Renesmee's Pov

I slam my palm against the radio dial, twisting it with a grunt of pure frustration. The voice of some pompous talk show host cuts off mid-sentence. It's no use. The next channel is just more of the same. I can't escape it. My name is everywhere.

"-a shame, really. What is the next generation turning into? This girl, I hear, is barely twenty-five, and she's allegedly sleeping her way through the office hierarchy? I heard she recently got a promotion that raised a lot of eyebrows..."

My hands are shaking on the steering wheel. I can't focus on the road. I pull over sharply onto the shoulder, the tires crunching on gravel. I just need a second. I need to breathe. But my name catches my ear again, this time from outside the car. It's coming from a small cafe across the street, their outdoor television tuned to a national news channel.

The headline on the screen is bolder, more unapologetic than anything I've seen yet.

[Career Advancement or Sexual Trade: Renesmee Batista finally exposed after seducing hockey star, Dalton Kentucky]

A silent, hot stream of tears rolls down my cheeks. I don't even feel them coming. On screen, a panel of reporters is dissecting the story. One of them, a woman with a sharp bob, reads from a report, her voice shrill and dripping with judgment from the cafe's speakers.

"Back in my day," her male colleague starts with a loud, performative scoff, his tone oozing self-righteousness, "we worked hard for our noble careers instead of sleeping through them. It's clear she's merely a fling, look at her..."

They display a censored, blurred photograph on the screen. But it's censored all wrong. You can still see the curve of my hip, the line of my bare shoulder, the unmistakable setting of a hotel room bed. My heart stops dead in my chest.

A surge of nausea, hot and violent, rises in my throat so strong I think I might be sick right there in the car. I've been exposed. For millions of people to see. The humiliation is a physical ache, a raw, burning shame in my gut.

This was why. This was why he always wanted us to meet at a hotel and never his house. The thought is a desperate, clawing thing. It's hard not to blame him, but we were the only two people in that room. Maybe his phone was hacked. Maybe the hotel had hidden cameras. He couldn't be this cruel. He just couldn't.

Now, the narrative of me, the seductress, has spread like a virus. It's so complete, so accepted, that his deranged fans already attacked me in my own driveway.

The reporter on the screen continues, "Goodness knows how many other stars she's tried to sleep her way through. But now, from an exclusive interview with Dalton Kentucky himself, we've finally gotten a clearer view from the eyes of the victim."

I don't even think. It's like my brain has short-circuited. I instinctively open the car door and step out, my legs moving on their own, carrying me across the street toward the cafe. I stop on the sidewalk, my body trembling, and stare up at the screen.

There he is. Dalton. Seated at the same polished desk he once bent me over. He looks calm, legs crossed with a dangerous, easy confidence as he casually plays with a tennis ball, rolling it between his fingers.

"Usually, I don't do anything like this," he starts, his voice a low, serious rumble that I used to find soothing. Now it just sounds like a lie. "But I was quite shocked," he continues. "When Renesmee Batista met me at first, I thought it was just for the TW magazine, where she worked. At the time, she was a photographer and intern. We developed a good work relationship, and she finally got a job as a junior journalist at Sports Watch TV."

My breath hitches. I pray, right there on the sidewalk, that he'll deny it. That he'll say we were dating. That he'll admit he came on to me first. That he'll tell them he loved me.

The next words send my entire world careening off its axis.

"It's happened multiple times before," he says, as casually as if he's discussing the weather. "I've only decided to play dumb and pretend like it was just a young girl with a celebrity crush. She's approached me with seductive clothing numerous times and I've tried to keep my distance. But due to the proximity of work, I've done my best." He clears his throat, a practiced gesture of faux discomfort. "Lest I forget that our work relationship also brought favours to her, like her promotion at work." He pauses, letting that insinuation hang in the air. "On the night when she finally made her move, she had texted me to finalise the details of the interview I had granted Sports Watch after my Grey Cup win." He sighs, a heavy, put-upon sound, and drops the ball on the table with a definitive thud. "She had it all prepared. She was stripped before I could say a word and came on to me, which I quickly refused."

I can't breathe. The air is gone from my lungs.

The reporter leans forward. "And why did your management decide to publicise this harassment?"

"She had threatened me," he says, his voice hardening. He looks directly into the camera, and it feels like he's looking right at me, right through me. "She threatened to twist the narrative, to post pictures and make it look like I harassed her if I didn't cave in. I had to report first to protect myself." He slips his hands into his pockets, standing up straight, owning the moment. "Additionally, due to my upcoming campaign on sexual harassment alongside my fiancee, Zara Montgomery, I decided to show the world and everyone that even the celebrities you idolise go through the same thing. And this is a lesson to those who think that they can sleep their way through the top...it only makes you a monster and not a person."

Fiancée. Zara Montgomery. Monster.

The words hit me like physical blows. My legs wobble, threatening to give out. The world around me: the cafe, the traffic, the people blurs into a smear of color and noise as fresh, hot tears prick my eyes. He's engaged? I seduced him? I threatened him? I can't pick a single coherent thought from the wreckage.

The world seems to pick one for me. A sudden, wet crack against the side of my head makes me stagger.

I turn, dazed. A raw egg yolk slides down my temple. A group of women stands a few feet away, their faces twisted in anger.

"Whore!" one of them shrieks, her voice cutting through the hum of the city.

I need to get out of here. Now. I stumble back toward my car, my heart hammering against my ribs. The engine is still running. Just get in. Just drive. But before my hand can touch the door handle, another projectile hits me. This one is a cup of something hot and vile. It splashes across my chest and face. The smell is overwhelming-rotten fish, garbage, something unnameable and foul. It clings to my skin and hair.

My gaze meets that of my assailant. Another woman, who ran out from a nearby store, her hands still empty from throwing whatever was in that cup.

"Shame on you!" she screams, her face red with fury. "You deserve to die! Homewrecker!"

My lips part. I want to counter her, to scream back that it's all a lie, but no sound comes out. From the corner of my eye, I see more people stopping, turning, slipping in from the sidewalk to see the commotion. They'd beat me to death right here. I know it.

I wipe the stinking liquid from my eyes, yank the car door open, and throw myself inside. I slam it shut and lock the doors, my hands slipping on the gearshift as I pull back onto the highway. I drive speedily, the wind whipping through the open window doing nothing to clear the horrific smell or the ringing in my ears.

The words finally hit me all at once, a tsunami of despair. The smirk on his face during the interview. The smooth, easy lies that rolled off his tongue. My body, my privacy, displayed for the world. The snide remarks from strangers. The fact that I just lost my job, my reputation, my entire life.

All of it, every single crushing detail, finally pauses when a blinding wall of grille metal fills my windshield.

A large truck, horrendously loud and impossibly big, T-bones my vehicle. The impact is a deafening roar of crushing metal and shattering glass. The world spins violently, a nauseating carousel of sky and pavement.

My body is thrown against the seatbelt, then slammed into the door. The screech of tearing metal is the last thing I hear as my vision tunnels into blackness, the glass shards piercing my skin like a final, cruel punctuation to the worst day of my life. And then, nothing.