Jonathan slipped the princess–cut diamond ring–once worn on her left ring finger–onto Marina’s hand.
Marina’s eyes filled with tears as she fell into Jonathan’s embrace, their lips meeting in a passionate kiss.
But in that moment, her soul felt as if it had plunged into the deepest circles of hell. Niamh awoke with a start, drenched in cold sweat.
She pressed her palms to her temples, her head throbbing as if it might split in two. “What on earth was that dream?”
She let out a bitter laugh.
The terrifying images from her nightmare were still painfully vivid.
She recalled her mother once telling her that dreams always meant the opposite in real life.
So surely, things couldn’t possibly turn out as horribly as they did in her dream.
Shaking off the lingering dread, Niamh pulled herself together, took a long shower, and changed her clothes, getting ready for work.
But before she could even leave the house, her phone rang–Peter was calling.
“Hey, Niamh? You’re not at the office, are you?” Peter’s voice crackled through the line, tense and anxious. A wave of foreboding washed over Niamh.
As it turned out, dreams being “the opposite” was nothing more than superstition.
Following Peter’s warning, Niamh stayed home and instinctively grabbed her phone to check the trending topics.
The top twenty headlines on every social media platform were all about her.
Niamh thought grimly that this was probably the most “famous” she’d ever been.
No matter which headline she tapped, there she was–her face plastered everywhere.
There were shots of her at Luminous Divas Fashion Week, photos of her and Michael Burton walking into a hotel together.
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Other pictures showed Niamh and Michael on vacation–just the two of them, the photos carefully framed so that, though Quentin had been there too, he was nowhere in sight. Instead, she and Michael looked disturbingly close.
And it wasn’t just Michael. There were photos with Peter as well.
One showed them at a restaurant, taken when her uncle caused a scene–Peter shielding her protectively.
Just those two men in the photos were enough for the internet to crown Niamh as the queen of marital infidelity.
And of course, no scandal was complete without Julian.
Julian had not only taken a hit for her before, but now he was in the headlines again–this time because she’d run out on her wedding.
It had already been a huge scandal, and now, with these “pieces of evidence” floating around, Niamh had become public enemy number one, the woman everyone loved to hate.
She didn’t even have to open the comments to know what people were saying.
Now, she was the target of the entire internet’s collective rage, a punching bag for every angry keyboard warrior.
Adulteress, homewrecker, social climber–accusations flew in every direction. She was accused of ruining someone else’s wedding, of scheming her way through the upper class, of playing every wealthy, heir she met.
Some even called her a high–class escort, a gold–digger, a disgrace.
Yet even that wasn’t the juiciest part.
“Society’s Cast–Off“-those words blazed across the top trending headline, immediately catching Niamh’s eye.
She clicked on it. The bright red logo of The Thomas Group appeared on her
screen.
The Thomas Group had issued a public statement–announcing to the world that Jonathan and Niamh were already divorced.
Underneath the post, public opinion was overwhelmingly on The Thomas Group’s
side.
Praise flooded in for both The Thomas Group and Jonathan.
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Comments like “Justice at last,” “About time,” and “Karma catches up with everyone” dominated the feed.
People applauded The Thomas Group’s swift, decisive move–and took every opportunity to throw a few more insults at Niamh.
The moment The Thomas Group announced Jonathan and Niamh’s divorce, the company’s stock price soared.
It was as if Jonathan had performed a public service, righting some great wrong on behalf of the internet’s moral crusaders.
The Thomas Group.
Prescott knocked on the general manager’s office door.
Inside, Jonathan sat at his desk, appearing absorbed in his work–completely detached from the chaos unfolding online.
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