BEAUTY AND THE BEAST:HIS CONTRACT BRIDE

Chapter 5: Changing the narrative

The harsh ray of the sun was already receding back into its shadows when whole Howard's McLaren sports car slid into the long driveway of his estate, from the outside the mansion looked exquisite, like something straight out of a movie but in the inside like Howard’s life, empty, dull and needing a bright spark of Life to make it look lively.

“I need you to put Mr Chang on the line in the next 10 minutes,” he instructed, loosening his tie and heading inside.

“ Yes, Sir,” John replied, and the sound of a car siren outside the gate was heard. Before they could finish exchanging glances, the gates opened, and a black Chevrolet sports car entered the compound. Howard didn't need a soothsayer to know who it was, and his face tightened as realization dawned on him.

Devante, his fiancée, of course, was the only other person apart from him and John who had the gates' remote control, and right now, she was the last person he wanted to see, especially after the ongoing scandal.

From the car, Devante stepped down, dressed to kill in an immaculate traditional French attire.

“How dare you?” She said as she marched up angrily to him, and before Howard could say anything, a hot slap landed on his face as hot tears rolled down Devante's beautiful face. Howard gently held her in his arms and drew her into an embrace which she did not resist.

“How could you?.how could you do this to us?. To me?. Just three days after you announced our engagement to the whole world, you went and slept with another girl,” She said. The tune of her voice betrayed the anguish and sadness bottled up within.

“I'm sorry honey. I swear, I didn't mean to hurt you, but right now a lot is at stake, and if I don't fix the scandal, my whole life will be ruined, and there won't be an us anymore,” Howard explained.

“What do you mean?” Devante asked, pulling herself away from him.

Howard answered by explaining that someone had intentionally licked the sextape causing top investors in his company to start threatening to pull out and leading to the board of trustees demanding his resignation, he then went on to tell her about his plan on ending the scandal immediately and making sure he remain CEO and also told her the part he wanted her to play in all these

“You are joking, you don't expect me to tell the whole world that we have broken up so that you can be with this girl for one month”

“I'm sorry, babe, but this is the only way to end this. You said you loved me, right? It's time to prove it ”.

“ Fine, I'll do it but let it be as you have said. One month, and you end this relationship, or I will create a bigger scandal, and trust me, you won't escape it,” Devante said and left. Entered her car and drove out of the compound.

Two hours later as Howard sat in his study, going through the financial statement of his company in the past week the television screen in his front showed Devante on the news talking about the s*x tape, she started by lying that she and Howard her broken up because she found out that Howard was in love with the girl, Noah and proceeded to condemn all those that have been hating on the couple without actually knowing the truth story.

“Good job, Devante,” Howard said, a sinister grin unconsciously appearing on his face

The first phase of his plan had been set in motion, and all that remained to do was to show the world how much in love he and Noah were.

“John!” he called.

“ Yes, Sir” John answered, appearing at the door of the study.

“ I need you to orchestrate the release of a fake phone call between me and Noah, let it be dated to the morning before the one-night stand also, make it look romantic, as if we are totally in love”

“Yes, sir,” John replied and got to work ASAP. He had one of their trusted engineers develop the fake audio and then anonymously tipped off a top blogger with the audio. As expected, the blogger was more than excited to throw this new information to the media, and an hour later, Howard and Noah became the unofficial hottest couple in America, with everyone praising how good they looked together, even some of those who were previously hating on them turned into their biggest fans.

“Hello, Miss Noah,” Howard's mocking voice said over the speaker of Noah's phone. Now that the game he was trying to play was looking up he wanted to start playing immediately.

“Howard?” Noah's voice was a mixture of surprise and wonder. “How did you manage to get my number?” she asked, getting down from the bed so as not to wake Catherine, since it was already past midnight.

“ Is that important, Miss Noah?” Howard asked with an insincere politeness.

“Forget it. What do you want?”Niah asked, overriding the current conversation.

“Good, now that you I might as well tell you” Howard said and began“ I have succeeded in convincing the media that we are dating and in how much in love we are with each other, but I believe that some media houses or overzealous bloggers would want to find some dirt on us which is why I have decided to speed things up a little bit”.

“What do you mean?” Noah asked, absolutely confused as to which direction Howard was heading.

“Tomorrow by three PM, my butler will be coming to pick you up, so that means that you'll be moving in immediately with me, and I'm also going to wire some money to your account, use it to get yourself a new collection of clothes. I don't need you moving about on rags around my house ”

“Excuse you?” Noah said indignantly, “ I never said I was going to move in with you. Also, my clothes are not rags. They might not be expensive, but they are definitely not filthy,” She added defiantly.

Howard's deep breath could be heard over the phone as he replied to her, “I'm really tired, Miss Noah. Like I said, you are moving in with me tomorrow, and it's not like you have a choice; you lost that after you signed that contract. Good night” and with that he disconnected the line and transferred half a million dollars to Noah's account.

When Noah saw the alert, she let out an unconscious, muffled scream of “f**k” which was loud enough to wake up the sleeping Catherine.

“ What is it?” She asked lazily rubbing the sleep off her eyes.

Noah summarized her crazy call with Howard to her in just thirty seconds ending with the part where he wired her the money.

“ The relationship hasn't even started and he's spoiling you rotten.” Catherine said sarcastically, “Are you sure you can last a month in his house before he drives you crazy?” she asked playfully.

“ Let's watch and see,” Noah replied gravely, and lay down to sleep.