The headlines were merciless
They screamed from her phone screen, bold and dripping with manufactured drama like wolves howling over the carcass of her reputation.
"Selena Hart Quits Campaign Amid Rumors of Jealousy and Sabotage!"
"Billionaire Wolfe Ditches New Flame as Ex-Girlfriend Resurfaces!"
"Love Triangle or PR Disaster? Wolfe, Hart and Leclair Drama Unfolds!"
Selena stared at them in silence her thumb hovering but unmoving, the glare of her screen casting pale light on her tired face, the apartment around her was still, too still.
She didn't cry, didn't throw the phone. Didn't call anyone to defend herself.
She just sat at her kitchen table, dressed in yesterday's sweatshirt and sleep-wrinkled shorts, the silk and satin of Monaco long gone. There was no glitter here, no chandeliers just cooling tea and silence and a girl trying not to break.
Her inbox was even colder than the headlines.
Emails that once came in rapid, flattering succession had dried to nothing. Investors who once cc'ed her on five-way threads went radio silent, stylists who had begged to dress her ghosted like scared lovers, she had become unprofitable.
Unreliable.
Unworthy.
And yet... she didn't crawl back.
She didn't call Julian, didn't demand explanations or grovel for reinstatement, she didn't draft a carefully-worded apology post or pay someone to spin her downfall as empowerment, she let the world whisper lie and mock.
And she stayed silent.
Until she didn't.
She picked up a pencil.
And started sketching.
At first, the lines were nothing—just shapes to keep her hands busy while her mind screamed. Then, they started forming something real, letters, fonts. A color palette, a logo.
Selena Hart Beauty.
Not Wolfe-backed.
Not pity-funded.
Not reactionary.
A brand built from fire.
A woman who had burned and survived.
She leaned forward, sweeping her curls into a loose bun with one hand as she kept drawing with the other, her eyes were focused now, fierce. The same way they had been when she started her YouTube channel at twenty-two in her mother's kitchen, teaching women how to blend a smoky eye with nothing but drugstore palettes and grit.
She had built from nothing before.
She would do it again.
Hours passed unnoticed, the sky dimmed but the energy in the apartment began to hum with new life, her sketches were crude but her vision wasn't.
That was when Maya arrived.
She didn't knock—she never did, she came in holding a tray of sushi in one hand and her laptop tucked under the other arm.
"You look like you haven't slept," Maya said, pausing in the doorway, eyeing the chaos of papers, pencils and half-eaten toast.
Selena didn't look up. "Haven't."
Maya kicked off her heels and sat down across from her best friend. She popped a salmon nigiri into her mouth and spoke around it. "You need a launch event, loud, bold, unapologetic. Burn it all down."
Selena gave a dry smile. "With what money? My pride?"
Maya didn't flinch. "You don't need funds, you have something better."
Selena arched an eyebrow. "Enlighten me."
"You have a story." Maya's voice dropped, serious now. "People love a scandal, sure—but they love a comeback even more. Especially from a woman who was dragged through the mud, stayed standing and didn't go crying back to the billionaire who broke her."
Selena's smile faded into something harder, truer.
"Everyone's expecting you to disappear," Maya said leaning forward. "So don't, Reappear, bigger, better, unbought, unapologetic."
Selena looked down at her sketches, they weren't perfect but they were hers.
"I don't want revenge," she said quietly. "I want legacy."
Maya grinned. "Then we start with the truth."
Selena met her best friend's gaze, a slow nod forming. "A launch built on honesty."
"No filters, no pity, just power."
Selena leaned back in her chair, eyes flicking to the window where the skyline blinked like a sleeping giant. The city didn't care who you were unless you made it care.
So she would.
She would tell the truth—not just about Wolfe or Savannah or the campaign—but about herself. The rise, the fall and the woman who decided to write her own story instead of being a footnote in someone else's.
Selena Hart was not a replacement
She was a revolution in red lipstick.
And the world hadn't seen anything yet