Counterattack
Elena POV:
The first headlines hit two days later on different news stations and blogs in the country reading:
“Runaway Bride or Scheming Mistress? Elena Mendez Caught in Damien Cross Arm.”
“ Has Elena Mendez been having an affair with Damien Cross even though she’s engaged to Ethan Cole”
“Elena Mendez, Heiress of the Mendez group seen with Damien Cross, is this the reason she did not agree to marry Ethan Cole”
“Elena Mendez the adulterous bride”
The newspapers plastered a photo of me walking into Cross Tower Damien at my side. The camera had caught the exact angle that made it look like he was touching the small of my back.
My ripped gown from the night of the broken wedding had been replaced by a fitted dress Damien’s assistant insisted on loaning me. Elegant. Bold. Perfect.
By noon, the story was everywhere. Online blogs. Social media feeds.Business newsletters. Even the evening news.
Every social media app carried it from TikTok to Facebook to Instagram, the news was plastered everywhere and I was their topic of discussion everywhere.
My phone exploded with messages, most unreadable.
Slut.
Gold digger.
Can’t believe you’d humiliate your family like this.
Selena’s the better bride anyway.
Who knows? If she snatched Ethan from Selena.
The comment section of all my social media pages exploded with hate comments from my Facebook to my Instagram to my TikTok, hate comments were everywhere.
I dropped the phone onto the marble counter of Damien’s mansion’s kitchen, my hands trembling and my pulse raced.
He was across the room, reading a report like nothing in the world could rattle him. “You’ve seen it.”
“Seen it?” I laughed bitterly.
“It’s everywhere. They’re calling me—” I stopped, my throat was too tight to get the words out, I was short of breath and words. It was so suffocating.
He looked up at me and said,”Names, that all they are, they are mere words, don't let them get to you, they are not daggers but just mere words.”
“Easy for you to say,” I snapped. “You’re not the one painted as a social-climbing whore in every publication and a Slut.”
Slowly. Deliberately he looked up, his eyes pinned me in place like a blade.
“You think I care what the papers call me?” His voice was low, dangerous.
“They’ve called me a tyrant. A vulture. A demon in a tailored suit.The devil of the business world. Do you know what matters?”
“What?” I shot back.
“That they fear me more than they hate me.”
His words sliced through me, sharp and merciless like a knife.
I wanted to shout, to tell him that I wasn’t him, that I couldn’t survive being carved up by gossip and whispers.
But before I could speak, my phone buzzed again.
This time, it wasn’t strangers. It was my mother.
“Elena, what have you done?”
Her voice shook with a mix of outrage and heartbreak.
Behind her words, I could hear the faint hum of chatter—family friends, no doubt gathered around like vultures to talk about me.
“You humiliated us. Do you know what people are saying? That you left Ethan for money. That you ran into Damien Cross arms because he promised you power.That you are a disgrace to the family”
“That’s not what happened,” I whispered.
“Then explain it! You’ve shamed our name. Ethan has been nothing but generous and kind—”
“Generous? Kind?” My laugh came out sharp, bitter.
“Mother, he cheated on me with Selena for months. They mocked me, used me, and threw me away like—”
“Enough!” Her tone cracked like a whip. “We don’t speak of such things in public. Ethan is still respected. Selena is admired. And you—you look like a fool and an idiot in everyone's eyes. I want you to fix this.
Apologize. Reconcile.Beg him , He would accept you back”
My stomach twisted. “You want me to crawl back to him? After all that he did to me?”
“I want you to save what’s left of our dignity!” she snapped.
“You may not care, but we do. If you have any love and respect for your family, Elena, you will do what’s right.”
The line went silent before I could even reply
I stood frozen, phone still pressed to my ear.
For a moment, all I could hear was the echo of her words: Apologize. Reconcile. Crawl back. Beg.
And then, slowly, fury burned through the shame.
Damien was still at the table when I returned, a glass of whiskey in his hand.
He studied me as though he already knew what had happened.
“Family pressure?” he asked calmly.
I dropped into the seat across from him, my fists clenched.
“They want me to apologize. To crawl back to Ethan and beg for forgiveness.”
He swirled the whiskey, watching the amber liquid catch the light. “And will you?”
The question stung. “Of course not!”
“Good.” He set the glass down with a soft thud.
“Then stop acting like you’re cornered. This is exactly what Ethan wants—to isolate you, to break your will.”
“You’re playing into his hands by feeling this way.”
“Then what do you suggest?” I shot back.
“Smile for the cameras while the world trashes me?”
“No.” His eyes gleamed with something dark, electric.
“Fight back. But not with tears. With strategy and plans, don't let their words and pressure get to you.”
I swallowed hard. “Strategy?”
“You don’t drown gossip with denial. You smother it with a bigger story.”
He leaned forward, voice dropping. “You want to survive? You want to win? You want to take revenge on Ethan for his betrayal, Then we make you more than Ethan’s betrayed bride. We make you untouchable.”
My heart thudded. “How?”
“By turning their whispers into weapons,” Damien said, his smile sharp as a knife.
“If they think you’re dangerous, they won’t pity you. They’ll respect you. And respect, Elena…” His hand brushed mine and a spark of electricity surged through me for a brief moment, fleeting, deliberate. “…is far deadlier than sympathy.”
The next morning, Damien put the plan into motion.
Step one: he summoned me to the Cross Tower rooftop—where photographers just happened to be stationed across from neighboring skyscrapers.
He handed me a file, all business.
“Review this acquisition proposal,” he said, loud enough for his assistant to hear.
I frowned. “Why up here?”
“Because the view is spectacular,” he replied casually, and then—without warning—he leaned closer and I could feel his hot breath on my neck, pointing to a line in the document as though explaining.
To anyone with a camera, it looked intimate. Calculated. Scandalous.
By evening, the photo was everywhere.
“Elena Mendez: More Than a Bride, Now a Power Player in Cross Industries.”
“Elena Mendez: Is she Damien Cross's Protege?”
The narrative shifted.
No longer the weeping castoff runaway bride, I was suddenly painted as Damien’s protégé, a cunning and strategic businesswoman in the making.
The media still sneered, but with an edge of amusement and fascination.
And for the first time, I felt the ground tilt beneath Ethan instead of me.
Of course, Ethan didn’t take it quietly.
He confronted me outside a gala two nights later, his hand clamping around my wrist as I stepped down from Damien’s car.
“Elena, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” His perfect smile stayed fixed for the cameras, but his grip was bruising.
I met his eyes coolly with a breathtaking smile.
“Walking forward.”
“You’re destroying yourself,” he hissed.
“Aligning with Damien Cross makes you look desperate and hopeless.”
“You think he cares about you? You’re just a pawn in his game.”
“Maybe.” I tilted my chin, letting my voice carry just enough for the nearest reporter to hear.
“But pawns can still take down kings.”
Ethan froze, fury flashing in his eyes, his face reddened and the vein in his forehead seemed to bulge out.
Cameras clicked like gunfire around us.Every news reporter in the country clicked the moment
And as Damien appeared at my side, sliding his hand lightly to the small of my back, I realized what he had meant.
This wasn’t about denying Ethan’s lies.
It was about writing a new truth.
And for the first time, the world wasn’t laughing at me.
They were watching me.
Waiting to see what I would do next.
And what was my next plan and action?