Click!
Click!
The camera lenses flashed ruthlessly, a strobe light of public execution. Every pop of light captured the raw, disheveled ruin of Louisa Asher's life as she clutched the white sheets tightly across herself, shielding the last shred of her dignity from the reporters surrounding her bed and filming her.
"Louisa! Is this how you celebrate your engagement? A romantic night with a stranger while your fiancé was barely out of the ballroom?!" a reporter asked coldly, shoving a microphone toward her face.
"Do you feel no shame? How long has this secret affair been going on behind Jethro's back?!"
"Please, stop. Stop… please. My head... It's hurting. Just leave me alone," Louisa whispered, pressing a trembling hand against her temple. A heavy, intoxicated fog hammered against her skull, blurring her vision and making the room spin in a nauseating whirl.
The questions echoed like distorted screams in her mind.
Only hours ago, she had been the radiant center of the most lavish engagement party of the year. She was supposed to wake up in the arms of the man she had loved for ten years. Instead, she had opened her eyes to the crashing sound of doors being kicked in and the blinding glare of a scandal that felt like a nightmare she couldn't wake up from.
Before she could even grasp the gravity of her situation, a familiar, roaring voice tore through the crowd.
"Move aside!"
Carlos Asher shoved his way through the pack of journalists. Louisa's father stormed toward the bed, his face a mask of flushed-veined fury. Behind him followed her mother, Madison, who was frantically—and unsuccessfully—trying to push the cameras out of the room.
Carlos stopped at the foot of the bed, his eyes blazing with a lethal, disappointed fire.
"Is this what you've been doing? Dragging the Asher name through the gutter of your shameful and disgraceful acts!" His voice thundered, vibrating the thin air.
Indignation, sharp and cold, pierced Louisa's heart as she looked up at him with tear-blurred eyes. "Dad... I haven't done anything. I would never hurt our family. I've always been your good girl..."
"Did nothing wrong? A good girl?" Carlos repeated, his voice dropping into a terrifying, mocking hiss.
Without warning, he hurled a thick stack of high-resolution photos at her. They struck her bare shoulders like shards of glass, scattering across the rumpled sheets.
"Tell me who that is! Look at her! Does she not have your face? Your body? Who is the man you were with?! What kind of 'good girl' crawls into a hotel bed with a random man the night of her engagement? Since when did my daughter become a whore?!"
Madison gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in horror. "Carlos, please! You can't say such awful things to her. Louisa is—"
"Madison!" Carlos snapped, rounding on his wife with a look that could kill. "I know you're illiterate, but has it blinded your eyes as well? Look at the evidence! Look at the disgrace standing right in front of us!"
He pointed a trembling finger at the photos. Madison's lips parted to defend her daughter, but the words withered under her husband's savage rebuke. She could only stand by, watching Louisa drown in a sea of despair.
Louisa's breath hitched as her eyes finally locked onto the images. Her hands shook violently as she pulled one closer, desperate to find a flaw, a sign of a deep fake, anything.
She looked at the man in the photo.
A cold tidal wave of realization crashed over her. The man in the shadows, his face partially obscured, had a distinct, slim scar running across his shoulder blade.
It wasn't Jethro.
It was a total stranger. She had spent her engagement night—the most sacred night of her life—with a shadow.
"This is me... but I don't know this man! I was with Jethro! I remember being with Jethro!"
"What is there to ask when Jethro was with us the entire time after the party?!" Carlos roared. "I've had enough of your unruly behavior and your filthy lies!"
"I'm not lying, Dad!" Louisa's voice broke into a desperate shriek.
"Your filth is staining me, and I will not let you take me down with you!"
In a sudden, violent movement, Carlos yanked the sheets off Louisa's body. She had no time to cover herself as he seized her wrist, dragging her off the mattress. In nothing but her thin camisole and shorts, she was hauled toward the door like a common criminal.
"Please, Dad! You're hurting me! I swear, I was with him!" Louisa sobbed, her feet stumbling as she was forced down the hallway. "Someone framed me! Please, just look at the truth!"
"What is there to frame when you've made yourself worthless?" He shot her a lethal glare over his shoulder.
When they reached the grand front entrance, Carlos threw the doors open and shoved her out with a force that sent her reeling onto the porch. Her luggage, already packed by the staff, was thrown out after her.
"Get out!" Carlos bellowed. "As of this second, Louisa Asher is dead to this family! You are hereby banished to Mist City. Do not show your face here until I say otherwise!"
Mist City. The frozen, desolate mountain waste overseas was worst than a normal countryside. It was a death sentence for someone raised in luxury.
"No... please. Don't do this. Give me a chance to prove it!" Louisa collapsed to her knees, clutching his trouser leg, her face a mask of agony. "I still love you! I'm still your daughter!"
"Carlos, stop! The cameras are watching!" Madison wailed, reaching for his arm. "Take it back! Please!"
"Let them watch! Let the world see that Carlos Asher does not harbor filth!" He snarled, violently shaking off his wife's grip.
Madison stumbled back, nearly hitting the doorpost, her eyes wide with the realization that her husband had truly snapped. Without a backward glance, Carlos grabbed Madison by the arm and hauled her inside.
"Mom! Mom, please!" Louisa screamed, her voice echoing off the stone walls.
The heavy oak door slammed shut with a final, echoing thud.
"Please don't leave me!" Louisa sobbed, her fists pounding uselessly against the cold wood. In that moment, the world didn't just crumble—it vanished. Her identity, her father, her future... all gone.
Suddenly, a sleek black sedan roared into the driveway, tires screeching as it halted.
The doors flew open. A young woman in a form-fitting dress jumped out, followed by a man in a pristine three-piece white suit—the very suit Jethro Farris had worn for their engagement.
"Louisa!" a soft, panicked voice cried out.
Louisa looked up through her tears to see her sister, Jasmine, rushing toward her.
Jethro was right behind her, his face etched with practiced concern.
"I saw the news... I was so scared Father would do something rash," Jasmine cried, pulling Louisa into a tight, soothing embrace.
"Jasmine... I didn't do it. I don't know how this happened," Louisa whimpered into her sister's shoulder.
"I know, I know you didn't," Jasmine whispered, stroking her hair.
Louisa pulled back slightly, her eyes searching Jethro's—the man she had loved since she was a teenager, the man she had promised her life to.
"Jethro... you were with me, right? You know it was you?"
"You were with me last night, weren't you?" Louisa asked, her voice tinged with hope.
Jethro's expression flickered with a shadow of guilt. "I was with you, Louisa... but I had to leave the venue after I got that emergency call. I wasn't there for the rest of the night."
Louisa's heart stopped. "But—"
"I trust you, Louisa," Jethro said firmly, cutting her off as he stepped closer. "But I don't trust that man. He must be a predator, a pervert who drugged you. I promise you, I will find him. I will make him pay for what he did to you."
"But Dad... he disowned me. He kicked me out!" she bursted into a sob again.
Jasmine let out a dramatic, horrified gasp.
"What?!" she cried, her brow furrowing with deep disappointment. "How could he do this over a baseless rumor? Without even a trial?!"
Jethro looked at the two sisters, his jaw set. "Don't lose hope, Louisa. Once I talk to Uncle Carlos and he calms down, he'll listen to reason. For now, we have to get you away from these cameras."
Jasmine nodded firmly, wiping a tear from Louisa's cheek. "Let's go. I'll take you to the apartment. You'll be safe with me until this blows over."
"Mm," Louisa hummed, having no problem returning to the apartment she had been sharing with Jasmine.
Louisa moved mechanically, her body numb as if purged into a pool of iceberg. She didn't spare a single glance for the predatory lenses still outside the villa grand gate as she slipped into the red sedan, while Jethro sprinted back toward the house to plead her case.
As Jasmine navigated through the crowded pavement, pushing past the swarming reporters, Louisa gripped her seatbelt with white-knuckled intensity. Her pulse thundered with a frantic, jagged rhythm that threatened to shatter under the weight of her grief.
"Now that Dad has cast you out, he isn't going to stop there," Jasmine said, her voice tight as she navigated the steering wheel. "He'll likely freeze your accounts and block your assets. Louisa, what do you plan to do next?"
"I don't know," Louisa whispered, her voice sounding hollow even to her own ears. "I'm lost."
"I'm not certain how long it will take Jethro to find this man and clear your name," Jasmine continued thoughtfully, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. "But you need to think carefully. You have to prepare for a life alone."
Louisa's chest clenched, the air in the car suddenly feeling too thin. The reality of the situation was a physical blow. No matter how she racked her brain, she couldn't fathom how the press had tracked her to that specific villa. She had bought it in secret just two months ago—a private sanctuary, a gift for their engagement, and the foundation of the life she and Jethro were meant to build.
How had her sanctuary become her tomb?
Clueless and trembling, Louisa pressed her eyes shut, praying with every fiber of her being that when she opened them, this nightmare would dissolve into a dream.