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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
REBECCA
Four times.
Before I left the Ohio River Club, Landon fucked me four times.Are we going for a record or something?I was breathless and spent when I arrived at my condo the next morning, but also satisfied in a way that made me wonder how I’d never been this way before. And in a strange way, it was almost like the whole world looked different. Everything was the same, and yet it wasn’t, the same feeling I’d had after the first night with Landon.
Still, no regrets. Not one. Especially not after our conversation at Spring Grove, which I had to admit was going a long way toward making me wonder if what was between Landon and me was more than physical, more than sexual. I kept going over that in my mind, trying to memorize it.God, I really do want this to be more...Landon was something special,someonespecial. That could not be denied.
After his car service dropped me off at my building, I staggered inside my condo, took a quick shower, and fell onto my bed for some desperately needed sleep. It was the kind of rest that seeped into my bones, the exhaustion taking over and knocking me out for hours. When I awoke that afternoon, I was still groggy, still shocked, and still hung over from the heady feelings that came with having a love life that was finally worth talking about. And not just any love life, a love life with Landon Sparks. I rolled over in bed and found my cell phone on the charger next to the lamp.
It’s hard to describe what greeted me.
My phone was overloaded with messages. Clogged with alerts and missed calls. It buzzed and shook, even as I unlocked it, as if the phone itself couldn’t process all the information headed its way. People I hadn’t heard from in years—old colleagues, sometime friends, contacts, and more—had reached out, shooting “messages of support” and “checking in” texts.
What in the ever-loving hell?
Bewildered, I sat up and slid to the edge of the bed, my attention fixated on the messages flowing to the device in my hand as I tried to make sense of them. Most of the ones hitting my text inbox were vague and seemed to be, on some level, a type of concern trolling I’d often seen people do during a natural disaster or a national scandal.
And when I opened Chatter, I got the full picture of why.
The headlines blared and screamed. I could almost hear it through the phone as I scrolled, growing horrified and embarrassed with each passing second. “Sex Tape Scandal Hits a Spark,” “Landon Sparks, Sex Pest,” “Exclusive Interview Ends in Liaison,” “Reporter Satisfies Top Tech Mogul—and We’ve Got the Video.”
Memes, posts, hot takes, comments, and analysis followed, all folding into a “trending topic” on the app.
And my name was right there in bold letters next to Landon’s.
Holy Mother of God. This is not good. This is...this is a fucking disaster.
It only got worse by the minute.Daily Mailcarried the most extensive coverage, with an article, video, and frame-by-frame analysis of me having sex with Landon on his veranda less than a week earlier. There it was in all its glory. The images were grainy, and plenty were blurred, but staffers had used analysts to “independently verify” the images and cross-check them with official photos of us taken at the celebration of Chatter’s new headquarters. Other outlets seemed to jump off this article, taking the nuggets doled out byDaily Mailand amplifying them with write-ups about my social media posts, dissections of my newsletter, scrapings from my résumé, and old photos they found through deep dives on Google.
Panic coursed through me. Sweat beaded on my neck. My stomach lurched and rumbled.
I think I’m going to be sick...
Instinctively, I logged back onto my Chatter profile and turned the account private, locking it, even though I knew plenty of people already mined it for information and screenshot whatever they could find. I was a reporter, after all, I knew the drill. The most important thing was to set every account private as fast as I could. I was already behind, and each step I took counted. I needed to shore up my defenses immediately. I froze my other social media and blocked a few text messages and accompanying phone numbers from journalists looking for me to “share my side of the story.”
It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was a start.
Another wave of nausea raced through my stomach as I sat on the bed, considering all the implications of this moment.Daily Mailposted the article a little over two hours earlier, and already I’d lost control of my phone number and social media accounts. I counted at least ten new articles from major news organizations in the time I scrolled through the initial wave of notifications. There would be more. A lot more. After all, I’d had sex with one of the most controversial and richest men on the planet, and I’d done it willingly, with no regard at all for whatever consequences it would bring.
Maybe I deserved this.I fucked him, after all. Blurred all the lines. Convinced myself I cared about him and put those feelings above my work. Did I just get what I deserve?
Phone in hand, I leapt from the bed and rushed to the bathroom. When I got there, I threw up, the remnants of my dinner from last night coming up in two great heaves. It was, in some ways, cathartic, and exactly what I needed at that moment, as if I was starting to purge the insanity flying straight at me. The world I knew had ended. The life I’d built was over. And maybe I only had myself to blame.
God, what the hell was I thinking?
