Page 146 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

That was my first mistake. The second was unlocking it.

Forty-two missed messages. Twelve Instagram DMs. A handful of voicemails. Group texts I hadn’t seen light up in years.

And then I saw it.

My name. Trending.Again.

I tapped the notification, heart pounding, and froze.

A photo.

Me, at the Christmas Eve tree lighting. Asher’s hand on my lower back. Beckett close beside me. Garrett in the background. All three Wolfe brothers, in one frame, too close, too familiar.

The headline was worse than the photo.

Disgraced Influencer Riley Brooks Resurfaces in Remote Town, Pregnant and Living With Three Men.

I stared at the screen, the words swimming as if my vision had gone underwater.

Pregnant.

Living with three men.

No one knew. No one was supposed to know.

I wasn’t evenlivingwith the Wolfe brothers. But that didn’t matter. I knew all too well that the details didn’t need to be accurate to spread.

The only people who knew about the pregnancy were me and the Wolfe brothers. And Lucy. And my parents.

But the Internet? The press? The whole world?

How?

A hot, sour wave of nausea rolled through me, fast and ugly. I dropped the phone. It bounced off the edge of the sink and landed face down on the floor.

A sound clawed its way out of my throat before I could stop it. A jagged, broken kind of cry that echoed off the tile walls.

Then came the second one, sharper this time. More animal than human.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. It was happening again, and this time I wasn’t some glossy PR version of myself with a team to spin it.

This was raw. Personal. Private.

And it had been ripped away.

I staggered back against the counter, bracing myself with both hands. My knees buckled and I let out a sound between a sob and a howl—loud, guttural, and impossible to contain.

Footsteps thundered down the hallway. The door slammed open.

“Riley!” Beckett’s voice, tight with panic.

“Riles, what happened?” Asher said.

“Are you okay?” Garrett, still half asleep and already on high alert.

They rushed in, three sets of bare feet on the cold tile, three pairs of eyes scanning me like I’d been shot.

I couldn’t speak.

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