25. Cameron
25
CAMERON
“ C offee, Cameron?”
I wordlessly shook my head at Alessandra. I’d already downed two cups; a third wasn’t going to do me any good.
I felt like I was coming down with the flu. I woke each day groggy and exhausted, and I spent my days unable to focus. It wasn’t bad enough to keep me at home, but it was enough to make me surly as fuck.
My team was assembled in the conference room, minus one very important employee, trying to brainstorm our way out of our PR nightmare. The social media response to what I referred to as “the event” in Central Park had been swift and brutal, but what was worse was our continued downward sales trend. I refused to say our “poor numbers,” because doing so would mean admitting that Veritique was once again in crisis mode—and I couldn’t blame this one on Dad.
I sighed and pushed my phone farther away from me on the conference table. Lately, it only delivered bad news.
“Let’s begin,” I said as I glanced around at the wary faces surrounding me.
The low chatter in the room died immediately.
“Who’s up first?”
Everyone shifted their attention to Glen.
“Uh, that’s my cue, I guess.” He paused to shuffle a few papers in front of him. “So, I pulled the latest numbers from our physical locations and, uh, they’re not great.”
I had to work to keep from grinding my teeth together. I already knew that fact.
“We’re still getting lookie-loos in our flagship shop, you know? Mostly tourists, and the people who aren’t addicted to social media and missed the…thing,” Glen’s expression went sheepish. “But serious buyers? Not so much. As for online sales…they’re also down. The ‘about us’ section of the website is getting the most hits, obviously looking for more information about you and…” Glen cleared his throat. “And we’re noticing trending of clicks from our main page through to our social media accounts, then rapid drop-off. A couple of scrolls and then they bounce. Sandrine can talk about what’s going on there.”
He fell back against his chair, grateful to be done speaking.
“We’ve had to do an unplanned-for social media about-face,” Sandrine said. She seemed exhausted as well. “Lucy and the team had booked out weeks’ worth of content centered around…our former campaign, which we had to scrap.” She went a shade paler. “We’ve diverted to repurposing some old content in the meantime, and we’re hoping to create behind-the-scenes images and videos from our upcoming spring campaign.” She pursed her lips together for a moment. “Now, I’m going to be honest here. We’ve discovered our old approach is no longer working. Photos of beautiful hands wearing beautiful rings is over for us. Our audience got hooked on a real love story, about real people, and now nothing else will do. At least that’s what the traffic is telling us. So what we need to do now is agree on a different direction that caters to this new version of Veritique, for better or for worse.”
“I had an idea,” Glen said, raising his hand like a damn kindergartener.
I snorted softly to myself. Of course he did.
“I think we have the chance to turn what happened into an opportunity,” he said.
Oh, this ought to be good.
“How about we try a pivot?” he began. “We start a new campaign called ‘Breaking up is hard to do,’ where we track our fearless leader as he navigates the dating world post-CamLicity. We could go with him on dates, and have followers suggest possible matches?—”
“Who the hell hired you?” I interrupted him. “I’m serious. Who thought it was a good idea to add you to the team? Because all you keep delivering are strike-outs. Absolutely not, Glen.”
My outburst pulled all the air from the room. It had been a long time since I’d exploded, and clearly everyone had gotten used to the kinder, gentler Cameron O’Connor.
Well, that sucker was long gone.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples as everyone around me tried to be as quiet as possible.
“I think we need to do something totally unexpected,” I said. “Who’s been working on the pet products line? Maybe pictures of cute dogs in leather collars with platinum buckles will bring people back?”
“Um, that’s me,” a voice squeaked out.
I squinted at a terrified woman at the far end of the conference table.
“Do I know you?”
“No. I mean, sort of. We met on my first day,” she said quickly. She sank lower in her chair. “I’m Becca Pearson. I’m the new team lead for the pet products line, and we’re basically ready to go. We were just waiting for, uh, the right time to launch it.”
I knew she meant that they had been waiting for the CamLicity campaign to come to an end.
“Well, no better time than the present. What are the plans?”
“I sent you an email?—”
“I didn’t get it, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked the question.”
Becca looked like she was about to cry. “Okay, um, I was thinking we’d introduce the line with Boris modeling everything. One piece a day until we’ve highlighted all of them. Ginny, the new staff photographer, is ready to shoot the images when we are. Once we intro the line, we can open it up to user-submitted content, which always brings tons of eyeballs. People can send in their pets wearing our stuff. Those kinds of call-outs always bring lots of traction.”
“ Finally !” I gestured toward Becca. “This is what I’ve been talking about. I love it, Becca. Let’s bump everything else off the calendar and make pets our focus.” I turned to Sandrine. “Can you work with Becca to get this rolling ASAP?”
She nodded. “Of course, on it.”
“Anything else?”
I glanced around at my employees, and their terrified expressions finally woke me up. With sinking shame, I recalled that this was how my father used to run the company. Since taking over, I’d always kept a tight ship, but I never used fear and intimidation to keep my staff motivated.
“No? Okay, then. Before you all leave, I just want to say thanks for helping me navigate this storm. It hasn’t been easy for any of us, but we’ll pull through. Let’s focus on the future, okay? We’re done here.” I slapped the table and stood up.
“Hold on,” Alessandra said, grabbing my arm. “I just got an alert…there’s something you need to see.” She scanned the room. “Sandrine? I think you should be here for it as well.”
Sandrine approached us warily. “What’s wrong now?”
“I’m not sure yet, but my alerts are saying that…something was posted.”
I let my frustration get the better of me again. “Alessandra, plenty has been posted lately. What’s different about this?”
She held out her phone wordlessly, and I saw a still of Felicity on the screen.
“She posted a video. On her personal account.” Alessandra said. “And tagged Veritique.”
I sank back into my chair.
Fuck. This was going to be bad.
I’d dealt with my fair share of tirades thanks to Carolina. Rant-filled tantrums that attracted a ton of attention. If the livestream incident had happened with her, I could only imagine the press coverage she’d be demanding. I never believed Felicity was capable of sinking that low, but I was about to get proof she could. I wouldn’t have thought she’d be the kind of person to air our dirty laundry online—but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d been wrong about a woman. I waited until Alessandra, Sandrine, and I were the only people in the room.
“Put it up on the smartboard,” I said warily. “Let’s deal with this together.”
Alessandra nodded, and then Felicity was on the wall in front of me. It hurt to see her.
“Ready?” Alessandra asked.
“I suppose,” I sighed.
She pushed play, and the video began. Felicity was sitting cross-legged on the couch in her apartment hugging a pillow to her chest, smiling softly. She was bare-faced, with her hair in a ponytail, dressed in leggings and a worn t-shirt.
And never more beautiful. My heart pinched with longing at the sight of her.
“Hi everyone,” she said with a little wave. “Been a while since I’ve posted on this account, but I figured it was the perfect place to try to get my message out. My follower count has tripled in the past few weeks, no doubt because of…recent events.”
She frowned for a moment.
“No, Lis, just say it,” she muttered to herself. She reoriented to the camera. “By ‘recent events’ I mean the CamLicity campaign. We’ve all seen what happened by now, right?”
A shadow passed over her face.
“I know many of you are disappointed by the way our story ended. I’ve seen the comments, and I’ve gotten a ton of supportive messages.” She clutched her hands over her heart. “Thank you, friends. Your care means the world to me.”
It was my turn to frown. The only messages I’d gotten were brutal takedowns. I tried to keep up initially, but Alessandra eventually stopped forwarding them to me.
“But here’s what I really want to say. No matter how things ended up with Cameron, I want all of you to know that I’m glad I took a chance on love.” She paused to take a breath. “Because it was magical.”
Felicity smiled, and I found myself smiling back, dazed. Until I realized this was not at all what I expected.
“I experienced a fairy tale. I had the best time, as you probably witnessed.” She giggled. “We attracted a lot of attention, you know?”
“There’s more to it, though,” her expression went serious again. “It wasn’t just fun. CamLicity gave me a new understanding of what it means to be in a relationship. I learned about how it felt to have a supportive partner. Someone who encouraged me to achieve my dreams. Someone who listened, really listened to me. He made me feel important, and special. Needed. Wanted.” Felicity looked down and fiddled with the fringe on the pillow. “ Trust me, I haven’t always been that lucky.”
She smiled again, and I smiled back despite the pain in my heart. Why was she being so kind?
“So yeah, guys, CamLicity is no more. I know you’re all disappointed, but sometimes you play the game and get your heart broken.” She shrugged. “That’s life.”
She was trying to look nonchalant, but I could see she was hiding pain.
“But here’s the thing…when you come out the other side of a heartbreak, you have to look for the good things you can take from your time together. It might feel impossible at first, especially when you’re still feeling all those bleak emotions.” She made a swirling gesture in front of her chest. “But I promise, if you do, you’ll wind up stronger in the end.”
Felicity slid off the couch and moved closer to her phone, filling the screen with her beautiful face.
“One last thing. Ladies, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to wait for someone to buy you jewelry. You’re worth it, go get that sparkler you’ve been eyeing! Like this…I bought this piece for myself,” she leaned closer and held up a gold necklace with an infinity symbol on it. “It will always remind me of my time with Veritique and how my work there helped me to believe in myself. Isn’t it beautiful?” She chuckled. “This is not spon-con, I promise you, but I did get it from Veritique, if you want your own.”
Sandrine laughed and cheered. “Ever the marketer!”
“Anyway, that’s it for me,” Felicity said. “Just remember, love makes you stronger, my friends. I hope that’s a message we can all remember.”
The video ended with a close-up of Felicity’s face, and despite all of the upbeat cheerleading, I could see sadness in her eyes.
“Wow,” Alessandra sighed.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That was unexpected.”
“Very much so,” Sandrine agreed. “She’s a class act. We’re lucky to have her.”
My mouth went tight. Why did I have a bad feeling about her tenure with Veritique?
“We need to connect with her, to put together some sort of united message,” Sandrine said. She was studying the still image of Felicity on the wall. “Her video was a good start, but we should do something official.” She paused. “Honestly, I’ve been holding off on broaching it with you, but we really can’t wait much longer.”
No one had ever come out and said it, but everyone knew CamLicity had grown into something deeper than just a publicity stunt.
“Fine,” I replied quickly. “Why don’t you draft something, and I’ll take a look?”
“Well, I was hoping that…” she broke off and looked at Alessandra. “Okay, I’ll put together a few options for you.”
When I left, the pair were standing close together, talking softly and no doubt dissecting everything in Felicity’s video. I was too weary to give it any thought.
I noticed people scurried the other way as I walked back to my office. It was as if there was a storm cloud hanging over my head.
The mountain of work waiting for me felt impossible. What the hell was happening to me? I couldn’t focus on a damn thing. I swiveled in my chair to look out at the skyline, hoping inspiration might strike me.
Nothing.
My phone buzzed and I jumped at it, which was strange since lately it had been the bearer of bad news only.
A text from my brother. “Lunch?”
I frowned. We hadn’t talked since the blowup at the tavern, so why was he reaching out now? Maybe he’d gotten wind of Felicity’s video? He was like that—willing to look past our differences when he sensed I needed him.
Why couldn’t I do the same?
“That works. Your choice.”
Aiden knew I preferred fine dining, but he was more of a dark pub kind of person. It was no surprise that he sent me a pin for a gastropub.
“Now good?”
Typical Aiden. Eleven thirty.
“Sure, meet you there.”
It wasn’t a quick walk to the spot, but the weather was beautiful. It felt like everyone outside was in a good mood, and I didn’t blame them. Spring was in the air. Renewal. I hoped it would rub off on me, eventually.
The CamLicity campaign had me assuming that every time someone’s gaze lingered on me, they were trying to figure out if I was who they thought I was. When was that going to stop? I had enough to worry about without feeling like I was being stalked. I kept my head down and barreled toward whatever fresh hell awaited me with my brother.