Chapter 249 Chapter 249
Caroline woke from her nap after about an hour. She stretched, completely unaware that the internet had literally gone into overdrive whilst she slept peacefully.
She was just leaving the room, still stifling a yawn, when the door burst open and Tania rushed in, panting and with her eyes shining with pure adrenaline.
“Carol! Darling, for goodness’ sake, have you checked WhatsApp or the university forum yet?!”
Caroline blinked, looking a bit lost, and shook her head. “No. What’s happened this time? Has Olivia caused another scene?”
“Sara is a hacker goddess!” Tania looked absolutely impressed and elated. “I don’t know if it was her who leaked it to the media, but someone’s dropped an atomic bomb on the internet! They’ve published the original IP address of that defamatory forum post. And that’s not all! They’ve breached the comments’ security and exposed the real names and IPs of all the fake profiles that were swearing at you!”
Tania pulled out her mobile, shaking with laughter. “Blimey, I knew they were snakes, but I never imagined Ianca and Olivia would be among the scum in the comments. They used fake accounts to attack you! You hadn’t even done anything to them, and they were so malicious and venomous. I didn’t know they were that repulsive.”
Tania took a deep breath, her eyes flashing with righteous hatred. “But of course, the most repugnant and disgusting of them all is your sly half-sister. That disgusting ‘White Lotus’! Damn it, Carol! She stole your man, set you up to be cast out of the family, and now, from the shadows, she was trying to ruin your reputation at uni? I’ve never seen anyone so sick and obsessed in my life!
— To think you were so merciful to her... — Tania shook her head, indignant. — When Claire and her mother joined the Ford family, you didn’t even make things difficult for her. You accepted her! Why does she have to be so cruel to you?
Caroline walked over to the desk, picked up a glass of water and said with deadly calm: — Correction, Tania. From the moment Edward couldn’t keep his trousers zipped and went to bed with her, he ceased to be my man.
Caroline felt genuine revulsion for Edward now. She wouldn’t tolerate anyone continuing to try to associate her with him.
“Yes, yes! You’re absolutely right, I put it badly.” Tania agreed frantically. “He’s not your man, he’s just a posh dog who thinks with his lower half. But the important thing is that Claire’s mask has slipped! She’s in the Trending Topics again!”
Tania jumped up and down. “Now the whole internet knows exactly how low she’s sunk. I’d love to see how the PR team’s going to clean up the little princess’s image after this. She’s always sold herself as the nation’s pure, kind and harmless girl.” Now that she’s been caught rolling around on a hotel floor, spreading rumours about abortion to smear her own sister and meddling in other people’s relationships… her image is going to crumble to dust! Haha, it’s karma! She deserves every bit of it.
Tania hated that white-lotus bitch with every fibre of her being. The fact that Claire had tried to destroy her best friend’s life was the unforgivable last straw.
Caroline grabbed her mobile, leaned against the wall and opened her browser.
Despite her friend’s excitement, Caroline wasn’t optimistic enough to think Claire would be ruined for good so easily. The real world wasn’t a fairy tale where villains were defeated with a snap of the fingers.
As StarColi Entertainment’s main asset — and, more importantly, as the current fiancée of heir Edward Collins — the company would move mountains, buy off journalists and spend tens of millions to hush up the situation.
Caroline knew the entertainment industry. As long as the scandal didn’t involve drug trafficking, murder or massive tax evasion, the agencies’ capital almost always managed to save the artist’s career. It was simply a matter of investing enough money in bots and narrative diversions. How many actors had been caught cheating on their wives and, two years later, were winning awards again? The public’s memory was short.
But the blow that had just been dealt was undeniably devastating.
Caroline realised the extent of the damage the very second she opened her social media feed.
The ‘bombshell’ post wasn’t just on the university forum; it had been meticulously sent to every major gossip account in the country all at once (a swift, lethal and coordinated operation bearing the unmistakable signature of the hackers hired by Nicholas Wolf).
The leaked text was a complete dossier. It detailed chronologically how Claire Ford had seduced Edward Collins, her sister’s fiancé. It explained how she had used her position as the boss’s girlfriend to monopolise resources, steal roles from veteran actresses and stifle competition at StarColi. And, as the grand grand finale, it exposed the act of cyber-defamation she had just committed against her own sister at the School of Performing Arts.
As irrefutable proof, the post attached the IP address logs. The data clearly showed that the post about ‘Caroline’s abortion’ had originated from the main router at Ford Manor.
Now there was context, evidence and the harsh truth.
The mask of the untouchable fairy had been torn off in the public square. And the internet comments section… simply exploded.
The truth is that the overwhelming majority of the public didn’t even know Claire Ford had a sister. Let alone that this sister used to be the official fiancée of the all-powerful CEO, Edward Collins.
Many celebrities and bigwigs in the entertainment industry did know that Edward had been engaged in the past. But almost no one knew that this betrayed fiancée was, in fact, the half-sister of his current and idolised Claire.
It would already be a morally repugnant scandal for an ordinary person to be the mistress who ruined her own sister’s relationship to steal her future brother-in-law.
But, in the case of the ‘Nation’s Sweetheart’, a celebrity marketed as the epitome of purity and innocence… that was career suicide. It made the betrayal infinitely more sordid, shocking and unpalatable to the public.
Moreover, Claire was already in the eye of the storm because of the row in the hotel lobby just a few hours earlier. The public was already wary. Now that she’s back in the headlines as a “groom snatcher” and “cyber bully”, internet users have begun to express utter disgust and question whether her angelic persona was nothing more than a sociopathic act all along.
A few internet technology experts quickly analysed the screenshot of the leaked IP address. The verdict was unanimous: the record was 100% authentic; it had not been fabricated or digitally manipulated. The defamation against Caroline on the university forum had indeed originated from Ford Mansion.