Chapter 7 - World on Fire
1072 Words
The headline goes live at 6:12 a.m.
I know the exact time because my phone buzzes against the bedside table, vibrating hard enough to rattle the glass of water beside it. I’d slept maybe an hour, drifting in and out of shallow, anxious half-dreams where the wedding music kept restarting and restarting, but I wake instantly, heart already racing.
I don’t pick up the phone straight away.
Some instinct tells me that once I do, there will be no putting it down again.
The flat is quiet. Too quiet. Mum must have finally fallen asleep on the couch, exhaustion winning out over panic sometime near dawn. She had ended up staying the night whilst dealing with the news. To make sure I was okay, but I felt like it was more for her than anything. Pale light leaks in through the curtains, washing the room in grey.
I reach for the phone.
BLACKWOOD HEIR ABANDONS FIANCÉE DAYS BEFORE WEDDING
It’s everywhere.
Different outlets. Same thing.
Abandons.
Humiliates.
Scandal.
I scroll despite myself.
ROWAN HALE: SOCIAL CLIMBER OR COLLATERAL DAMAGE?
INSIDE THE FAILED BLACKWOOD ENGAGEMENT
DID SHE KNOW?
The comments are worse.
She must have done something.
Gold digger miscalculated.
Play stupid games.
Poor man dodged a bullet.
My throat tightens. I lock the phone, press it to my chest, then immediately unlock it again. It’s like trying to look away from a fire consuming your house.
There are photos now, ones I didn’t know existed. Me entering buildings. Me stepping into cars. Me looking tired, distracted, human. Each image stripped of context, repurposed as evidence.
Evidence of what, exactly, seems to depend on the hour.
By seven, the narrative has shifted.
Lucien’s camp remains silent. That silence speaks loudly.
Speculation fills the gap.
Insiders claim concern about motives. Friends say Lucien had doubts for weeks. Sources close to the family suggest incompatibility.
As if this were a mutual misunderstanding rather than abandonment.
I swing my legs out of bed and stand, my body moving on instinct. When I open the bedroom door, Mum is already awake, sitting rigidly on the sofa, phone clutched in both hands.
She looks up at me like she’s been waiting for permission to breathe.
“They’re saying terrible things,” she whispers.
I nod. “I know.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Her voice wobbles. “They’re calling me. People I don’t even know. They want statements. They want—”
She breaks off, hands trembling.
“I don’t understand,” she continues, tears spilling freely now. “He can’t just disappear. There must be a reason.”
I say nothing.
Because if I start, I might scream.
By eight o’ clock, the panic turns practical.
Mum starts pacing again, muttering numbers under her breath. Rent dates. Payments. The comfortable illusion Lucien’s money created evaporates in real time, replaced by old fears resurfacing with claws.
“What if they reverse everything?” She asks suddenly. “The flat… Rowan, what if they take it back?”
I feel cold.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
She sinks into the armchair, burying her face in her hands.
“We can’t go back,” she says. “We can’t.”
I sit opposite her, spine straight, hands folded. I feel oddly calm, like something essential has burned away overnight, leaving only ash and clarity.
“I’ll handle it,” I say.
She looks up, eyes red. “How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
It’s not reassurance. It’s a statement of intent.
My phone rings again.
Unknown number.
I don’t answer.
Another call. And another.
Texts pile up, some sympathetic, most invasive.
Journalist: Rowan, this is James from The Herald. Would you like to respond to the claims circulating this morning?
Unknown: Did you cheat on him?
Former colleague: Are you okay??
Private number: Silence speaks volumes.
By mid-morning, Lucien’s silence had transformed him from villain into enigma. The media loves an enigma.
I, meanwhile, am conveniently available.
By noon, I’m no longer just the woman who was left.
I’m the reason.
Was she too ambitious?
Too demanding?
Too ordinary?
Each article chips away at something I didn’t realise was still intact.
A commenter on a breakfast show laughs lightly as she says, “Well, these arrangements often fail when a woman like her is involved.”
I turn the television off with shaking hands.
Mum stares at the blank screen. “They’re blaming you.”
“I know.”
“They don’t know you.”
“No,” I say quietly. “But they don’t need to.”
The truth is simpler and uglier: I am the only visible variable.
Lucien Blackwood is a concept.
I am a person.
And people are easier to punish.
The doorbell rings just after one.
I freeze.
Mum looks at me, eyes wide. “Don’t answer it.”
I hesitate, then move anyway.
It’s a courier, holding an envelope with my name printed neatly across the front.
No return address.
My stomach twists as I take it to my bedroom, closing the door behind me.
Inside is a single sheet of paper.
A formal notice.
All financial arrangements contingent upon the marriage agreement are suspended pending review.
I sit down heavily on the bed, paper shaking in my hands.
The deal is collapsing.
I think of Eleanor Blackwood’s smile.
Of Lucien’s text.
I fold the letter carefully and place it in my drawer.
I will not let Mum see it yet.
Downstairs, she’s on the phone again, voice brittle.
“Yes, of course we understand,” she says. “No, we wouldn’t want to be a burden.”
I lean against the wall and close my eyes.
This is the cost.
By evening, the world has decided who I am.
I am the ambitious nobody.
The failed fiancée.
The cautionary tale.
Memes circulate. My face is paired with captions I won’t repeat. People debate my worth as if it were a sport.
I stop reading.
Instead, I sit at the kitchen table with my notebook, the one with the numbers, the crossed-out complications, the desperate arithmetic of survival.
The columns don’t lie.
Without Lucien, without the wedding, we are back where we started.
Worse, actually.
Because now everyone knows.
Mum stands in the doorway, watching me.
Outside, cameras flash somewhere down the street. Reporters have begun to circle, hungry for tears, for apologies, for collapse.
- Writer
