Chapter 5: Caught In The Act

Emilia woke up the next morning with a smile on her face. It immediately turned into a frown when he barged into the room and threw a newspaper at her.

"What the hell is this?" He asked her angrily.

She picked up the newspaper and looked at the front page. There was a paparazzi picture of a couple kissing. Only, it wasn't just any couple, it was her and Chad.

"Oh my god!" She gasped.

"You haven't answered my question, Emilia. What the hell is this?"

"I – I don't know. I don't understand," she stuttered.

"Is that you in the picture or not?"

"Yes, it is. But – "

"That's enough! I don't want to hear any lies from you. I can't believe you would do this."

"Kane, I think I was set up. This isn't what it looks like. Chad and I never kissed yesterday."

"Who's he?"

"My ex-boyfriend. We never had the chance to break up properly because he was filming a documentary in Africa at the time you and my father made your deal. I tried to reach him and tell him what was going on but the network connection was always bad over there."

"So, now he's back in town and the two of you decided to continue from where you left off?"

"No!"

Kane looked at her with disgust. "I can't trust you anymore, Emilia. And here I was thinking that we were in love. I've been such a fool."

"No, Kane. Please, don't say that."

He turned around and began to walk away. When he reached the door, he paused and said, "I don't want to see you here when I return tonight."

And then he was gone. Emilia was confused. How did this happen?

She opened the newspaper and found more photos of her and Chad. They were laughing, they holding hands and then they were hugging.

The headline was a nightmare. The press was calling her an adulterous wife. Unnamed sources claimed that she'd been hooking up with her lover right after she married Kane.

"What is all this madness about, Emilia?" Lillian asked, barging into her room. She was waving her phone screen at Emilia to show her the offending pictures.

"I can explain, Lillian. It's not what you think."

"What else am I supposed to think? There are pictures of you kissing some guy, splashed all over the internet. They're talking about it on TV too!"

Emilia covered her face with her palms. What had she done to herself?

Elsie was angrier than everyone else. She called Emilia every foul name she could think of and threatened to order Kane to file for a divorce.

"Please, don't do that, Mother," Emilia begged. "A divorce would affect my family negatively."

"First of all, don't call me your mother. I did not give birth to a shameless whore. And secondly, you should have thought of your family before you went to kiss your lover in public!"

While that conversation was still going on, a delivery man came from Kane's office with a file addressed to Emilia.

She opened the document with shaky hands and was horrified to see that Kane's lawyer was ordering her to leave the mansion due to her breach of the marriage contract. Kane was already making plans to file for a divorce.

"No!" She cried. This can't be happening!

"I'll send the housekeeper to go upstairs right now and pack your things," Elsie said. "You took your marriage to my son for granted and this is what you get for that."

It all felt like a bad dream. Everything was happening so fast and there was nothing Emilia could do to stop it. Suddenly, she was the bad egg in the family and she was getting thrown out.

"I'm really disappointed in you, Emily," said Jack. "I thought you were a good girl."

"For the last time, Jack. My name is Emilia, not Emily!"

When she returned to her family, her father welcomed her back with open arms but her mother and sister were mad at her.

"How could you mess this up for us?" Lara asked angrily.

"You only had one job, Emilia. One job, and that's to stay married to Kane Beaumont!" Said Chloe.

"Then maybe you should have married him!" She snapped at her sister.

"I would have but I'm seventeen!"

"What's going to happen to us no?" Lara wailed. "What's going to happen to the restaurant that Kane is building for us?"

Their answer came later that evening when the divorce papers were delivered to Emilia, along with legal documents stating that Beaumont Enterprises would no longer be in business with Andrew Taylor and his family.

"And so it begins," said Chloe sadly.

Emilia was beyond heartbroken. She'd let her family down in the worst way possible. How will they ever recover from this?

She called Kane several times but he wouldn't take her calls. Then, she called Chad.

"Hello, Emilia. I was going to call you just now. What's all this madness going on in the news?"

"I should be asking you, Chad. If it wasn't for you, I'd still be happily married now. Did you set me up?"

"What! Come on, Emilia. You should know me better than that. Why would you even ask me that kind of question? Why would I set you up?"

"How did the paparazzi know that we would be at Vanity Café?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't have called you if it wasn't for your PA who reached out to me first."

"My PA?"

"Yes. A lady named Nicole. She said you always talked about how bad you felt for not breaking up with me before you got married. I thought you needed closure and that was why I called you."

Emilia didn't know what to say. She didn't even have a PA, so who was Chad talking about? Was he making this up?

"I'm deeply sorry about all of this, Emilia. It was never my intention to get you into trouble. I hope this misunderstanding gets sorted out soon."

But it didn't. Things got worse instead. The media kept putting out false stories about Emilia and her relationship with Chad.

The paparazzi set up camps in front of her family house and bombarded them with camera flashes and rude questions whenever they stepped outside. The attention became too much for Emilia to handle.

"I can't deal with this anymore," she said one evening as they ate dinner.

"Don't worry, darling. All of this will soon blow over," her father assured her. "Once the paparazzi find something else to talk about, they'll leave you alone."

He was right. Once the paparazzi found out that Kane and Kendra had rekindled their relationship, they left Emilia and her family alone.

The power couple, as they were tagged, were photographed everywhere they went. They looked so perfect together that Emilia cried when she saw the pictures.

"Ugh, he's such a pig," said Chloe while trying to console her. "How could he move on so quickly? Didn't he ever trust you?"

"I still can't get over the fact that that witch never paid for what she did to Emilia," their mother complained bitterly.

"You know what, that's it. I'm done," Emilia said. She was tired of being the victim all the time. It was time for her to finally move on with her life.

She signed the divorce petition from Kane's lawyer and sent it to her lawyer for further processing. As far as Emilia was concerned, her marriage to Kane Beaumont was over.