Page 86 of The Fake Dating Plan

A few seconds later, my phone buzzed. It was a notification from his private Instagram. “Really?” I said, raising my phone. He shrugged. Just like that, the post was flooded with heart emojis and heart-eyes emojis.

“You’re quickly turning into a dad influencer. Might as well give up KMVH to me.

“Ha!” he screamed, standing up. He was barely listening to me. His concentration was on his phone, probably responding to all the attention he was receiving. This is what fatherhood was turning him into.

“We’re going to have a briefing over the next strategy we should take with the Heron situation. Be there.”

He gave me a thumbs-up as he made his way out of the office. My phone buzzed again. It was another notification. Emilia had liked Caiden’s post. When did I turn on notifications of everything she did on social media like some sick stalker? I remedied that quickly. Maybe unfollow her too while I was at it. My finger went to the unfollow button and hovered there for a while. What if she did, or say something that could jeopardize KMVH’s investment? Who knew what she could say or do while she was feeling vindictive about me breaking up with her? Or did she break up with me? Damn it all! I threw the phone away in frustration and watched it slide on the desk to the point of almost tumbling over the edge.

Fuck her. Fuck it all. Fuck everything.

17

“Did you see this? Steel Cute Exposed strikes again.” Dylan said, rushing into my office one morning. Ever since he had been promoted and became a shareholder, he is more invested in the business. A little too invested. He was waving his iPad, and he looked like he was about to murder someone with it.

“What now?”

He dropped it down on my desk. A headline from a news site read:Steel Cute or House of thieves. The plagiarism scandal heats up.

I groaned without meaning to.

“I know, right? And the thing is trending. It was the first result I saw when I searched for our name.”

“It is?” I winced.

“Who cares about reporting genuine news when you can get the clicks with stupid shit that isn’t true. We’re the victims here. She stole from us.”

I could feel a headache coming. I massaged my temples to assuage it, not that it worked. I’ve been having a lot of those lately ever since the Capital Magazine article came out. My fears came true. It wasn’t a puff piece, but the exact opposite. The journalist, if I could call her that, had written a hit piece about how I was a boss from hell who terrorized all her employees, except she got that quote from Jason, my disgruntled former social media manager. And she also claimed I was an arrogant person who was evasive about the truth. But that was not all. She insinuated I got the investment backing from KMVH by sleeping with Ax and after I was done with him; I dumped him. She only hinted at it, but that was enough for the dogs to run with it. Soon after, articles about my relationship with Ax were coming out in droves.

“What are we going to do?” Dylan asked, taking me out of my thoughts.

“I shouldn’t have agreed to that interview. It’s what started this snowball.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault. You are not to blame for anything at all. If it were up to me, I would end Maggie whatever-her-name-is career for doing what she did to you. I mean, what did she have to gain by doing that to you. She’s never going to ride his dick.”

“Do you think she did it all by herself?”

“I don’t follow.”

I grabbed his iPad and went to his Instagram account. As usual, the account Steel Cute Exposed was posting. It was a new rumor. “They’re claiming Laura is a boss from hell.” Part of dealing with the new backlash was also having to answer for lies created by some anonymous account. Steel Cute Exposed claimed to have inside information and new employees were afraid to go on the record, but willing to send screen-shots of text messages, all of them fake, about what a horrible boss I was. I wasn’t just an awful boss. If you were to believe this account, I was the puncher throwing kind. Petitions asking an investigation be launched over the abuse allegations were floating all over the internet. Most of the ‘news’ about the company was coming from this account.

Dylan rolled his eyes. “Why is that account still posting and not taken down!”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that they post daily without fail?” As I scrolled through the feed, however, something caught my eye.

“No. Trolls have nothing else to do, but tear people down?”

“Or…” I scrolled through the posts looking for a pattern I was sure I spotted. I took out my phone and went to Steel Cute’s earlier feed. I saw the post I was looking for and clicked on it. I put both devices side by side, the latest troll post next to our company posts.

“Do you see anything familiar?”

“Mother fucker!”

“That little twit. That fucking little twit is the person behind this account?”

“It makes sense. Jason knew the company. He’s social media savvy. Heck, his cat account has half a million subs, of course, he’s the person behind this. But he can’t change the way he writes. He loves using internet lingo in his posts to the point of it reaching maximum cringe.”

“And he has a ton of typos. The thought of that prissy white boy from Minnesota acting like some savvy Gen Z poster grinds my gears. I can’t believe he’s the one who was tormenting us the entire time.”

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