SOPHIE'S POV
Sophie's phone starts buzzing at 6:47 AM.
She's still half asleep when the vibrations pull her out of bed. One notification. Then another. Then five more. Then so many that she can't count them.
She picks up the phone with one hand and her entire body goes cold.
BILLIONAIRE'S DIRTY SECRET: Ethan Cole's Engagement Hides Pattern of Manipulation
The headline sits on her screen like an accusation. Sophie scrolls down and reads the article with her heart getting faster and faster. The words blur together but the message comes through clear.
Ethan targeted her because she was Jackson's ex-wife. The engagement is a business move. She's just another asset in his war against the Sterling family. She's being manipulated and she doesn't even know it.
Sophie reads it a second time. Then a third time. Each time the words sink deeper into her chest like poison.
Her phone buzzes again. A text from her mother.
Did you see this article? Are you okay? Call me.
Another text from a number she doesn't recognize.
OMG this is so messed up. You deserve better than this guy.
Another from a former coworker she hasn't spoken to in two years.
I always knew something was off about him.
Sophie drops the phone on the bed.
She walks into the bathroom and looks at herself in the mirror. She looks like a woman who just got hit by something moving too fast to see coming. Her face is pale. Her eyes are wide. Her hands are shaking.
This is what it felt like when Jackson's affair came out. This is what it felt like to be reduced to a story that strangers on the internet discuss like she's not a real person.
She hears Ethan moving around in the apartment. He's already awake. He's already seen it.
Sophie walks out to find him on his phone in the living room. His face is dark. His jaw is clenched so tight it looks like it might break.
"I'm going to sue them," he says before she even speaks. "I'm going to destroy whoever leaked this. I'm going to make them regret the day they ever heard my name."
Sophie sinks onto the couch and watches him pace. She's never seen Ethan angry before. Not like this. His anger is controlled fury. It's the kind of anger that comes from a man who knows exactly how to use rage as a weapon.
"It doesn't matter," Sophie says quietly.
"What do you mean it doesn't matter? They just accused me of targeting you. They just told the entire world that our engagement is fake."
"It's already out there," Sophie says. Her voice sounds like it's coming from underwater. "You can sue them but the story is already spreading. Everyone's already reading it. Everyone's already believing it."
Ethan stops pacing and looks at her.
"I won't let this destroy us," he says. He moves toward her like he's trying to convince her through proximity. "Sophie, you know this isn't true. You know that I love you. You know that my feelings have nothing to do with business."
Sophie nods. But the words feel empty now. Because Jackson planted the seed of doubt three weeks ago and Richard Sterling just poured fertilizer on it.
She picks up her phone and sees that the story is trending. Number three on Twitter. The article has been shared thousands of times in the past hour. People are commenting. People are analyzing. People are making judgments about her character based on a story they just read.
One comment makes her throat close up.
Poor girl. She's being used and she has no idea. This man is dangerous.
Another comment.
She's either really dumb or complicit. Either way she deserves what she gets.
Another.
Gold digger alert. Switched billionaires for a higher price.
Sophie scrolls and scrolls and watches strangers pick apart her life. The comments get meaner. The accusations get worse. Someone has already dug up photos of her at various events with Ethan and they're dissecting them looking for signs of manipulation.
Looking for proof of what they already decided is true.
Ethan sits down beside her and takes her phone away. He sets it face down on the table.
"Don't read that," he says. "Don't let them inside your head."
But they're already inside her head. The doubt is already there, growing like something alive.
She looks at Ethan and asks the question that's been building in her chest since Jackson first told her that Ethan was using her.
"Is any of it true?" Sophie asks quietly.
Ethan's entire body goes still.
"No," he says. The word comes out immediate and certain. "Sophie, nothing in that article is true. I didn't target you because you were Jackson's ex-wife. I fell in love with you because you're you. This engagement is real. Everything I feel for you is real."
Sophie wants to believe him. She actually wants to believe him more than she's wanted to believe anything in her entire life.
But hearing him say it, she feels something shift. She feels the echo of Jackson's voice in her head. She feels the memory of Ethan telling her he was going to put security around her. She feels the weight of her own inability to trust her own judgment anymore.
She's been broken before. By Jackson. By Manhattan. By people who used her and left her and made her feel small. And now she's wondering if she's doing it again. If she's just making the same mistake with a different man.
"I believe you," Sophie says. And it's true. She does believe him. But she also doesn't. Both things are true at the same time somehow.
Her phone rings.
It's her mother.
Sophie answers because ignoring her mother will only make it worse.
"Sophie, honey, I saw the article," her mother says. Sophie can hear the fear in her voice. "Are you okay? Is he treating you right?"
"Mom, it's not true. The article is just—"
"But are you sure?" her mother interrupts. "Baby, I just don't want to see you get hurt again. I don't want to watch you make the same mistake twice."
Sophie's eyes fill with tears.
"I'm not making a mistake," she says. But the words feel hollow.
"How do you know?" her mother asks. And it's not accusatory. It's just a mother asking her daughter the question that might destroy her. "How do you know he's not using you? How do you know this engagement is real?"
Sophie opens her mouth to answer but no words come out.
Because the truth is, she doesn't know anymore. She thought she did. But after three weeks of Jackson planting seeds and Richard Sterling pouring gasoline on them, Sophie doesn't know anything except that she's terrified.
Terrified that she made a terrible mistake. Terrified that Ethan is exactly what the article says he is. Terrified that she's so broken from her marriage to Jackson that she can't trust her own judgment anymore.
"I have to go," Sophie says to her mother. "I'll call you back."
She hangs up before her mother can ask another question. Before another voice can add doubt to the mountain of doubt already burying her.
Sophie sets the phone down and looks at Ethan sitting beside her on the couch.
He looks like a man watching someone he loves disappear right in front of him.
And Sophie realizes that she's pulling away. She's building distance. She's doing exactly what Jackson wanted her to do. She's creating cracks in her relationship with Ethan just by wondering if the cracks were already there.