Chapter 11 Trinity
TRINITY
I'm halfway through my first cup of coffee, scrolling through emails from potential sponsors, when Maya calls.
"What's—"
"Now, Trinity."
I fumble for the remote, flip channels until I find the morning show. And there it is. My face. Korgan's face. A headline that makes my stomach drop straight through the floor.
REALITY STAR'S SECRET PLOT: Did Baker Manipulate Orc Bachelor for Fame?
"In a shocking turn of events," the anchor says, voice dripping with manufactured concern, "new evidence suggests that Heart of the Horde contestant Trinity Lewis may have orchestrated her romance with bachelor Korgan Dongoran as part of an elaborate publicity scheme."
They cut to footage. Grainy, obviously recorded without permission. Me on the phone with Maya, week two of filming.
"I need this to work," my voice crackles through terrible audio. "The bakery's everything. If I can just get enough attention, enough buzz..."
Maya's response is cut off. Then my voice again: "Whatever it takes. I'll do whatever it takes."
The anchor reappears. "Sources close to production say Lewis has been planning this media manipulation from day one, using the show's format and her romantic connection with Dongoran to generate publicity for her struggling business."
Cut to an interview with someone I don't know. Some "relationship expert" who's never met me.
"It's a classic pattern," she says. "Small-town business owner sees an opportunity, targets the most vulnerable bachelor on the show, plays into his cultural isolation to create a compelling narrative. Very calculated. Very cold."
The coffee mug slips from my hands. Crashes against the floor. Brown liquid spreads across white tile like a stain I'll never get out.
My phone's already ringing. Unknown number.
"Trinity Lewis? This is Janet from Sunshine Flour Distributors. We need to discuss your account."
"Janet, I can explain—"
"Our board met this morning. We're terminating our partnership effective immediately. The scandal, the negative publicity is not the image we want associated with our brand."
She hangs up before I say a word.
Then another call. And another. Three vendors, two suppliers, and a catering contract I'd been counting on. All gone in the span of twenty minutes.
Maya arrives as I'm sitting on my kitchen floor, surrounded by broken ceramic and the wreckage of my phone screen where I threw it against the wall.
"Honey." She sits beside me, doesn't mention the mess. "We'll fix this."
"How? How do we fix this?" I gesture at the TV, still playing clips of me and Korgan, each one edited to look calculating and cold. "They made me look like a manipulative monster. Like everything with him was fake."
"Was it?"
"Maya."
"I'm just asking. Because if it wasn't fake, if what you have with him is real, then that's our angle. That's how we fight back."
I laugh, bitter and broken. "With what? The truth? You think anyone cares about the truth when the lie is so much more interesting?"
My laptop chimes with notifications. Email after email flooding in. I scroll through them with growing horror.
Subject: Disappointed in your choices
Subject: Thought you were better than this
Subject: Boycotting your business
Subject: You're a disgrace
Some are longer. Detailed explanations of how I've let down the community, how I've embarrassed small-town values, how I've proven that people like me only care about fame and money.
Others are short and brutal: Slut. Liar. Fake.
"The bakery website crashed," Maya says quietly, checking her phone. "Too much traffic. All negative."
"Great. Perfect. I guess they deceived us with the support from the livestream." I close the laptop before I can read any more. "What about the show? Have they said anything?"
"Radio silence. No statements, no interviews, nothing."
"And Korgan?"
Maya's pause tells me everything.
"He's not answering his phone."
Not answering. After everything we talked about yesterday, everything we planned together, he's not answering his phone.
"Maybe the producers took it. You know how they control communication during filming."
"Maybe."
But I know Maya doesn't believe it any more than I do. If Korgan wanted to reach me, he'd find a way. He's broken their rules before. The fact that he hasn't...
My phone rings. Text from an unknown number.
Filming postponed today due to "technical difficulties." All contestants confined to quarters until further notice.
Technical difficulties. Right. More like damage control while they figure out how to spin this disaster.
I spend the day in a haze of cancellation calls and angry emails. By evening, half my wholesale accounts are gone. Two local restaurants have pulled their standing orders. The farmer's market coordinator calls to discuss whether my booth is still appropriate for their family-friendly environment.
Each conversation feels like sandpaper against my soul. Polite, professional rejection wrapped in concern about brand alignment and community standards.
"We're not saying we believe the allegations," they all say. "But until this situation resolves..."
Until this situation resolves. As if there's some magical endpoint where everything goes back to normal. As if reputations rebuild themselves.
Maya stays through dinner, helps me draft responses to the worst of the messages, builds a framework for fighting back. But even she looks overwhelmed.
"We need Korgan to make a statement," she says finally. "He needs to confirm that your relationship is real, that you never manipulated him."
"He won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because he would have called by now. Because if he believed in what we have, in what we talked about yesterday, he wouldn't let me face this alone."
"Maybe he's protecting you. Maybe the producers told him staying away was the best thing for both of you."
"Or maybe he realized they're right. Maybe I am just a small-town baker who got in over her head and made him collateral damage."
"You don't believe that."
"Don't I?" I stare at the TV, muted now but still cycling through clips of us.
The cinnamon roll moment looks different through this lens.
Calculated. Strategic. "Look at it from his perspective.
He takes a huge risk, defies his family, chooses me over his entire culture.
And the next day, evidence surfaces that I've been using him from the beginning. "
"Evidence that was clearly manipulated—"
"Evidence that sounds exactly like something I would say. Because I did say it, Maya. I said I'd do whatever it takes. I said the bakery was everything."
"Out of context—"
"Is it? Was any of this really about him, or was it all about saving my business?"
The question hangs between us. Maya opens her mouth to argue, then closes it. Because she knows. She was there for every conversation, every strategy session, every moment of doubt.
"Both," she says finally. "It was both. You went on that show for the bakery. But what happened with Korgan, that was real. I saw you fall for him. I saw you change."
"Did you? Or did you see me get better at playing the part?"
"Trinity—"
"I need you to go."
"I'm not leaving you alone right now."
"Please. I just... I need to think."
She argues for another ten minutes, but eventually leaves. Promises to come back in the morning, to keep working on a response strategy, to help me rebuild.
I lock the door behind her and sink onto my couch. The apartment feels enormous and tiny at the same time. Too big for one person, too small for everything crashing down.
My phone rings. For a wild moment, I think it might be Korgan. But it's just another unknown number.
This is Rebecca Alford from Channel 12 News. We'd like to offer you an opportunity to tell your side of the story. Please call me back.
I delete it without reading the rest. Then I delete the next one. And the next.
By midnight, I've received seventeen interview requests, forty-three hate messages, and zero calls from the person whose voice I actually want to hear.
I try his number one more time. Straight to voicemail.
"Korgan, it's me. I know you're probably not supposed to have your phone, but if you get this... I didn't plan any of this. What we have, what happened between us, none of that was fake. I know how it looks, I know what they're saying, but please. Please don't believe them. Call me back. Please."
I hang up and immediately want to call again. To explain better, to say all the things I should have said yesterday instead of focusing on strategy and evidence and fighting back.
I love you.
That's what I should have said. Three words that would have made everything else irrelevant.
But I didn't say them. And now it's too late.
The TV drones in the background, cycling through late-night coverage of the scandal.
My face appears again and again, frozen in moments that look damning under scrutiny.
Laughing too hard at something Korgan said.
Touching his arm with deliberate familiarity.
Glancing at cameras with what could be calculation or could just be awareness.
Every gesture becomes evidence. Every smile becomes manipulation.
I turn off the TV and sit in darkness, listening to the silence where my phone should be ringing. Where Korgan's voice should be telling me we'll get through this together.
Instead, there's nothing.
And for the first time since this whole nightmare started, I wonder if maybe they're right. Maybe I did manipulate him. Maybe the feelings I thought were real were just my heart manufacturing justification for what my head had already decided.
Maybe I'm exactly the calculating opportunist they say I am.
The thought follows me to bed, where I lie awake until dawn, staring at the ceiling and replaying every moment with Korgan through this new, ugly lens.
By morning, I've almost convinced myself that losing him might be exactly what I deserve.