20. Duncan
DUNCAN
Isee the notification before Jeremiah calls. Twitter alert, my name trending with Millie's in a way that makes my stomach drop before I even click through.
The video loads immediately. Grainy phone footage from my company party, audio surprisingly clear considering how far away whoever filmed this must have been standing.
I watch it twice, three times, my hand tightening around the phone until the case creaks. Someone was recording me. At my own party, in my own building, talking to Tobias near the windows where I thought we had privacy.
The thread below the video is already a dumpster fire.
Screenshots of contract terms I've never seen outside Jeremiah's encrypted files.
Details about the six-month arrangement, the public appearances clause, the engagement timeline.
Everything we worked so hard to keep private is now being dissected by millions of strangers who think they know our story.
My phone rings. Jeremiah.
"Tell me you're seeing this," he says the second I answer.
"I'm seeing it."
"How bad is the damage?" Even through the phone I can hear him typing, probably already pulling together a crisis response team.
"Everything's out there. The contract, the timeline, me basically confessing on camera that the marriage was arranged." I close my eyes. "We're fucked."
"Where are you?"
"Home. About to head out to meet you."
"Don't. Stay there until I figure out our next move. The paparazzi are going to be swarming your building within the hour and if they get footage of you looking panicked it'll make this worse."
"What about Millie?"
"LaToya's handling her. Right now you need to?—"
"I need to talk to her. She's going to think I leaked this."
"Did you?"
"Of course not."
"Then we'll prove that. But Duncan, you cannot go to her apartment right now." His voice softens slightly. "I know you want to fix this. But the best thing you can do for her right now is stay away and let her team control the narrative on her end."
He's right. I hate that he's right but I know he is.
"Fine. I'll stay here. But call me the second you have a plan."
I hang up and pull up Twitter again, scrolling through replies that range from sympathetic to vicious.
Some people are defending us, saying arrangements like this are common in Hollywood and at least we were honest about our feelings eventually.
Others are calling for my head, saying I manipulated Millie into a fake marriage to save my reputation while she was just trying to win an Oscar.
The truth is somewhere in the middle and infinitely more complicated than any of them realize.
I try calling Millie. It goes straight to voicemail. I text her: "I didn't leak this. Someone at my party recorded me without permission. I'm so sorry."
The message shows as delivered but not read.
I pace my apartment for twenty minutes, my phone clutched in my hand like a lifeline.
The city spreads out below me through my windows, completely indifferent to the fact that my life is imploding in real time.
Lights in other buildings, cars moving down Sixth Avenue, people living their lives while mine falls apart.
Eventually, Millie sends me a text. Just four words: "What did you do?"
I stare at the message for a full thirty seconds, reading and rereading those words like they might change meaning if I look long enough. She thinks I did this. She thinks I leaked our arrangement, exposed the contract, threw her under the bus to save myself.
I type back immediately: "I didn't do this. Someone at my party recorded me without permission and leaked it. I would never hurt you like that."
The typing indicator appears, disappears, appears again. Then nothing. I wait five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.
No response.
I try calling again. Straight to voicemail.
The silence is worse than anger would be. Anger I could work with, could respond to, could fight against until she believed me. But this silence is a wall I don't know how to climb.
I grab my jacket and head for the door before I can talk myself out of it. Jeremiah told me to stay here, but I can't sit in this apartment doing nothing while Millie thinks I betrayed her.
The elevator takes forever. I jab the button three times like that'll make it move faster, then pace the small space while it descends. Ground floor, then out through the lobby where the doorman gives me a look that says he's already seen the news.
Outside, the street is chaos.
Photographers everywhere, at least twenty of them, cameras with lenses that could see into next week. They spot me the second I step onto the sidewalk and surge forward like a wave breaking.
"Duncan! Did you leak the contract?"
"Are you and Millie splitting up?"
"Was the marriage ever real?"
"How much did you pay her?"
I keep my head down and push through the crowd, not answering, not making eye contact. Someone shoves a camera in my face close enough that I have to dodge to avoid collision. Another photographer steps directly in my path and I have to shoulder past him to keep moving.
"Duncan, just one question!"
"Is Millie leaving you?"
"Do you regret marrying her?"
I make it half a block before I realize I'm being followed by at least six of them, running alongside me with cameras clicking constantly. A car honks as one photographer steps into traffic to get a better angle.
This is insane. I can't go to Millie's apartment like this. They'll follow me there, camp outside her building, get footage of me trying to talk my way past her doorman while she refuses to let me up.
I duck into a coffee shop, weaving past confused customers to the bathroom in the back. Lock the door and lean against it, breathing hard.
I stay in the bathroom for another five minutes, staring at my reflection in the mirror above the sink. I look exhausted. Hair a mess from running my hands through it, eyes bloodshot from staring at my phone, jaw tight from clenching it for the last hour.
This is my fault. Not the leak itself, but everything that led to it.
I agreed to the arrangement knowing it was temporary, then fell in love with her anyway.
I let myself believe she might feel the same way, that we could turn something fake into something real.
And now both our lives are imploding because I couldn't keep my feelings to myself at a party where anyone could have been listening.
Someone knocks on the bathroom door. "You okay in there?"
I unlock it and push past whoever asked, keeping my head down as I make my way back through the coffee shop.
The photographers are still outside but fewer now, maybe four instead of six.
They spot me immediately and start shouting questions but I ignore them, walking fast with my hands shoved in my pockets.
I make it back to my building and through the lobby before any of them can follow. The elevator ride up feels longer than it did coming down. When I finally get back inside my apartment I lock the door and lean against it, eyes closed.
My phone buzzes. Not Millie. A Twitter notification showing the video has now been retweeted two hundred thousand times.
I turn off my phone and throw it on the couch, then walk to the window and stare out at the city again. Somewhere out there, seventeen blocks north, Millie is dealing with her own version of this chaos. And there's nothing I can do to help her.