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It’s been almost a week since bonfire night when Axel introduced me to his friends on Wild Heart Mountain.

Every day, I’ve held my breath waiting for one of them to out me to the internet. Daphne definitely recognized me, but so far she’s been true to her word. The business card she slipped me is in my laptop bag. I haven’t forgotten her offer to manage my side of the story, but I’m not sure if I want to put myself online again.

When I browse social media, there’s more humiliation of Cameron. The videos are blowing up, and if he hadn’t humiliated me so publicly, I’d almost feel sorry for the guy.

It seems every few days a new video surfaces, each of them following a similar theme: a younger Cameron obsessed with his image and going to a lot of effort to mold his body into some kind of masculine ideal. It’s sparked online conversation about body ideals not just for women but for men too. Although there’s a loyal group of women who won’t let the internet forget what he did to me.

It’s the regular seeding of the videos that makes me suspicious. This isn’t an accident. Someone’s leaking the footage. I know a carefully crafted social media campaign when I see one. I’ve created enough of them for my clients.

Today, as Axel is in his basement office, I’m at the kitchen table facing the garden, my favorite spot in the house. I’ve got a mug of strong coffee, a glass of water, and a plate of pastries straight from the kitchens, all set up to get to work. But when I open my laptop, I ignore my client work. I’m curious to trace the trail of the Cameron campaign.

I follow the trail back to the first video; it comes from a username @YourOwnWords. I search their history, but on every platform they didn’t exist before the night the first video was leaked. In fact, their first online activity was the night I was in the spa with Axel. Just before midnight, when I was tucked up in bed, @YourOwnWords created accounts on all the big platforms.

I check the usernames of other accounts that were the first to share the videos. It’s the same story; they were all created on the same night. They used popular hashtags and tagged other users who then shared the videos to their followers, who shared to theirs, and so it spread. Meanwhile @YourOwnWords quietly fades into the background, not commenting, but releasing a new video every two days, always around midnight.

Whoever is behind this has a strong motive, knows their way around tech, and is a night owl.

Suddenly I can’t breathe. Axel didn’t sleep in the bed with me the night after the spa. A few times since we started sharing a bed, I’ve woken, and he’s not there. Only last night, I woke as he came to bed. I didn’t check the time, but I’m sure it was after midnight.

My mouth goes dry, and I reach for my water glass and bring it to my lips.

He has the basement with the computer screens. I’ve never asked him about it because I didn’t want him to think I was snooping. And he certainly has a motive.

His words echo in my head from the night in the spa when I first confessed what had happened. They should pay for what they did to you.

My water glass slips out of my hand and tumbles to the floor, bouncing off the carpet and spilling water everywhere.

It’s Axel. He’s the one behind the Cameron videos.

“Everything okay?” Axel strides into the room and picks up the water glass. “I heard the crash.”

He takes the glass to the kitchen and comes back with a cloth and proceeds to dab at the carpet.

I push my chair back and back away from him. “It was you.”

He freezes at my words with his head down. His silence is all the confirmation I need.

“You’ve been leaking the videos of Cameron.”

Axel stands up slowly and turns to face me. “He hurt you, Ruby. Now he knows what it feels like.”

He reaches for me, and I step away. “That’s not what I wanted. I was publicly humiliated. Do you think I want someone else to go through the same thing?”

“I did it for you.”

He takes another step toward me, and I skirt around him.

“No. You didn’t. You didn’t ask me if that’s what I wanted. If you had, I would have said no.”

“But he hurt you. He had to pay for that.”

“No, Axel. He hurt me because he’s a small-minded asshole. He’ll always be an asshole. That’s the payback. He has to live with himself.”

“But…”

I hold up my hand. “There’s no buts about it. You decided for me, like everyone has been. The producers decided I should date Cameron, you moved my bags here while I slept, you decided you were going to get payback. You’ve done all this while I was asleep too. That night in your bed, when I told you you were the only man who’d ever really seen me—you’d already hit upload. And you let me say it. No one respects me enough to ask what I want.”

Axel’s jaw snaps shut, and he hangs his head. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I thought you would want to get him back, and I had the means to do it. I was going to tell you tonight.”