Page 35 of Still A Cowboy
Delia smiled knowingly and disappeared toward the kitchen.
Willa led them to one of the corner tables, far from the windows, and they all sat down.
Cal wasted no time getting this party started. “Why did you leak the video?” he demanded.
Sawyer leaned back slightly, his grin fadingas the weight of the question settled over the table. Willa stared at both of them, waiting for their answer, her pulse drumming loud in her ears.
Lark blinked, her smile tight. “What video?”
Willa huffed, dragging her phone out of her pocket. “This one.”
She pulled up the grainy footage, the video that had thrown her life into complete chaos, and pushed it across the table.
Lark and Sawyer leaned in, watching it play, their expressions tightening as they took in every frame. They looked like they were genuinely seeing it for the first time.
Sawyer shook his head slowly. “We didn’t post this.”
Willa’s brows shot up. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Sawyer said, his tone firm. “First of all, the quality is garbage. If we were going to post something like this, it would be clean, high-def, fully branded.”
“Definitely,” Lark chimed in, flipping the phone back toward Willa. “No product placement, no camera angles that highlight the story, no mention of our sponsors. This doesn’t do anything for us.”
Sawyer gestured toward the phone. “We build every vlog around a narrative, a feel-good, adventure-romance story that we carefully control. We don’t just post grainy, sketchy clips like this. It’s not our brand.”
Willa stared at them, the knot in her chesttightening. Either they were telling the truth, or they wereverygood liars. She glanced at Cal. His jaw was set, his eyes steady on Sawyer.
They weren’t getting the answers they expected, but that didn’t mean they were done. Not even close.
Willa steadied her breath, trying to keep her frustration from boiling over. “The video of Cal and me was filmed from the Driftwood Manor across the street.”
Lark and Sawyer leaned in, both listening but still wearing unreadable expressions.
Willa hesitated, not sure how to phrase it without sounding like a complete lunatic. “There was a couple in the manor… doing, well, some role play. A camera was set up to film them, but Cal and I must have gotten caught in the background.”
Blank looks. Lark blinked. Sawyer scratched his jaw.
Willa’s patience frayed. “Was it you? Were you the couple in the Driftwood Manor?”
They both stared at her for a beat, then burst out laughing. Loud, full-on, doubled-over laughing.
Sawyer clutched his chest like he was trying to breathe. “Oh no. No, no, no. First of all, we don’t film ourselves.”
Lark was still laughing, tears starting to form at the corners of her eyes.
Sawyer wiped his eyes and added, “That’s what Misty does. She films everything for us. Wedon’t handle the cameras ourselves.”
Willa’s stomach dipped. Brent had mentioned Misty. Said he was seeing her.
Cal’s brow lifted. “So maybe you didn’t film it for your brand, but you filmed it for your own private fun.”
Sawyer let out another sharp laugh, shaking his head. “Not a chance. What Lark and I do is performance. Every bit of it is for the vlog, for the clicks, for the story. We don’t waste moments like that for personal gratification.”
Lark grinned. “It’s all about the spectacle, not the… well, you know.”
Willa sat back in her chair, both irked and completely thrown. If it wasn’t Lark and Sawyer in the window, then who had been? And why did Misty’s name suddenly feel like a puzzle piece snapping into place?
Cal’s hand found hers under the table, his grip steady. Willa didn’t say a word, but her heart was already racing toward the next question. Who had leaked that video of them… and why?
