"Break off the engagement with Deidre Morton. Now."
"A woman with that kind of personal life is never marrying into the Gilbert family."
Clyde raised an eyebrow. "Fine. But my condition is that I marry Victoria."
Teeth-grinding rage came through the line. "As long as you cut ties with that woman immediately, I don't care who you marry."
Standing off to the side, I let out a breath. "Clyde, you got what you wanted. Can you let me go now?"
"Not so fast."
He smiled and stroked my cheek. "There's one last show left, and it hasn't started yet."
"Deidre, I just need to lock down my marriage to Victoria. No loose ends."
"Get through this one last thing, and you walk away with five million. Easiest money you'll ever see."
Three days later, Clyde arranged a livestream.
I sat in front of the camera, the teleprompter scrolling the public confession statement Clyde had written himself—line after line after line of it.
"Regarding the videos circulating online, I owe everyone an apology. Those were the result of my own reckless behavior when I was young. My personal life was a mess, and I deeply regret the negative impact it has had on society…"
"I'm not worthy of Clyde Gilbert. I'm willing to voluntarily call off the engagement with Young Mr. Gilbert and leave the entertainment industry for good…"
The men in those videos? I didn't know a single one of them.
Those escort scandal photos? Every last one had been maliciously cropped and spliced.
But I was supposed to sit in front of two million people and tell them it was all true—all me.
And then grovel. Promise to crawl out of the industry and never come back. Burn my own career to the ground on camera.
I took a deep breath, eyes already stinging, and looked at Clyde.
"You're really going to make me do this."
"Aren't you afraid I'll go off-script on camera?"
He smiled and pinched my cheek.
"Your brother goes to school right here in Sterling City. Your parents are coming next month—I already bought their plane tickets for them. So tell me, Deidre. What kind of daughter do you want them to find when they get here?"
I swallowed every word I had left.
The livestream began.
Ten minutes in, two million viewers had poured into the room.
The comments flew so fast they blurred, and eighty percent of them were tearing me apart.
"Deidre Morton—get OUT of Sterling City!"