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C4
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2026-08-24 00:33:40Chapter 4
The Story They Told First
Ivie saw it before she meant to. Her phone lit up on the desk while she was still staring at the redacted line in the calendar, and a name flashed across the screen a gossip account her cousin followed, the kind that posted three times a day and somehow always knew things first.
She almost didn't open it. Then she saw Damien's name in the preview text and picked the phone up anyway.
The post had gone up forty minutes ago.
There was a photo from the party Damien and Sophia standing close together near the bar, taken from an angle that made it look like the middle of an ordinary conversation. Under it, a caption written like it was doing her a favor.
*LIvie Sterling's engagement party took an unexpected turn last night when the bride-to-be reportedly accused her fiancé and her closest friend of an affair, based on a private business conversation she misunderstood. Sources close to the couple say Ivie has struggled with the demands of running in her father's circle and has grown increasingly possessive of Damien's professional relationships. "It's sad, honestly," one guest said. "Everyone could see she wasn't handling the pressure well."
She read it twice.
The second time, she noticed things she'd skimmed past the first. The word reportedly. Then misunderstood. That one bothered her more. It made everything sound reasonable, like she'd been the problem and everyone else had just been trying to deal with her. The unnamed guest. The details about the pressure, which nobody had said out loud last night, which nobody could have known unless someone had told them to say it.
She set the phone down harder than she meant to.
Forty minutes. That was the part that stuck with her more than the words. Forty minutes after she walked out of that ballroom, there was already a photograph, already quotes, already a story with a shape to it. Not a rumor spreading the messy way rumors spread. Something built.
Her assistant knocked and came in without waiting for an answer, the way she did when something was wrong enough to skip it. "Ivie…"
"I've seen it."
"There's a second one. Different accounts. Same photo."
"Show me."
Nearly the same story, worded a little differently, like it had been handed to two people at once and each had written it in their own voice. Ivie read it and felt something in her chest go still instead of hot.
"Who gave them the photo?"
Her assistant didn't answer.
Ivie opened her messages and got three words into something for Damien before she stopped and looked at what she'd typed. How could you? She deleted it. Typed something else. Deleted that too. Whatever she sent him now, however she sent it, would end up existing the way everything from last night now existed recorded, repeated, turned into proof of exactly what the article said about her.
She turned the phone face down.
She thought about the burn mark on the study rug, shaped like a comma. She thought about how comfortable Sophia had looked on the arm of that chair, like it wasn't the first time. She thought about how carefully Damien had set his glass down the second he saw her in the doorway, not startled, not rushed, like a man who already knew what he'd say if this ever happened.
Not if. When.
They'd had this ready. Maybe not the exact words, but the shape of it, the idea that if she ever found out, the way to handle it was to get to everyone else first. That was the part that sat wrong, worse than the article itself. Somewhere before last night, one of them, maybe both, had thought about what they'd say if she caught them, and decided it should make her look like the one who'd lost her mind.
Her assistant was still by the door. "Do you want me to call legal?"
Ivie looked at her.
"Not yet."
"Are you sure?"
"No." She turned the phone over again, screen down, and left it there. "But do it quietly. I want to know who fed it to them first before anyone officials starts asking."
"I'll find out what I can."
Her assistant nodded and left. Ivie sat looking at the closed door. She was still hurt. That hadn't changed. But the hurt wasn't the only thing she felt anymore. If she cried in front of the wrong person today, it would be in an article by tonight. If she raised her voice, someone would already have a phone out. She understood that now in a way she hadn't been at the party, when it had all still felt like bad luck, a private moment turning public by accident.
It hadn't been an accident. Somebody had planned for this.
She picked the phone back up and read the article a third time, slower, not looking for what it said about her this time but for what it gave away about them the speed, the coordination, the careful wording built to make sure nobody's fault stuck to anyone in particular. Whoever wrote this hadn't guessed. They'd been told.
The phone rang before she'd decided what to do with any of it.
Priscilla's name lit up the screen. Ivie almost let it go to voicemail. She didn't have it in her for a slow, gentle conversation about how she was holding up. But her aunt didn't call without a reason, and Ivie had learned a long time ago not to ignore that.
She answered. "Aunt Priscilla."
"Ivie." Brisk. Businesslike. None of the softness Ivie had braced for. "I saw the piece."
"I figured you would."
"We need to talk. Not about how you're feeling, I assume that's obvious." A pause, the kind that meant she was choosing her words. "We need to talk about optics. Before the board session."
Ivie sat up straighter. "What board session."
Her aunt didn't answer that. Not
directly.
"Tuesday," she said instead. "We'll talk before Tuesday.”
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The Vows we broke C6
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The Vows we broke C5
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The Vows we broke C4
Chapter 4 The Story They Told FirstIvie saw it before she meant to. Her phone lit up on the desk while she was still staring at the redacted line in the calendar, and a name flashed across the screen a gossip account her cousin followed, the kind that posted three times a day and somehow always knew things first.She almost didn't open it. Then she saw Damien's name in the preview text and picked the phone up anyway.The post had gone up forty minutes ago.There was a photo from the party Damien and Sophia standing close together near the bar, taken from an angle that made it look like the middle of an ordinary conversation. Under it, a caption written like it was doing her a favor.*LIvie Sterling's engagement party took an unexpected turn last night when the bride-to-be reportedly accused her fiancé and her closest friend of an affair, based on a private business conversation she misunderstood. Sources close to the couple s
The Vows we broke C3
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The Vows we broke C2
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