Chapter 31
It was a stage production.
Obviously, some parts of the story couldn't actually be performed in front of a live audience.
So Princess Vivienne's first scene ended there.
Whatever happened to the unfortunate prince afterward—
the audience could use their imagination.
The livestream camera shifted away from the stage and toward the front row just as Professor Evelyn leaned toward Leo.
"What do you think?"
And nearly five million viewers heard his answer.
"Emma did well."
For half a second—
the comments seemed to freeze.
Then the livestream exploded.
That comment changed the entire direction of the conversation.
More poured in immediately.
That last explanation was perfectly reasonable.
Unfortunately, reasonable explanations were rarely the internet's favorite.
Within minutes, clips of Leo saying "Emma did well" were spreading everywhere.
X.
TikTok.
Instagram.
Fan accounts.
Entertainment pages.
One clip paired Leo's comment with Emma's entrance as Princess Vivienne.
Another zoomed dramatically between Leo's face and Emma onstage.
A third already had the caption:
The internet had found its entertainment for the evening.
In the auditorium, Professor Evelyn stared at Leo.
So did several faculty members nearby.
And Leo's assistant.
Professor Evelyn was the first to speak.
"Leo... you know Emma?"
The question hit him like cold water.
Leo's mind cleared instantly.
Then came the realization.
He'd said her name.
Out loud.
On a livestream.
Leo Fontaine had spent years in the public eye.
He was careful in interviews.
Careful with his words.
Careful about giving the media anything that could be twisted into a headline.
And tonight, for the first time in years—
he'd slipped.
Because of a college student he barely had anything to do with.
His breathing paused for the briefest moment.
Then Leo looked up, his expression perfectly calm.
"I saw the cast list beforehand."
His assistant nearly had a heart attack.
What the hell was this?
His first live PR disaster?
He immediately jumped in.
"Right. I put together some information about the production before we came. Leo looked through it in the car."
Professor Evelyn nodded slowly.
"I see."
Then she smiled.
"You really did your homework."
Something about the explanation still felt slightly off.
But Professor Evelyn had been around long enough to know when not to ask another question.
Leo gave a faint smile.
"If I'm here to give them notes, I should at least know who I'm watching."
Perfectly reasonable.
Perfectly calm.
As though a thin layer of sweat hadn't formed across his palm.
His first verbal slip in years.
Over Emma Carter.
Leo casually adjusted the brim of his cap.
Then his light brown eyes flicked toward his assistant.
One look.
That was enough.
His assistant understood immediately.
He stood.
"Excuse me. I need to step out for a minute."
Restroom, hallway, parking lot—
it didn't matter.
He needed to call the PR team.
Now.
Unfortunately, the livestream audience wasn't convinced.
That, unfortunately, was also true.
It did not stop anyone.
Backstage, Chloe was watching the livestream on her phone.
Her eyes widened.
"What?"
She replayed the clip.
Once.
Twice.
Emma did well.
Chloe's expression darkened.
"How?"
How could Leo possibly know Emma?
The cast list?
Please.
That excuse had obviously been pulled together on the spot.
He couldn't remember her after they'd literally worked on the same movie.
But somehow he'd read a cast list once and remembered Emma Carter?
Chloe's jaw tightened.
What exactly had Emma been doing all this time?
Wasn't she supposed to be working as some secretary?
Emma, meanwhile, knew absolutely none of this.
Getting offstage required walking through a long backstage corridor before reaching the waiting area.
By the time she returned, she immediately noticed something strange.
Everyone was staring at her.
Emma stopped.
Then smiled brightly.
"What?"
No one answered.
She looked around.
"Did I look that good?"
Silence.
Emma nodded to herself.
"I'll take that as a yes."
Chloe stared at her coldly.
"Emma Carter."
Emma looked over.
"You're unbelievable."
Emma blinked.
"?"
Even if someone had installed a high-speed processor directly into her brain, she still wouldn't have understood what Chloe was angry about.
Before Emma could ask, someone called for Chloe.
Her next scene was ready.
Chloe shot Emma one last glare before heading toward the stage.
Emma didn't care.
She sat down.
During their first couple of years at Nance, there had always been pointless arguments over which girl on campus was prettier.
Chloe had apparently decided Emma was her competition long before Emma had agreed to participate in the competition.
So the occasional hostility wasn't exactly new.
Emma had gotten used to it.
What she wasn't expecting was for the other students to suddenly surround her.
"Emma!"
"Do you know Leo Fontaine?"
"How did you meet him?"
"You've been hiding this from us this whole time?"
"Come on, tell us!"
Emma stared at them.
"What?"
Someone leaned closer.
"Leo Fontaine!"
"I don't know Leo Fontaine."
Everyone gave her the same look.
Sure.
Emma frowned.
One girl nudged her.
"Come on. We're friends. You can tell us."
Friends?
Emma looked at her.
Interesting.
Half these people had barely spoken to her twenty minutes ago.
Apparently friendship moved very quickly these days.
"I seriously don't know him."
"Emma, you're going viral!"
Emma paused.
"What?"
"Your name is everywhere right now!"
"When is this kind of luck going to happen to me?"
Emma finally pulled out her phone.
She opened social media.
And—
wow.
Her name really was everywhere.
Clips from the livestream had spread across X, TikTok, Instagram, and dozens of fan accounts.
One video of Leo saying "Emma did well" had already been reposted thousands of times.
Another showed Emma as Princess Vivienne, with huge text across the screen:
A third had placed her and Leo side by side.
Emma:
"......"
Okay.
That was new.
A few minutes of scrolling later, she finally understood what had happened.
Leo Fontaine knew her name.
Apparently.
Emma's brows drew together slightly.
He knows me?
Since when?
She was just as confused as everyone else.
The comments were chaos.
Some people insisted she must come from an incredibly powerful family and that Leo had been asked to give her publicity.
Others thought Leo had taken one look at her and become interested.
A few people were already constructing an entire secret romance out of three words.
Emma found the first theory especially ridiculous.
Leo Fontaine was already powerful enough in the entertainment industry to finance his own projects.
Who exactly was supposed to be forcing him to promote some random college student?
Still, plenty of people believed his assistant's explanation too.
Maybe Leo really had just read the cast list.
Emma stared at the screen for another few seconds.
Then shrugged.
Whatever.
Internet attention disappeared as quickly as it arrived.
Today people were obsessed with her.
Tomorrow some celebrity would wear the wrong shoes to an awards show and everyone would move on.
She was mildly curious about how Leo knew her name.
But only mildly.
Maybe it really was a coincidence.
The students around her, however, were far more excited.
"Oh my God, Emma. How are you this calm?"
"Your follower count is exploding!"
"Wait—how many did you gain?"
Emma opened Instagram.
Her eyebrows lifted.
Huh.
That was quite a jump.
She'd created the account years ago, back when she'd still dreamed about becoming a famous actress.
She hadn't posted anything in more than a year.
Before tonight, the account had shown around a hundred thousand followers.
Although, technically speaking—
a painfully large percentage of those had been purchased during a particularly optimistic phase of her life.
Now?
A little over six hundred thousand.
Emma stared at the number.
Not bad.
Her notifications were moving so fast she could barely read them.
Her DMs were worse.
Everyone was tagging her.
Fan edits were already appearing.
Someone had even slowed down Princess Vivienne's entrance, added dramatic music, and turned it into a thirty-second thirst edit.
Emma watched three seconds.
Then closed Instagram.
And reopened her game.
The students stared at her.
"......"
One girl finally spoke.
"Emma."
"Hmm?"
"You just gained half a million followers."
"Apparently."
"And you're playing a game?"
"Apparently."
The girl stared at her with genuine admiration.
"I don't know if you're emotionally stable or clinically unbothered."
Emma's thumbs moved across the screen.
"Thanks."
"That wasn't necessarily a compliment."
"I'll still take it."
Another student leaned over.
"You seriously don't want to do anything with this? Post something right now and you could gain another million by tonight."
"Exactly! Leo Fontaine just praised your acting. Casting people are going to see this."
Emma didn't respond.
She was already back in the game.
A little while later, someone suddenly frowned at their phone.
"Wait."
No one paid attention.
Then she sat up.
"That's weird."
"What?"
"The Leo-and-Emma posts are disappearing from some of the big entertainment accounts."
Another student immediately checked.
"She's right."
Someone else refreshed their feed.
"That gossip account changed its caption too. Emma's name is gone."
"And two of the big Leo fan accounts deleted their posts."
A brief silence followed.
Then someone said what everyone was thinking.
"His team is doing damage control."
Several heads slowly turned toward Emma.
Emma finally glanced up from her game.
"Good for them."
Then she looked back down.
Everyone:
"......"
"Emma! This was a huge opportunity!"
"You could've posted something while everyone was watching!"
"Now they're already shutting the rumor down!"
"You're seriously not upset?"
Emma didn't even look up.
"Nope."
And she meant it.
Once Emma made a decision, changing her mind wasn't easy.
She had about a month left before graduation.
She already knew what she wanted.
Save a little more money.
Graduate.
Go home to Hollow Creek.
Spend time with Grandma Margaret.
After everything that had happened over the past few years, that quiet future sounded pretty good.
A sudden burst of internet attention wasn't going to change her plans.
Not even if Leo Fontaine was the reason for it.
Emma's character still had one short scene left later that evening.
So she settled back into her chair, kept playing her game—
and waited for her turn.