Chapter 41: My Husband Stands With Me
I opened the bathroom door and shouted, "I’m awake! Wait a second!"
Quickly, I splashed water on my face, trying to wash away the traces of tears on my cheeks. But unfortunately, it couldn’t hide my slightly red eyes or the puffiness beneath them.
I grabbed a towel and patted my face dry, forcing myself to take a deep breath before stepping out. My heart pounded as I reached for the door, trying to fix my expression so Henry wouldn’t notice how wrecked I actually looked.
After taking several deep breaths, I finally opened the door. "What’s wrong, Hen—" I stopped mid-sentence when I saw Lando beside Henry. This time, he was sitting in his wheelchair, looking neat and tidy, probably already prepared to leave.
"Oh, husband? I thought you were going out of town today?" I asked.
He had already canceled his schedule for me yesterday, so it didn’t seem possible for him to cancel it again today. That would look unprofessional and could damage his image.
"I am leaving," Lando said as he rolled his wheelchair closer to me. "But I wanted to see you first." His eyes swept over me from head to toe, steady and searching. "Are you alright?"
I pressed my lips into a thin line. I had tried to calm my heart, but somehow, the moment I heard that question come out of Lando’s mouth, I couldn’t help but feel like crying.
Without another thought, I pulled his wheelchair into my room and shut the door behind us, leaving Henry waiting in the hall.
The moment the door clicked shut, I covered my face with my hands and crouched in front of Lando. I really didn’t want him to see me cry, but maybe the hangover and the pounding headache made everything too hard to hold back.
"People are talking badly about me," I whispered at last, my voice shaking. "It’s all happening so fast."
Slowly, I lifted my face, forcing myself to meet Lando’s eyes. "Yesterday, people were still defending me ... but now they’re attacking me. They’re saying it makes sense for Madeline to bully me because they think I stole her father."
A bitter laugh slipped out between my sobs. "Doesn’t that sound ridiculous?" My voice cracked as tears choked me. Honestly, at this point, I couldn’t even tell anymore which pain belonged to Helcia and which was truly my own.
I tried to wipe my tears as I desperately kept talking. "Rosélle Beauty just contacted me. They said if this problem doesn’t go away soon, they might cut off our partnership. I haven’t even started my career yet!"
My voice broke into a whine. "Doesn’t that mean I’ll have to pay back their advance? What about the penalty fees?"
I cried even louder as I thought about all that bullshit. It truly reminded me of my past, when I had no one, when I sat alone in my dark apartment, crying until I couldn’t breathe. But now ... at least I wasn’t alone. Now, I could cry and pour out all my frustration in front of my poor husband.
But wasn’t I only adding to his burden? He was already prepared to leave for his business trip out of town, yet here I was, forcing him to listen to me whining and breaking down over some bullshit on the internet.
"I’m sorry ...," I whispered, sobbing a bit louder. "You should have already left to do your work, but I made you stay here and listen to my rambling."
"Helcia." Lando finally spoke once I had calmed down and stopped whining. "The people spreading bad news about you are just paid pawns. The video was even boosted with ads."
"I know that ...." I said. "But that doesn’t matter. Those hate videos are already everywhere, and people will believe them."
That’s how people are. They usually believe what they see if a video seems convincing.
If someone posts a tearful montage of Madeline, painting her as the poor girl suffering because my mother was her father’s mistress, of course the crowd will side with her.
They’ll even go further, making up disgusting stories, like saying Helcia’s mother forced Gideon into bed, just to clear his name and drag me down more.
It’s nothing but a dirty media game, and in the end, the side with more money usually wins.
Lando’s gaze deepened on me. "If they can pay people to hate you," he said firmly, reaching out to stroke my cheek with his thumb as if trying to wipe away the tears. "Then I can pay people to protect you."
I looked up at him, holding my breath until my chest felt unbearably heavy. He said it so calmly, as if what he was suggesting was as easy as flipping a hand.
"I can ask someone I know to remove all the hate videos about you from the app," Lando said.
I bit down on my lip, realizing that he was the owner of the app, and if he wanted to, he could make those videos vanish in an instant and push whatever content he chose to the top.
"I don’t think deleting them is the right move," I muttered, dragging my hands down my face, trying to think straight now that my tears had slowed. "People would only assume I pulled strings to cover it up, and let’s be real ... gossip about celebrities is rarely ever seen as bullying."
I hesitated, then added, "But ... if you can, maybe ask your ’contact’ to keep those videos from popping up on people’s feeds? And ... maybe boost clips that show Madeline’s rotten behavior." I shook my head. "No, but we can’t use the evidence I recorded in my room."
I wanted to save those videos to press charges against Addison in court. If I showed them to the media now, Addison could easily twist the story and turn the case against me instead.
That evidence was my strongest card, and wasting it on online drama would only backfire.
"Don’t worry about that." Lando gently brushed my hair to the side, tucking it behind my ear so he could see my face more clearly. His eyes softened as he said, "I’ve found something even more interesting about her."