Chapter 50
DAKOTA
“What the hell, Dakota?!” Our publicist slapped two folders down onto the dining room table, the sharp sound echoing through the otherwise silent room. Her perfectly manicured fingernails drummed against the manila surfaces. “What the hell were you thinking?”
I flinched, unable to meet her laser-focused glare. After the emotional purge of yesterday’s live stream, I felt hollow, scraped raw, and completely unprepared for this confrontation.
“You didn’t even give us a heads-up that you were about to do it,” she continued, her voice rising with each accusation. “We could’ve gone about this in the right way. We could have scripted an apology!”
“Hey,” Axel said, holding his palm up like a traffic cop. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
He stood beside me, our shoulders almost touching, his presence solid and unexpectedly comforting.
The publicist’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Do you know how hard we worked to get you both out of this mess?” Her voice rose with each word. “And she has the audacity to go online and not just deviate from our script, but blow the whole thing up with a grenade?”
Something sparked inside me. Not anger exactly, but a flicker of the same resolve that had pushed me to go live in the first place.
“I was just trying to be honest,” I said, my voice quiet but steady.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to do this from a script.
I just wanted to be true for once.” I leaned forward, hands splayed on the table.
“I’m sure that I said things wrong, and I’m sure that I went about it all wrong, but that’s the whole problem: overthinking everything I do online. It’s not healthy.”
The publicist opened her mouth to object, but I pressed on.
“If I was going to apologize to my followers, they deserved that apology to come from the heart, not some script that my public relations company handed me.”
“You hired us,” she pointed out.
“I know. And I’m sorry that I didn’t give you a heads-up.” I met her gaze squarely. “It wouldn’t have changed what I did, and it wouldn’t have changed how I went about it, but after everything you’ve done for us, you deserved to be in the loop.”
“Your damn right I did!”
“Hey!” Axel snapped. “I told you. Do NOT talk to her like that.”
The publicist leered at Axel. “I’m surprised I have to explain to you how reckless this was,” she hissed. “And I’m even more surprised you’re defending her.”
Axel leaned forward, his palms resting on the table, eyes never leaving the publicist’s face. “And I’m surprised I have to explain to you that someone giving a public apology from the bottom of her heart is never the wrong thing to do.”
“Her heart was in the right place? Seriously?”
“Is this why you came here? To berate her?” Axel jerked his thumb toward the elevator. “Because if so, there’s the door.”
My gaze snapped to Axel. He had every right to be furious with me, and yet here he was, having my back, even when, one could argue, I’d made yet another impulsive mistake.
“She’s right,” I said softly, finding my voice again. “I should’ve at least given you guys a heads-up that I was going to do that.”
“You think?” the publicist snapped, nostrils flaring.
“Last warning,” Axel snarled.
My eyes burned with the threat of tears. Ride or die, it seemed, Axel was in my corner.
Axel gestured toward the files, clearly attempting to redirect the conversation. “What’s in the folders?”
The publicist pressed her fingertips down on the files, as if afraid they might fly away. It looked like it took her serious effort—and I do mean, serious—to let go of the verbal lashing she was giving me and answer his question.
“I had my assistant compile and print some of the comments and reactions to that godforsaken live event. I’ve categorized them into two folders. One contains responses from people raising their pitchforks and hating you both.”
She flipped open the first folder, and I immediately wished she hadn’t. The top comment made my heart chill.
@BlushBabe123: You ruined everything. You were perfect, and you DESTROYED it. Years of watching you, supporting you. You were supposed to stay beautiful and flawless. Now you’re just another broken girl, crying on camera. I’m disgusted. You’ve betrayed everyone who believed in you.
My stomach twisted. BlushBabe123 had been my most devoted follower for years. Always first to comment, always showing up with heart-eye emojis and gushing praise. I’d actually started to find her constant presence a little … intense. But seeing her turn on me so viciously? It stung.
“Jesus,” Axel muttered, reading over my shoulder. “That’s not criticism. That’s … unhinged.”
Seriously. Something about BlushBabe123’s fury felt different. Personal. Like I’d betrayed her specifically.
The publicist quickly flipped the folder closed. “There are more like that, many also directed at Axel.”
Oh God. “One of my main goals was to not let Axel take a hit,” I said, regret bubbling. Maybe I should have gone about it another way. “Is he going to suffer because of this?”
Her shoulders drew back as she took a deep breath, and in my opinion, she looked like she hated what she was about to say. “His follower count increased.”
Oh. She didn’t want to be wrong.
Hope took flight in my ribs. “That’s a good sign, right? He was shielded from harm?”
But Axel didn’t seem to care about himself. He pointed to the second fatter file on the desk, getting back to the comments and reactions.
“And the other folder?” Axel demanded.
The publicist’s hesitation was slight but noticeable.
“The other, it seems, is full of people that found her apology sincere. That evidently see her as a human being, making mistakes and doing it publicly. They’re showing empathy for her.
” The admission clearly cost her. “They found her raw honesty … refreshing.”
“That makes no sense,” I said, blinking in confusion. “I assumed all people would hate me by now.”
At this, her lips thinned further, and something told me that what this woman hated more than my “reckless” apology was being incorrect in guessing how people would respond to it.
“Many of your followers were upset,” she explained, her professional tone returning like a mask sliding back into place. “Very upset. They felt lied to and manipulated and conned by you.”
“Because they were,” I said, running a hand through my still-disheveled hair. “My whole life online has been some flavor of untruth.”
The publicist sighed, a fraction of tension leaving her shoulders. “Yeah, well, there’s one more thing about online culture. It’s, at times, unpredictable.”
“Meaning?” Axel prompted, coming closer until his shoulder touched mine.
She tapped the second folder. “Meaning, by every account, what Dakota did yesterday should have been the end of her social media business.” A note of reluctant admiration crept into her voice. “But it seems many followers were touched by her honesty and vulnerability.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to process this information. “I’m not following.”
The woman could not let go of that resting angry face, the one where she was, at least partly, wrong.
“Have you checked your social media accounts?” she asked.
The memory of my phone exploding with notifications after the live stream made me wince. “No. I didn’t want to subject myself to the hateful comments.”
“Well, your follower count did go down.” She crossed her arms, looking genuinely pissed off that she had to deliver good news when it went against everything she’d advised.
“And trust me, there were a lot of hateful comments. But it seems the majority consensus is that they loved what you did. They expressed disappointment in your decisions, but by and large, they were touched by your sincerity and candor.” She spread some of the papers open on the table.
“It seems even influencers found your post to be, and I quote, ‘the tipping point our society needs to peel back the layers of what we hide from everyone and be brave enough to show our true selves, even when doing so could cost us everything.’ ”
I leaned forward, scanning the comments with thousands of likes and replies:
I felt your pain so deeply. Thank you for being brave enough to show us it’s okay to not be perfect.
I’ve never commented before, but I had to tell you, this post just saved me. I was so lost in comparing myself to everyone else’s highlight reel. You just reminded me we’re all fighting the same battle.
I’ve never felt pretty enough, smart enough, good enough. Seeing you without all the filters made me realize I’m not alone.
I’ve been crying for 20 minutes. Every morning, I look at Instagram before getting my kids ready and feel like I’m failing at everything. This is the first time someone showed me I’m not.
I’ve missed so many pool days with my kids because I was ashamed of my body. You just gave me permission to stop stealing joy from myself.
Thank you for stripping bare for us. I needed to see that people online aren’t as perfect as they seem. I thought I was the only imperfect one.
You are beautiful just the way you are, Dakota Fox/Blackwood. Thank you for showing us that real is better than perfect.
My vision blurred as tears gathered in my eyes. One slipped down my cheek, then another. It wasn’t the acceptance of strangers that had me crying, though that meant more than I could have imagined. It was that my moment of vulnerability had apparently given others permission to be vulnerable too.
Maybe, in the wake of everything I’d screwed up, some good had actually come out of it.
“It would seem,” Rebecca said, “that your unpredictable, unplanned post ironically generated more authentic engagement from your followers than anything else you’ve carefully crafted.”
“They felt like they saw me,” I realized. “The real me.”
Axel smiled, adoration and pride gleaming from his eyes. “Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is let them see the real you, Sunshine.”
Rebecca’s eyebrows lifted meaningfully. “They want to see more of that.”
“More of that?” I shook my head in disbelief. “I intended for that to be my last post. Honestly, I need to brush up my résumé and thank my lucky stars that I have a degree to fall back on.”
“It can be your last post if you want it to be,” she said, her tone surprisingly gentle now, the anger apparently burned out. “But …” Rebecca said, her voice softer now.
She pulled something else from the folder and placed it in front of me. My breath caught.
“My brand deal?” I lifted the contract, scanning the terms. The same deal I thought I’d lost forever when I posted that video. “But I thought they’d drop me for sure.”
“Apparently,” Rebecca said, and now she actually looked pleased, “they want to partner with you specifically because of your authenticity. They’re pivoting their entire campaign to Real Beauty. No filters, no fake perfection. They want you as the face of it.”
Axel’s hand squeezed my shoulder, and when I looked up at him, his eyes were warm with pride.
“The contract is actually better than the original,” Rebecca continued. “Higher pay, more creative control, and—this is the kicker—they want you to do a whole series about being real online. Showing your actual morning routine, your bad-skin days, everything.”
I stared at the papers, hardly believing what I was reading. “They want to pay me … to be myself?”
“Revolutionary concept, right?” Rebecca said dryly, but she was almost smiling now. “Who knew that in a world full of perfectly curated lies, the truth would be so … marketable?”
I laughed through my tears, the sound a little hysterical. “I can’t believe this is real. I’ve got a new opportunity here,” I realized aloud, the idea taking shape as I spoke. “To be myself and to be honest. No filters, no scripts, just … me.”
Axel’s hand found mine, the simple gesture steadying me.
The publicist studied me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Finally, she nodded. “You do.”
She gathered the folders, sliding them across the table toward me. “Take a look. Process the feedback. Then decide what you want to do next.” Her gaze shifted to include Axel. “What you both want to do next.”
As she stood to leave, she paused, smoothing her immaculate blazer. “For what it’s worth,” she said, not quite meeting my eyes, “it was brave. Stupid, but brave.”
I smiled.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Rebecca said, throwing her purse over her shoulder as she prepared to leave. “There’s a detective downstairs who wants to talk to you both.”
The way she said it, with a little smile playing at the corners of her mouth, suggested it was good news.
And with that cryptic comment, she was gone, leaving me staring at a contract that proved sometimes the scariest thing you can do, showing the world who you really are, turns out to be exactly what the world was waiting for.
But I think the most shocking thing that would happen today came with what the detective was about to say …