Page 40 of Certified Heartthrob

She was still thinking it over when I added, “Come on, we both know you don’t really want me back. You got dumped and then you saw me all over the internet. You just rushed back to what you thought was a sure thing.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “You never felt the same way about me,” she stated. “Not the way you do for her.”

“Don’t start that,” I groaned.

“No, Mark. You know it’s true,” she insisted. “Even before I cheated, we were always missing something. It just wasn’t...quite right.”

I considered that for a moment, knowing it was the hard truth I had been reluctant to admit for so long.

“What I’m saying is,” she continued, “I’ll do this for you. But first, I need you to admit it to me. That I didn’t cheat on a perfectly happy relationship. We had our issues, and we were both just too scared to admit it.”

“You’re right,” I sighed after a while. “It was easier to just be angry with you about how it ended. But...no, we were never quite right for each other.”

“But Camille is the right one for you.”

I nodded with certainty. “Yes. She is.”

Audrey flashed a humble smile. “Then I’m happy for you. At least this gives me something to aspire to. Maybe someday I’ll find the one for me.”

“Help me do this and you’ll rack up all kinds of karma,” I suggested. “If that’s how it works.”

“Here’s hoping.”

Audrey and I landed on an official truce, a resolution, closure...something we had never had before. It only lifted my hopes higher as I left her to carry out her part of the plan. I returned home and waited, only this time I was waiting with optimism. I knew what Camille and I had was special and there was nothing we couldn’t get through. At least, that’s what I hoped.

A few hours later, my phone lit up with a text from Audrey.

I did my part, now you do yours. She’s a lucky girl, Mark.

I shot up from the couch with my phone in my hand and returned to yet another place I never thought I would find myself—the Heartstring website. I stared down at my computer screen and clicked on the upper righthand corner…

A few more clicks and the prompt appeared.Create new profile. You’re on your way to finding true love!

I smirked at the phrase that, at one time, had made me so angry. I wasn’t on my way to finding true love, I had already found it. Now I just had to get it back.

I typed and clicked my way through the rest of the setup, then scrolled to the bottom of the screen. I typed the company’s number into my phone and hit call.

“Heartstring customer service. How can I help you?”

“Yes...I am having a huge problem with your website that I was hoping you could help me with.”

“Certainly, sir. Whatever it is, I’m sure we can get it sorted out in no time.”

21

Camille

Istared down my reflection in the mirror and decided it was time to wipe my eyes, fix my hair, put on some lipstick, and get back to work. I had been a perfectly happy, single, and independent woman before I ever knew Mark existed. I could get back to being that person.

After days of moping around my apartment, I was ready to go back to the office. I had been avoiding it and all of my family, aside from Jada, like the plague. Not only was I dealing with heartbreak, but I would also have to face being a disappointment to our company for bringing this scandal down on us.

My phone was littered with a variety of messages, including some from Victoria, who was suggesting we could spin this whole thing to our advantage. She proposed a campaign to set me up through our own app. She claimed plenty of decent men out there were just chomping at the bit to treat me right, and now the whole internet felt sorry for me. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but it mostly just felt bad.

As I reached for my briefcase so I could head out the door, a stack of papers spilled out of it onto the floor. I bent over to pick them up, but froze at the sight of the photo staring back at me from the top of the stack.

It was the report I had compiled on Mark when his trolling endeavors first came to our attention, and the very first page had his picture plastered on the front...complete with his perfect smile, rippling arm muscles, and perfect...well, perfect everything.

I swallowed against the tears threatening to spill out all over again and shoved the papers back into my bag...except for the photo. That went directly into the garbage.

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