Scarlett had always believed that real love would feel like freedom.
She had never imagined it would feel like this.
A slow death. A public sentence. A humiliation dressed in high-definition.
She sat behind the counter in the back of the store, tucked beneath bolts of creased cotton and mood boards for collections that might never see daylight. Her phone lay in front of her on the glass like a bomb that went off every fifteen seconds. Notification after notification. Screenshot. Retweet. Comment. Post.
Her name.
Her face.
Scarlett Hayes.
The girl from Willows Creek who designed bridal silhouettes and still said yes ma'am on instinct was now the mistress of a crypto CEO. The wedding designer who, according to one blog headline, "fitted herself into the wrong gown."
She didn't know whether to laugh or throw up.
Sadie pulled down the last of the blinds at the front of the store, her expression locked tight. "This is sick," she muttered. "They're treating you like you crashed a royal wedding with a machete."
Scarlett didn't respond. Her voice had curled up somewhere deep inside her chest and refused to come out.
Outside, the sidewalk had swelled with people. It started with a few curious faces fans, influencers, girls with phones who recognized her from the viral post Camille had dropped like a dagger.
Now it was a crowd.
People pressed against the glass. One girl shouted, "Is she in there? I swear that's her store!" A guy with a telephoto lens crouched by the curb, adjusting his shot.
A car slowed. A window rolled down.
"Mistress trash!"
Scarlett flinched.
Sadie snapped. "Back away from the windows. Now."
Scarlett moved numbly, like her body didn't quite belong to her. She sank into the dressing room, lights off, knees drawn to her chest. The space that had once been sacred where she and Sadie had draped gowns and swapped stories over cheap wine was now a bunker. A place to hide.
And still, the noise got in.
Camille had just posted again. Sadie read it aloud, disgust thick in her voice.
"Another caption with nothing in it. Just a photo of her staring out a window in a white dress. Like she's freaking Cinderella after war."
Scarlett didn't want to see it.
But she already had it memorized.
The elegance. The soft eyes. The perfectly understated grief. Camille didn't throw shade, she cast it with silk gloves. She didn't accuse Scarlett directly. She never would.
She didn't have to.
The internet was doing it for her.
"You stole her man."
"You homewrecking countryside bitch."
"She trusted you with her wedding and you used it to get in his bed?"
"No wonder she hasn't posted a new dress. She's too busy being a whore."
Scarlett had stopped reading after the first thirty. But the words stuck. They crawled under her skin and rewrote parts of her she used to recognize.
Sadie appeared, kneeling in front of her. "Hey. Breathe. You're not going to break."
Scarlett looked up, her eyes dull. "I already did."
Sadie bit her lip. "Brian's press statement he told them to leave you alone. That was something."
Scarlett let out a brittle laugh. "He said, respect her privacy. Not her name. Not her place. He didn't even say why they should. Just tossed a net over it and walked away."
Sadie didn't argue. Because she knew.
Brian had made a move, sure. But it wasn't protection. It was a warning. A PR leash. It might have kept the legal wolves back but it didn't stop the bleeding.
Her phone buzzed again. A text. Her cousin, back in Willows Creek:
Are you okay? Everyone here is talking about it. Mom saw it on the news. It's on the freaking NEWS.
She didn't respond.
Another message, this time from an old friend:
Never figured you for this type. Didn't think you had it in you.
Guess the city changes people.
Scarlett closed her eyes. The world was quieter in the dark.
"I shouldn't have said yes to him," she whispered. "Not after I knew."
Sadie stayed silent.
"I saw the ring. I heard the stories. And I still let myself be wanted. Like it didn't matter."
"It wasn't just you," Sadie said softly.
Scarlett gave a hollow smile. "Doesn't change the way it looks. Like I climbed out of a cornfield and ruined the city princess's life."
Sadie stood abruptly, eyes narrowing. "Okay. No. We're not doing this. I'm calling the cops."
Then headlights.
Three black SUVs pulled up in front of the store.
Scarlett stood, blood buzzing with adrenaline. "What the hell"...
The doors opened. Security guards stepped out. Suits. Earpieces. That quiet, clinical energy of men trained to control chaos.
They moved toward the store with measured, inevitable steps.
Sadie met them at the door. "Can I help you?"
One of them handed her a phone.
Scarlett hesitated then took it.
"Scarlett." Brian's voice. Calm. Low. Measured.
She stared at the phone like it might burn her ear.
"I saw the videos," he said. "I sent them. You're not safe right now."
"You think I didn't know that?" Her voice cracked like dry glass. "You let the world eat me alive, Brian."
"I didn't want to escalate things."
"No. You just didn't want to name me."
Silence.
"I didn't mean for this to happen to you."
Scarlett's throat tightened. "Do you think I care what you meant? I'm being slaughtered. I'm trending. My store is surrounded. Your fiancée is turning me into a sainted villain while she mourns in candlelight and filters."
"She's hurt."
"So. Am. I."
More silence.
"I'll fix it," he said at last. "I'll make it right."
Scarlett didn't answer.
Because she didn't believe him.
Not yet.
She handed the phone back to the guard, who nodded and took up position at the entrance. The others joined him, forming a wall between the store and the crowd.
The noise outside didn't stop. The cameras didn't lower.
But the line had been drawn.
Inside, Scarlett stood beneath the studio lights, breathing in the faint scent of lavender and steel. The scent that used to calm her.
Now, it made her ache.
Camille hadn't sent guards.
She didn't need to.
She had the world.
Scarlett had a lock.
A coat.
A bruised heart.
But she was still standing.
Yes, she was the mistress.
The villain in the headlines.
The punchline in a city that spoke in hashtags.
But she was alive.
And she wasn't going anywhere.