Page 175 of Sweet Ruin

He pans past Jolene in the office doorway. Cameron turns away at once, forearm coming up to shield his face.

The man laughs. “What are you hiding?”

“Mostly a pimple,” Cameron mutters. “But now, also my desire to punch you.”

I put both palms on the counter. “Phone down.”

The camera snaps back to me.

Up close, the man is younger than I first thought. Expensive puffer jacket, wet blond hair. He has the charged, shiny-eyed look of someone who spent the subway ride here rehearsing this for an audience that lives inside his phone.

“You destroyed a man’s life for clicks,” he accuses. “You humiliated your own sister because you’re jealous.”

“Sure. That’s why I played the video that she filmed.”

His mouth tightens. Logic: the natural predator of the livestreaming dipshit.

“You deliberately edited it to make her look bad!”

“Did you want the director’s cut?” I laugh. “There’s plenty of free versions just one Google search away.”

A few customers laugh. His phone jerks toward them, recording faces before they can duck away.

That does it.

It’s not so funny anymore.

“You need to leave,” I tell him.

“I drove two hours to reveal your lies to my followers!”

“Then you’ve got a nice long ride home to think about your choices.”

“I’m not going fuckin’ anywhere.” He plants an elbow on the glass case, nearly crushing a display of raspberry thumbprints. “People deserve to see what you’re really like.”

I start to come around the counter.

Priya catches my apron tie. “Delilah.”

“I’m fine. Seriously.”

This is not entirely true. My pulse is flinging itself against my throat, and the personification of every ugly comment I’ve received online is suddenly standing in my bakery wearing a Moncler jacket.

But this is my floor beneath my Crocs.

My name is on the window.

And I make the rules around here.

“You were told to leave,” I say. “If you stay, you’re trespassing.”

He turns the phone on me at point-blank range. “What are you gonna do, you cow? Sit on me?”

Behind him, Yuri growls.

Normally, that’s the kind of word you use for a man with a deep voice saying something fierce.

This is not like that.