Page 9 of Never To Be Mine

I kept scrolling, unable to stop myself even though each comment felt like a punch to the gut.

Damn she’s got more than a handful

I’d let her yell at me any day

Imagine all the fire in bed

Someone get this woman a green smoothie and a sense of humor

My face burned. My hands clenched around Kari’s phone.

But then I saw the ones that made my blood turn to ice. The comments that were a million times worse than the personal attacks about my body.

Young at Heart is trash anyway, all their products are overpriced

Imagine working for a company that sends people out to sabotage competitors

This is why I don’t trust any of these wellness companies, they’re all the same

They were trashing my father’s company. The company I’d spent years trying to prove myself worthy of.

“No, no, no,” I muttered, scrolling faster. More comments appeared, each one worse than the last.

I could handle people making fun of me. I could handle the inappropriate comments about my body, the jokes about my weight, the speculation about my personal life. I’d dealt with worse.

But they were going after the company. My father’s legacy.

“Juno, breathe.” Kari put her hand on my arm. “You need to calm down before you rupture something important.”

I realized I was breathing too fast, my chest tight. I forced myself to take a slower breath, then another.

“This is bad,” I said. “This is so bad.”

“It’s not that bad,” she said. “They’re trolls. I told you not to read the comments.”

“Not reading the comments doesn’t make them go away. It’s not whether I read them. It’s about everyone else reading them!”

“Viral moments fade fast,” she said. “I heard one of the yoga influencers got busted walking out of a plastic surgeon’s office. It’s about to blow up. This will disappear by tomorrow.”

“Kari, three hundred thousand people have watched me have a public meltdown. They think I’m some corporate Karen who goes around attacking small businesses. And they’re taking it out on Young at Heart.”

“Okay, yes, it’s not great,” Kari admitted. “But people have short attention spans. This will blow over in a few days. Something else will go viral and everyone will forget about this.”

I wanted to believe her.

“Why don’t I make a call?” she said. Her voice was low and her eyes darted around the room like she was looking for a spy.

“A call?”

“To one of our influencer friends,” she said. “She owes me a favor.”

I sighed. “You’re suggesting we throw someone else under the bus to get the attention off of us.”

“Yes.”

“That feels slimy.”

“It’s the business,” she said. “And seriously, aren’t you the dragon slayer? You love shedding light on the grifters.”