Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The first phone call came a little after eight the following morning. It was Bryce. Camille answered it in the only way a woman who’d had a night of hot loving could.
“I’ve barely managed a couple of hours sleep, so whatever it is please be gentle with me, cousin.”
On the other end of the line Bryce cleared his throat. “Is Ryan Collins still staying at your apartment?”
There was every chance he’d already put two and two together; and come up with the answer that Ryan had spent the night in her bed. But Bryce would never be so crass as to say such a thing out loud. He would wait for Camille to broach the subject if and when she felt it necessary.
“Yes, he is. He’s in the kitchen making us coffee.”
“Good. Could you please go find him. I need to speak to the both of you. And before you ask, yes, its urgent.”
Camille, who’d been in the middle of getting dressed, threw on the pale blue cotton sweater she’d already picked out along with her now customary leisure pants. Bare foot, and with her cell phone in one hand, she headed into the kitchen. There was no sign of Ryan, but she could hear him moving about upstairs in the design studio.
Reaching the top of the stairs, she found him. Ryan was slumped over his desk his head in his hands. His computer monitor was on, and his Instagram profile shone brightly on the screen.
“Bryce is on the line, and he wants to talk to us,” she said, putting the call onto speaker, and setting the phone on the desk.
Ryan sat up and raked his fingers through his hair. “Hi Bryce. I have a horrible feeling I know why you’re calling. Does it have anything to do with what’s trending on social media this morning?”
What’s trending?
“Yeah, our social media monitoring folks picked it up as soon as it went live, and I figured I should get in touch. Just in case you’d missed it.”
Ryan slowly shook his head, and Camille could only imagine what he was thinking. The Royal family had people who monitored social media for any mention of them, which would also include anyone who worked for them in a personal capacity. And that meant him.
“I wish I could unsee it Bryce, but no such luck,” replied Ryan.
Camille looked to where Ryan was pointing on the computer screen. The hashtag #ryancollinsfuckboy was the top trending search this morning. The second highest trending search was #ryancollinsisatoyboy.
Her blood ran cold. What on earth did that mean?
“Bryce, Camille is just looking at the trending searches on Instagram. So I’ll try and catch her up as best I can,” said Ryan. He sat back in his chair, and scrubbed his hands over his face.
“I haven’t been on social media for a while, but I do know my follower numbers. Last month my followers on Instagram sat at thirty five thousand. I rarely post so they are basically just people who started following me during the show, and who haven’t gotten around to unfollowing me.”
Thirty five thousand. Camille’s own account had about half that number. Engaging a social media agency to handle the Camille Royal Designs account had long been on Hope’s to do list.
“Go on,” said Bryce.
“This morning, it’s sitting at one hundred and seventy eight thousand and climbing by the hour. I haven’t checked any of the other platforms, but I’m assuming that whatever is behind these tags is spreading fast,” said Ryan, letting out a resigned sigh.
Camille threw up her hands. “Could someone please tell me what on earth is going on? What do those hashtags mean?”
Bryce’s voice crackled down the line. “They mean that someone has discovered that a former reality tv show contestant is now working for a billionaire fashion designer, and that it is too good a story to leave alone.”
Another voice now came over the speaker. “Hi guys, Sheila here. You might want to check on Inside New York City this morning. The front page is an article which talks about you both, and it’s not exactly kind. I’m afraid there’s also a video.”
Bryce muttered something which didn’t bear repeating. Camille was trying to be taken seriously by the world of fashion, so all publicity wasn’t necessarily good publicity.
“What video?” asked Camille.
Ryan clicked on the INYC site and an article with the headline ‘From heartache to $$$’ appeared at the top. He scrolled down the piece, and as he did Camille’s blood turned to ice. A photo of the two of them at dinner last night sat under the byline.
Reality TV Toyboy Ryan Collins has his hands all over runaway nepo baby billionaire lover.
Camille didn’t want to read the rest of the article. She had a pretty good idea as to what it likely said, though the toyboy bit stuck sharp in her throat. Weren’t toyboys meant to be much younger men? Ryan was nearly the same age as her.
As much as she ached to look away, her gaze remained fixed on the article. There were more photos. Grainy ones of the two of them walking in the city. Another one of them in a passionate embrace, kissing on the beach at Fire Island.
It was clear that someone had been stalking them for days. Weeks even.
She felt utterly violated. Some stranger had been watching some of her most private moments.
But who? And why?
Ryan stopped scrolling through the article, and clicked on a hyperlink. It opened up on YouTube and Camille watched in horror as the moment she’d flattened Ryan in the middle of the street played out onscreen. Some smart ass had put the theme music from Bachelors on the Beach over it, and then sped it up.
“Seven hundred and sixty four thousand views, and it was only posted at the start of the week,” grumbled Ryan.
“And that’s not the original, it’s only a mashup. The first one was loaded up a few weeks ago, but it didn’t appear to get much traction. Whoever put it up on YouTube didn’t know who you were. But once it was shared on TikTok, the algorithm matched Ryan’s face with some clips from the tv show, and ka-boom…” explained Sheila.
A small snowball rolling harmlessly down the mountain had now turned into a full blown avalanche of spiteful gossip and cruel inuendo. And she and Ryan were standing right in the middle of its path of destruction.
Camille’s brain couldn’t handle any of this. It quickly checked out, hanging up a ‘closed for maintenance’ sign as it went. Ryan, Bryce, and Sheila were all still talking, but she didn’t take in a single word that any of them said, as panic held her firmly in its grip.
This is a disaster. People are going to discover who I am. I’ll be the laughing stock of fashion week.
And what would her family say? They’d say, she’d crossed every line of acceptable propriety when she’d started sleeping with an employee. An employee who just happened to be a former reality tv star.
Dread twisted tightly in her stomach.
Moving away from the desk, her gaze landed on the pinned up muslin of the Prince Charming jacket she’d designed while they were at Trade Winds . The jacket called to her, and Camille moved toward it. There was safety in familiar things. As her fingers brushed over the fabric, her brain sizzled, and came back on line.
It was now blasting out a loud warning signal on high repeat. The only word she could make out was RUN!
“I’ll be back in a minute,” she whispered.
I have to get out of here. I need to go somewhere that’s safe, and far away from all this madness.
Racing down the stairs to her apartment, stuffing her feet into a pair of ballet flats, and snatching up her purse, Camille was already standing in the elevator with her finger on the button by the time Ryan finally caught up with her.
Shock and concern was written all over his face. “Camille, wait!” he cried, but she let the shiny metal doors close on him.
The whole world now knew that she and her personal assistant were lovers. And from the way things had blown up this morning, Camille knew it was only a matter of time before falling in love with Ryan would cost her everything.
She’d worked her ass for over four years, but none of that would matter. Her gorgeous designs, her hard won success—none of it.
All people would be talking about is that she, a member of the billionaire Royal family, was fooling around with a guy who’d lost the final of a stupid dating show.
Her fashion career was slipping through her fingers like finely spun silk.