Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
King of Fragile Egos (9 minutes ago): I wanted to give you a warning, but my publicist advised against it, so I’m sorry you’re waking up to this. I’m not doing any of it to hurt you, Mia. It’s just show business. And honestly, you should have known better than to pull something so stupid. It’s not right to lie to your fans for your own benefit. Garrett has a reputation in this industry that he’s worked hard for, and he was fair with his reviews of your album. Just because you can’t handle a little critique doesn’t give you the right to discredit him the way you and your team have been.
King of Fragile Egos (4 minutes ago): I hope you understand where I’m coming from. Maybe when the dust settles, you and I could get together. I really do miss you, love.
My heart beat faster and harder with each word, denting my ribcage and strangling my breath. I didn’t even click into his thread, just scrolled up to the other notifications I’d missed.
Google alerts and headlines assassinated me one by one, along with a string of missed calls and texts from Isabella, Giana, my agent, my tour manager, my mom, my dad — everyone I knew.
All of them either demanding I call them, asking if I was okay, or a combination of the two.
“Mia?”
I heard my name through what felt like a dense fog, my heart thumping in my ears now as the headlines popped up again and again.
“Mia, what’s wrong?”
Aleks was at my side now, tilting my chin with his knuckles, his concerned eyes finding mine beneath bent brows.
I couldn’t speak.
I just handed him my phone with trembling hands.
Exposed: Mia Love and Aleks Suter’s Relationship Was All a Lie
Austin Westbrook Spills the Tea: Inside Mia Love’s PR Nightmare
From Fake Love to Real Scandal: Mia Love and Aleks Suter’s Lies Exposed
Austin Westbrook Calls Out Ex Mia Love for Lying to Her Fans in Scathing Tell All
Sources Confirm Mia Love and Aleks Suter’s ‘Relationship’ Was Just Smoke and Mirrors
Mia Love’s Album and Tour Crisis: Is This the End of Her Career?
Aleks Suter and Mia Love’s Publicity Stunt Gone Wrong: Fans React
I watched his face as Aleks scrolled through the headlines I’d just read, the ones now burned into my brain forever.
Tell all.
Lies.
Crisis.
Fake.
Exposed.
Austin had done a tell all with Garrett. There was an article and a podcast to accompany it. There was some inside source that had given them all the proof they needed. They were on a mission to take us down.
And they’d done it.
Black dots invaded the edges of my vision the more Aleks scrolled, and when he cursed under his breath, I used that word as permission to panic.
“Oh, God,” I whispered, eyes welling with tears as I shoved a hand through my greasy hair. “Oh, God.”
I stood, ready to pace behind Aleks as my ribcage squeezed painfully tight around my lungs, but my legs were like lead. I couldn’t move. I was having a heart attack. I was going to die.
“Come here.” Aleks dropped my phone to the counter, grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me into him. I was in a daze, not fighting against him even slightly as he wrapped me in his arms. “Look at me.”
But I couldn’t.
I stared at my bare feet on his wood floor, heart racing faster and faster, ears buzzing.
They know.
They all know it was a lie.
“Mia, look at me.”
When I still didn’t, Aleks dipped his head until he was in my eye line. His hands were on my shoulders, steadying me. His eyes bore into mine.
“It’s going to be okay.”
My phone started buzzing on the counter, the jolt of it so hard the thing was moving across the granite like a bug. Aleks slapped it like one, too, before hastily shoving it in the pocket of his joggers to muffle the noise.
But it didn’t matter what he did now, didn’t matter if my whole team tried to shield me from the damage. I’d already seen it.
Headline after headline, article after article, brand after brand. There were photos of Aleks with the girl from last night, the one we’d set up ourselves, now used against us. There were pictures of when I dated Austin — the ones snapped during our fights when he looked calm and stoic and I was losing my mind.
He made me that way.
He made me crazy.
The manipulation, the gaslighting… it seeped into my bloodstream like poison, turning me into someone I didn’t recognize.
And now, more than a year after our breakup, I still wasn’t free from him. He still had power over me.
Months of carefully laid plans, all erased with just one interview where he said it was all fake.
“They’re exposing us, Aleks,” I whispered, finally blinking away my haze to look at him. “They’re exposing me.”