Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com.

That's audible.com.uk.uk slash Wondery.

The amazing Kate Casey.

Welcome back for another episode of Reality Life with KKC.

And today's episode is about a true crime doc series called

Don't Date Brandon on Paramount Plus. There's a saying that we've all heard, love makes you do

crazy things. But what happens when love itself is the lie? Amber thought she'd found something real.

It started the way so many modern romances do. It's a message, a photo,

a charming man who seemed to see her, and I mean really see her. And his name was Brandon. He was

attentive, funny, kind. He told her everything that she wanted to hear. And he painted a picture

of the perfect life,

one that seemed so close she could almost touch it.

But behind that picture was something darker.

At first it was the little things, the inconsistencies, the missed calls, the vague stories that didn't quite add up.

The feeling that something was off off and then came the excuses,

the gaslighty, the manipulation. It's the kind of slow psychological erosion that makes you question

your own instincts. So when Amber started to dig, she found herself caught in a web of deception,

so intricate it could have only been built over

years. And she discovered that she wasn't the first woman to fall for Brandon's story,

not by a long shot. There was another woman. Athena had lived her own version of Brandon's lie.

The same charm, the same stories, the same emotional con. And when Amber reached out to her,

it was like two survivors finding each other after the storm.

...