They are destroying your girl online.
Sam clicked through to the article Walls had sent him, his blood boiling as he saw the headline. He clicked back to his messages and saw similar texts from Corie and Lilah with the same article and more from Bossip and TMZ. There was another text from Zach just saying to call him when he could. He had a feeling what it was about.
He called Walls.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“No clue. I just got off the phone with Corie. They are trying to keep Miss Leona from seeing it for now. What’s the play? What do you want me to do? You want me to call Coffey?”
“No. He won’t care about this. I mean, he will, but he trusts me. He won’t freak out unless I freak out.”
“Are you freaking out?”
“Not sure yet. I need to talk to Amanda.”
“You sure? Looks like her people leaked this.”
“What people? She’s—” He almost let slip that she wasn’t a writer, but a personal assistant, but he knew she still felt embarrassed about her job even though there was nothing to be embarrassed about. “She doesn’t have people. This isn’t her style of bullshit.”
“Well, someone leaked it. What do you want me to do? What’s the next move?” Walls asked just as Sam heard the door to Jesse’s side of the bungalow open. His brother ambled in, half asleep, scrubbing his hand over his face, then sat down on the edge of Sam’s bed. He had his own phone in his hand.
“Nothing. Don’t do anything yet. I need to talk to Amanda. If I know her the way I think I do she had nothing to do with this. She doesn’t want this kind of attention or this kind of heat.”
“Alright. I’m turning off the comments on your Instagram.”
“God, please. Thanks, man.”
“No problem. Call me back.”
Sam ended the call, then turned on the bedside lamp. Jesse looked up at him, squinting. “Lilah and Corie called me and told me to wake you up. You should call your girl.” This vacation had done wonders for Jesse’s temperament, but he knew what his brother wasn’t saying.Talk to Amanda and get to the bottom of this before I start making calls.Jesse didn’t play when it came to anyone in their family. If he thought for one second that Amanda was trying to hurt or use Sam, he’d do his best to make sure she never came near him again. Sam appreciated it, but he knew there was no way she did this.
He switched over to her contact, smashing his thumb on the little phone icon. The line rang twice before she picked up.
“Sam,” she said, her voice breaking into a sob. “I’m so sorry.”
He hated that she was upset, but the sound of her voice took some of the pressure off his chest. “Cha-Cha, don’t cry. Tell me what happened.”
“You saw everything?”
“I saw the TMZ post. I’m guessing there’s more.” He glanced over at Jesse, who seemed to be going through Twitter.
“Same stuff on different sites. Dru did this.”
“Dru who?”
“Anastasia. I work, well, I worked for Dru Anastasia. She’s—”
“A huge asshole!” he heard someone say in the background.
“I’m with Helene and Ignacio.”
“Oh, good. I—okay. Tell me what’s going on.” Sam listened as Amanda filled him in. She told him everything. How Dru had spotted her in the CelebGossipCentral photos and then tried to force her to hand Sam and his grandmother up to Dru on a silver platter. She showed him the texts that made it pretty obvious that Dru had been the one to contact TMZ and connect all the dots between the truth and the little information on the other gossip site.
“Then I fucked up and told her you and I were together. I know I shouldn’t have said anything. And I definitely shouldn’t have quit. I just—”
“Wait, wait, wait. Dru Anastasia. She’s been trying to get at me for weeks.”
“Ugh. She mentioned thinking you were attractive, but I didn’t think she’d make a move.”