Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121296 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121296 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
44
GRACE
I wake to the sound of my phone vibrating relentlessly against the nightstand. For a second, I think it’s my alarm and fumble to silence it, but when I blink at the screen, there are no fewer than forty notifications waiting for me.
Texts. Missed calls. Emails. Mentions.
A bad feeling settles in my gut like sour milk.
I sit up, Beau’s weight shifting at the foot of the bed as I pull the phone to my face. The first message is from Rianna.
“Article’s up. Numbers are already climbing. You’re trending, Grace. Wild. Story’s getting picked up all over.”
What? My stomach twists. I know my article was good, but it wasn’t clickbait. Unless it’s a dead news day, I know reader reactions, and nothing I wrote would have driven this kind of response.
I tap the link, dread beginning to unfurl in my stomach. I didn’t sign this off.
My name is there. My byline. My photo. And next to it, Rianna’s.
But the words underneath? They aren’t mine.
The title hits me like a slap:
“The Rancher’s Bride: Eleven Men, One Bed, and a Whole Lot of Sexy Secrets.”
What follows is a grotesque distortion of everything I wrote. My carefully balanced observations about polyamory and non-traditional family structures have been twisted into cheap spectacle. The deeply personal stories shared with me—Corbin’s grief, Dylan’s kids, what they want from the sex, what we did—is all there, exaggerated and exploited for clicks.
They named Nora and described her alcoholism, dragged up Levi and his experience with the older woman, and quoted me out of context using lines I said in passing, in private, via texts or phone calls, or in my private notes. Worst of all, she’s planted me at the center of the story. It’s built around things I never, ever intended for print.
I start to tremble, pressing one hand to my mouth as I scroll, bile rising. This isn’t only a misstep. This is betrayal. It’s not only my name on the line, it’s theirs.
It’s their lives.
Beau whines and nudges my hand, sensing something’s wrong.
I push the covers back and swing my legs over the side of the bed. The wooden floor is cold beneath my feet, but I barely feel it. My pulse is a roar in my ears.
How has this happened?
I pace the gravel outside the barn with my phone clutched in one shaking hand. The article is still open on the screen, like a wound that won’t close. Every word cuts deeper. I hit call before I can talk myself out of it.
Rianna picks up on the second ring, far too chipper for someone who has detonated a nuclear bomb under my life.
“Grace! Did you see it?”
“You published it,” I say. My voice comes out flat. Stunned. “You published that garbage under my name.”
After what happened to Allie, I should have guarded against the risk of the same kind of exposure, but I’m the boss. No one should have been able to undermine me like this. I have the final sign-off. At least, I used to.
Rianna sighs, like I’m being difficult. “Technically, we both did. It was still your research. I gave it the edge it needed.”
“The edge it needed?” My throat tightens. “You turned their lives into a circus. You named Nora. You made it sound like they’re some sex cult hiding behind hay bales.”
She scoffs. “Don’t be dramatic. It isn’t that bad. People eat this stuff up, Grace. You, of all people, should know that. You’ve edited enough pieces to understand the game.”
“This wasn’t your piece,” I spit. “This was mine, and I trusted you.”
There’s a pause. “Look, I know you’re close to them. That’s why the article was off. You weren’t being objective. You were protecting them at the expense of the content and what it can do for the magazine. This isn’t like you, Grace.”
I stare at the horizon, the cattle grazing peacefully in the distance, completely unaware that the lives of their owners have been sold for clicks. “That was the whole point, Rianna. To protect them. To show what they were building with some goddamn perspective and respect. You’ve hung us all out to dry.”
“Well, Josh disagreed. He thought it was too soft. Said it read more like a love letter than journalism. He asked me to tighten it up, so I did, and it worked. Views are through the roof.”
Josh? They’re on nickname terms now? I let the silence stretch, swallowing back the rising nausea. “So that’s it? You took everything they trusted me with and turned it into a headline factory.”
“I made it readable and exciting... And come on, Grace. Let’s not pretend you didn’t get something out of this, too. You were living the dream out there. All those rugged men and that wholesome Americana backdrop? People love that. You’ve had the vacation. Now it’s time to come back to the real world.”