Chapter 19 · The Story He Sold

Grant's hand lands on my shoulder before I can step back, and the ring light on his phone snaps on so bright I flinch.

"There she is," he says, not to me. To the lens. "The girl who wouldn't let her family's crisis stop her from doing her job."

"Get your hand off me."

He doesn't. His thumb presses harder, like he's steadying a prop, like I'm furniture he's arranging. "Smile a little, Lila. This is good for you."

Joy's still three feet away, mascara wrecked, chest heaving from the fight we just had, and now there's a stranger with a four-thousand-dollar phone rig turning her sister's meltdown into content.

"Good for me?" I twist out from under his hand, hard enough that he almost drops the phone. "You're filming my sister crying. Right now. While she's crying."

"I'm filming a rescue." Grant angles the phone so the lobby chandelier catches behind my head like a halo he didn't earn. "Investor saves hardworking maid from a public scene. Humanizes the brand. Humanizes me."

"I wasn't in danger. I wasn't rescued."