Chapter 22: Media Meltdown
The first news came when Maya, my assistant, barged into my office at Romano Enterprises, looking like she'd seen a ghost and clutching her tablet like a lifeline.
"Bella, you HAVE to see this. Now."
I looked up from the boring quarterly reports, instantly on alert. Maya had been with me for three years, and I'd never seen her this freaked out.
"What's going on?"
She put her tablet on my desk. My blood went cold when I saw the headline on *Seattle Spotlight*: **COLD-HEARTED HEIRESS: The Real Bella Romano Sterling**
Underneath was a photo of me from a charity gala two years before. I'd donated like fifty grand to kids' literacy programs. But the caption turned it nasty: *Claims to be a struggling single mom, but Romano's living the high life, splashing cash
