Chapter 14
Her heart felt like scorched earth, the kind of barren land no one could say would ever come back to life again.
She didn't want to waste anyone's sincerity, especially Joseph's.
"Joseph," Isabella said, her voice warm and honest. "I really am grateful. You've helped me more than I can ever repay. You pulled me up when I was at my lowest and gave me a chance to stand on my own again."
Her gaze stayed clear, steady.
"But right now, I'm not ready for anything romantic. I just dragged myself out of a pit. I want to find my footing first. I need to get my own life back in order."
She paused, a faint note of apology slipping into her tone.
"You deserve someone who can give you everything. I'm not that person. Not when I'm still trying to clean up my own mess."
Joseph went quiet for a few seconds.
Then he smiled—open, warm, without a hint of awkwardness or hurt.
"I told you. Whether you need me or not, I'm here." He stood, and when he reached the door, he glanced back with his usual teasing ease. "But Ms. Tudor, even if you're not in the mood for romance, please leave the office before midnight. We've got a nine a.m. meeting tomorrow. If you show up with dark circles under your eyes, I'm worried we'll scare the clients."
Isabella couldn't help laughing. She shook her head. "Got it, Mr. Miller."
After the door closed, she stared at the drawings in front of her for a moment.
She picked up her mug, took another sip of warm milk, and let the heat settle into her chest.
Joseph was a good man.
A very, very good man.
But the only things she could offer him right now were gratitude and respect. Nothing more.
Not yet.
She lifted her pen again, pushing every stray thought deep down where it couldn't reach her hands. She lowered her head and went back to drafting, line after steady line.
For the moment, this was all she wanted to focus on.
Everything else could wait.
The next morning, Isabella arrived at the office right on schedule at eight.
She changed into her work jacket and headed to her desk. She had just logged on and was preparing to sort through last night's sketches when her phone lit up.
It was Chloe—several messages in a row, all ending with exclamation marks.
[Isabella! Your name is trending!]
[Not in a good way!!!]
[Someone posted a bunch of nasty stuff about you!!! Go look!!!]
Isabella frowned and opened her social feed.
The first recommended post was a large, bold headline paired with several blurry screenshots and a scanned document: #Shocking! The so-called design genius Isabella was anonymously reported for academic misconduct in college!#
Below the claim was a scanned copy of what looked like an internal university complaint—cold, formal wording accusing Isabella of using unpublished research and plagiarizing during an international architecture competition.
The next post, from a different account but written with the same melodramatic flair, read: #The hidden side of a design prodigy: sharing a private studio with her male supervisor in college—were they really just mentor and mentee?#
The comments included several grainy security-camera stills. Isabella entering and exiting an old apartment building. Joseph doing the same. The timestamps were late at night and early morning. They were never in the same frame, but paired with the suggestive captions, the implication was obvious.
[So she won awards because she plagiarized? No wonder that woman showed up accusing her!]
[Living with her boss? Did she sleep her way up???]
[I used to think she was so cool. Guess her whole persona just fell apart.]
[Hold up, is the complaint real? Anyone checked it?]
[It's a scanned doc. How fake can it be? Her 'genius' image is over!]
Isabella scrolled down, her fingertips cold.
She knew exactly what that complaint was.
Eight years ago, after she won that competition, an anonymous accusation had indeed been filed against her.
The university launched a formal investigation. The final conclusion had been clear: the accusation was fabricated, and she had created her work independently.
The investigation report spelled it out line by line.
But none of these posts included that part. They displayed only the inflammatory complaint, deliberately withholding the final ruling.
Selective framing. Manipulation.
She'd seen this playbook before.
The office door swung open.
Joseph strode in. The warmth he usually carried was gone, replaced by a rare, hard seriousness. "You saw it?"
Isabella nodded lightly.
"I've already got the tech team digging," Joseph said as he turned his tablet around. On the screen was a data analysis report. "All these accounts were created recently. Barely a hundred followers each, but suddenly getting hundreds of thousands of shares and comments in under two hours. The growth curve is completely unnatural."
He swiped through the report, pointing at a cluster of highlighted numbers.
"Someone bought massive promotion packages. And not random ones—targeted ads aimed specifically at architecture circles and gossip communities. The push started at four a.m., the exact window when content moderation is at its weakest."
He looked up, eyes dark. "Isabella, this isn't normal online trolling. Someone paid good money to come after you."
Isabella leaned back, arms loosely crossed, her expression steady in a way that almost felt eerie.
Someone paid good money.
She didn't even need to investigate. She already knew who would bother.
"Joseph," she said calmly, "tell the tech team to preserve every traceable data point. Those account registrations, the ad-buying backend logs, the timestamps—everything."
She picked up her phone and opened her attorney's contact.
"I'll handle the rest."
Things unraveled even faster than she expected.
At two that afternoon, her phone buzzed with a new email. The sender was West Coast Tourism & Culture Group—Northstar Architecture's most important current partner.
The message was short and cold: [Ms. Tudor, in light of the recent online controversy surrounding you, and after internal evaluation, we have decided to suspend all collaboration with Northstar Architecture on the Bay Cultural & Tourism Complex Project. We will revisit discussions once the situation is resolved.]