross paths with him.

But I’ve seen the scathing headlines.

BILLIONAIRE CEO FACES PERSONAL TRAGEDY AFTER LUXE LADY’S FATAL CRASH

A NATION MOURNS HAIRDRYER-HURLING LUXE LADY AS COLDHEARTED BILLIONAIRE WIDOWER VANISHES FROM SPOTLIGHT

TECH BILLIONAIRE’S WIFE KILLED IN ELLSWOOD HILLS COLLISION

INSIDE THE FALLOUT: WHAT’S NEXT FOR ECHELON TECHNOLOGIES AFTER FOUNDER AND LUXE HUSBAND’S PERSONAL LOSS

BILLIONAIRE BACK TO BUSINESS: TECH TYCOON SPOTTED JUST WEEKS AFTER WIFE’S FATAL CRASH—NO TEARS, JUST TIES

Different spins, same storm.

Reality TV royalty meets Ellswood Valley stoicism.

Beauty and the brain.

Love and loss.

The media can’t get enough. I’ve seen the Luxe Ladies of Ellswood reruns. Sherry Easton front and center ahead of the new season. But every mention of Warner in the news and magazines paints him the same. Coldhearted and soulless. Sources saying he never leaves his office. Insiders claiming, “It’s like she never existed.” Critics calling him a money machine. Tone-deaf. Robotic. Incapable of grief because he had a private memorial and refused to make public statements. Every image of him dry-eyed, composed. No visible signs of a man mourning the woman he vowed to love till death.

How do you just walk away like she didn’t matter?

“First off, no.” I turn back to Chance again, laughing a little too loud. “That man needs therapy, not a date. Trust me, I wouldn’t touch him with a twenty-foot pole.”

“It’s ten.”