Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
I groaned, never more ashamed to share a face with a person than I was right then. “Let me guess, she didn’t apologize in any shape or form.”
“Nope. Not even when it got out that she gave that innocent woman second-degree burns,” Courtney said. “Sue just hopped on socials, crying and bawling that she was the real victim. She was the one forever being stalked, recorded, and harassed by strangers who couldn’t understand that ‘everyone has a human moment.’”
“A human moment?! She called that a human moment?!”
“You know she did.” Court rolled her eyes. “As you can imagine, her complete lack of accountability made the backlash worse—which turned the river she was crying into an ocean. She was the one being bullied and felt unsafe. Her mental health was suffering and the rest of the world were the real monsters because we wouldn’t accept her apology and move on.”
“The apology she never gave?” I clarified.
“Yep, that’s the one.”
I shook my head. All of that was typical Sue behavior every time she got caught in a lie or terrible act she couldn’t wiggle her way out of, but still, it would never stop surprising me that anyone could live an entire life without ever saying sorry.
“As you can imagine,” she continued, “your sister was canceled hard. All of her sponsors dropped her. None of her followers would support her. Did you really never hear about any of this?”
“I had no idea,” I confessed. “For one, I for damn sure did not follow Sue on socials. I avoided anything to do with her. I didn’t even like looking in the mirror for a full two years after she ruined my life. Besides, you don’t have a lot of time to mess around on social media when you’re trying to survive into the next day.”
“Very true,” she said, falling back against her seat. “Well, if it makes you feel better, after the café incident, Sue’s world tour adventure was done. She ended up moving back to New York, officially marrying Rhodes, and commitment ceremonying Alex and Micah. Their baby was born pretty quickly after that, and they settled into domestic bliss.”
I nodded slow. “Do you know when they all moved to Lantana and into the manor?”
“I want to say it was a little before Taylor was born,” Courtney drew out, her gaze drifting over my head and into the past. “Mom and Dad still aren’t big fans of mine, but they love their grandbaby, and have since I told them I was pregnant. Mom even threw a huge party for my baby shower and invited your mom. What’s even wilder is that your mom actually came.”
“She came?” My brows hit my hairline. “The same woman who called you an insolent slut went to a baby shower for a kid named Chlamydia?”
Courtney giggled even as she swatted me. “She absolutely did, and she brought Sue. Your mom,” she stressed, “was very polite and courteous the entire time. She congratulated me and gifted Taylor the cutest pair of purple baby booties. But your sister spent my entire baby shower hitting up my family, friends, and all the other moms to invest in her new organic skincare line—SueNaturals. The flagship product of SueNation,” she mocked.
“Yikes.”
“Yeah, yikes, and now we get to the good part.”
“No,” I groaned, massaging my temple. “Please, don’t tell me there’s more. There can’t be more after my sister went full psycho racist bitch on an innocent waitress.”
She gave me an amused smirk. “Oh, there’s more all right. Sue clearly believed all she had to do was wait for the heat to die down, and then everyone would be willing to forgive and forget. But she was wrong. No one wanted a thing to do with SueNaturals, or the lifestyle brand she was trying to resurrect.
“She claimed she invented the formula for an all-in-one, all-natural and organic face cream that was a moisturizer, anti-wrinkler, and blemish-eraser. She hawked it like mad, but she clearly couldn’t get the buzz going, because suddenly an ad went up on the Lantana Business Bureau website saying she was taking on affiliates.
“For every jar an affiliate sold, they’d get a seventy percent cut of the sticker price.”
I whistled. “Wow. That was generous of her.”
“Wasn’t it?” Her smirk went nowhere. “All of a sudden, SueNaturals was the talk of Lantana. People were holding parties and inviting all of their friends to hear about this amazing, revolutionary new face cream. They were getting their own followers all whipped up.
“Sue was making money again, and she was loving it. All of a sudden, she was back on the hashtag-femboss scene, going on about expanding into fashion with SueThreads and money management with SueMoola.”
“But...” I drew out.
“But—” Courtney cut herself off giggling. “All of a sudden, the first batch of SueNaturals customers started reporting rashes, breakouts, hives, and skin infections in the places where they applied her cream. Sue swore up, down, and sideways that it had nothing to do with her product, and she wasn’t responsible, so one of them took it to a lab to be analyzed.”