The Rebirth of a Scorned Heiress

Hellen pursed her lips at the beeping sound from the other end, she reluctantly removed the phone from her ears with a bewildered expression. “What does she mean stain her reputation?” She muttered in confusion. Because she had just gotten off the plane, she had not been able to log into her social media account but as she thought about Merissa’s words, she knew something was off.

Upon logging in, she was stunned at the several notifications of people tagging her, before she could read them, her driver arrived alongside her manager, Rex, who looked worried and suspicious. “You should log off your social media account for a while, things are not looking good for you at the moment” he warned as they got into the car.

Hellen frowned, “What do you mean? I’ve been away for a long time to a place without internet and now that I’m back, I can’t even log in. Why aren’t things looking good?” She asked with a raised voice and the manager glared at her.

He had been so stressed dealing with her scandals since morning that he didn’t even eat till now. “Since you want to know, why not take a look yourself? You can check how all of your achievements have been published!” He snapped and massaged his nose bridge to will away the headache that was beginning to form.

He cussed at himself for taking on such a troublesome person as his client. Since he began working as her talent manager in the entertainment industry, he has been faced with several troubles caused by her. If it were any other person, the company would have given up on them, however, she is a person the company values so much because of the funds she brings in.

Not only is she from a rich family, but she is also very beautiful and even though her acting skills are just so-so, her beauty makes up for it as a lot of people invest in her show just to curry favour with her. Who would have known she was in a give-and-take relationship with all those investors?

The major effect of her pure image crumbling did not only affect her, it also affected the company! Now, he had been taking the blame from the higher-ups for something he knew nothing about. Hellen’s face turned pale and her body trembled in fear as she read the messages sent to her inbox.

The longer she read the hateful messages, the paler she became. She turned to Rex with a questioning look. “What happened?” She asked shakily and Rex rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have your phone with you? Since you decided to check it on your own, continue checking. I have nothing to discuss with you, while you are at it start preparing an excuse for the public, one that could save your crumbled image” he turned away and started chatting with the PR department of the company.

Hellen went back to checking the internet for the news that had caused her to receive so many hate messages. Several posts on different media pages displayed her ‘Achievement’, as Rex has called it. Nude pictures, pictures of her sleeping around with married men and some even of her doing drugs before she entered the industry.

She remembered she had paid a huge sum of money to have that information deleted once she had her first hit and she became a small celebrity, now they were all over the internet. She held her phone tighter as she read the comments under those posts.

“Scum! She appeared so innocent to the world, who would have thought she’s nothing but a scum!”

“I hate myself for being a fan! Never again!”

“How dare she reprimand our Pel who was just framed back then when she has so many skeletons in her cupboard!”ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“You are a disgrace!”

“You should get out of the industry, we don’t need people like you tainting our children and youths!”

“She’s just a small celebrity and she has a face to bully others! People like her should be blocked with no way out!”

Despite the raging public opinion about Hellen, there are several little voices of her fans who came up to defend her.

“Don’t be too hasty to judge our Angel! She was framed!”

“Yes! You just relax and wait, everything will be clarified and all of you will have no face left”

“Angel will never do such a thing! She’s always so sweet and kind!”

“Dragon PR team should quickly find a way to clear our Angel’s name! And sue all those slanderers!”

Hellen was unable to focus on those little people supporting her as her eyes were glued on the screen with the bold display of her pictures doing several immoral things. She could tell she was the main target of the person who had done this as all the faces of the other people in the picture were mosaiced and some were even deliberately cut out, but she couldn’t remember who she had offended that could have so much dirt on her like this.

“Take me home!” She ordered the company driver who was driving her to the company. She could not go to the company like this. The thought of those hungry reporters swamping the front of the company sent shivers down her spine. Rex sneered angrily, his red and tired eyes glaring at her angrily.

“You still have the nerves to give orders? Do you know how many reporters have been swamping your apartment since the news broke out?” He asked with a cold tone, wishing he could beat some senses into her. Seeing that she was the reason that Rex, the most level-headed person in their company, was angry, Hellen kept quiet and sank in her chair.

“Please, take me to the Hudson villa, I need to speak to my parents” she begged, feeling tired and exposed. The best place for her to hide was at her parent’s villa, no reporters were allowed into the estate area and she would be safe there. Rex seemed to have the same thoughts as he nodded to the driver through the rearview mirror.

*****

“Oh my gosh, you look so thin and unkempt!” Mrs Hudson exclaimed worriedly as Hellen walked into the house with Rex trailing behind her. She turned to Rex and glared at him angrily. “Do we not invest enough in your company? Why is my precious Angel treated so badly?” She demanded, feeling sorry for her daughter who must have been bullied on the set.

Rex glanced at Hellen helplessly, wanting her to explain things to her mother. Hellen looked away, pretending not to see his signal with a sigh he turned to Mrs Hudson and began to explain. “Hellen seemed to have offended someone lately and now she is being targeted by them, for now she would have to stay here and away from the outside world until the storm blows over” he explained, making Mrs Hudson frown.

“Offend someone? That’s not possible! My Hellen is such a good girl and even if she did offend someone, it is their good luck to be targeted by my daughter!” She voiced, making Rex sneer in his head. ‘No wonder Hellen is so unreasonable. Like mother like daughter!’

As he was about to explain further, a lady the same age as Hellen walked down the stairs with a fake worried frown, she smiled smugly at Hellen when she realised no one was watching, making Hellen’s blood run cold. Hellen clenched her fist by her side as she watched the other lady join them.

“Mother, let’s listen to manager Rex, the public opinion about sister Hellen is not good at the moment” she said and showed Mrs Hudson her phone to see everything. Hellen wanted to stop her but it was too late before she knew what was happening, her face was stinging with so much pain.

“What are all these? Did you do them? You better tell me you were framed or else!” Mrs Hudson threatened after slapping Hellen across the face. She turned to Rex and shoved the phone in his hand. “Why is all this news still floating around? Take it down! Take it down this moment!” She yelled angrily, her body trembling with rage and unbelief.

“We’ve been trying to take them down but every time we do, those posts appear in other places, we are currently working on finding who is behind it all” Rex explained. “Who could it be? Who dared to go against the Hudson family in Salem city?” Mrs Hudson demanded.

She could not imagine the problem she would have to face if her husband heard about this, not to talk about how such bad publicity would affect the price of the stock. She paced back and forth and immediately contacted Hudson’s PR team to look into the issue.

While everyone was bothered about the issue, Molly, Hellen’s step-sister looked smug with a gloating look. “Who did you offend?”