The other was unmistakably Daphne.
Her hair. Her dress. Her mouth on mine. My hands around her waist.
And then—mercifully—it cut before anything more intimate could be captured. But the implication? The context? All there.
My blood turned to ice.
Within seconds, I was doomscrolling. Headlines were already rolling in.
“Storm Scandal: Couple Caught in Intimate Tryst.”
“Kieren Walker — Is This the Real Reason for the Rebrand?”
“Ethical Breach or Just Bad Timing?”
Some were savage. Some were downright gleeful.
Fans were split—some cheering, some ripping us apart. Trolls had a field day. The kind of dirt that made its way into every sports blog, every podcast, every DM I hadn’t muted.
I went to the group chat.
Adam: LMAO my guy, get it.
Caleb: [gif of someone clapping slowly]
Cam: Delete Twitter. I mean it.
Cam (again): Damage control underway. Do NOT comment. Do not even like anything. I’m calling PR now.
Cam (third time): Who the hell leaked this?
Cam (again again): I know this is fake, but did you have to go hard? (No pun intended.)
My hands shook as I stared at the screen. I wanted to throw the phone across the room. Wanted to punch a wall. Wanted to go back in time fifteen hours and shut that damn door myself.
That moment was ours. And someone caught some of it. Leaked it. Turned it into clickbait.
The violation hit like a punch to the gut. What we had wasn’t for public consumption. It wasn’t a stunt. It wasn’t for them.
I scrolled again, searching for her name.
Daphne Sommers trending.
“Has she crossed a line as a journalist?”
“Was she leveraging access?”
“Is she even unbiased?”
I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached. No one was talking about me crossing any lines. It was all her. Like I wasn’t even in the damn video.
I called her. Straight to voicemail.
Again. Same result.
The group chat buzzed again.
Then Cam texted.
