The first thing I saw when I woke up was my own face on a screen.
Not a mirror. Not a reflection.
A video.
My phone vibrated violently on the bedside table, buzzing like something alive and angry. Messages stacked over one another so fast I could not read them. Missed calls. Unknown numbers. Family. Friends who had never called me this early before.
My throat felt dry. My head pounded.
Then I saw the headline.
ASHBRIDGE HEIR CAUGHT IN HOTEL SCANDAL WITH MYSTERY WOMAN.
The thumbnail loaded slowly, cruelly. A woman stepping out of a luxury hotel suite at dawn. Hair loose. Dress wrinkled. A hand reaching up to shield her face from flashing cameras.
My face.
I sat up so fast the room spun.
"No," I whispered.
I clicked the video.
There I was again. Walking. Pausing. Looking directly at the cameras with an expression that could only be described as guilty. Ashamed. Caught.
The woman in the video looked like me. Every detail was right. The curve of the jaw. The mole near my collarbone. Even the bracelet on her wrist.
Except I had never worn that dress. I had never been in that hotel. I had never slept with Daniel Ashbridge.
My phone rang.
This time, I answered.
"Where are you?" my mother asked. Her voice trembled, thin and sharp at the same time.
"In my apartment," I said. "Mum, I swear I did not do this."
There was a pause. Breathing on the other end.
"The board meeting has been moved up," she said quietly. "Your father wants you here. Now."
The line went dead.
I stood there, wrapped in my sheets, staring at a lie that was already spreading faster than the truth ever could.
By the time I arrived at the Ashbridge family residence, reporters had gathered outside the gates. Cameras flashed when they saw my car. Someone shouted my name. Another voice hurled an insult I refused to repeat.
Inside, the house felt colder than usual.
They were already waiting for me.
My father sat at the head of the long dining table, hands folded. My uncle lounged beside him, calm and composed. Two lawyers sat opposite them. My mother stood by the window, her back turned.
They had already decided.
"I was framed," I said before anyone could speak. "That video is fake."
One of the lawyers slid a tablet toward me.
"Unfortunately, it is not," she said. "The footage is authentic. The face recognition analysis confirms it."
"That's impossible," I said. "I was at home last night. Alone."
My uncle smiled faintly.
"Intent does not matter," he said. "Public perception does."
My father finally looked at me. His eyes were tired. Older than I remembered.
"This scandal threatens everything," he said. "The shareholders are furious. The Ashbridge name is trending worldwide."
"So clear it," I said. "Find the truth."
He shook his head.
"There is no time."
My chest tightened.
"What are you saying?"
"The board has agreed on a solution," he continued. "You will marry Daniel Ashbridge."
The room went silent.
I laughed, sharp and disbelieving.
"You want me to marry the man this scandal revolves around?"
"Yes."
"So you believe I slept with him?"
"I believe," my father said slowly, "that sacrificing one person is better than losing everything."
The words landed like a verdict.
I looked around the room. At my uncle, who would benefit most if I disappeared quietly into a marriage. At the lawyers, already drafting my future into clauses and penalties. At my mother, still facing the window.
That was when something inside me shifted.
Not panic. Not grief.
Clarity.
"If I do this," I said, my voice steady despite the storm in my chest, "then I do it my way."
My uncle raised an eyebrow.
"You don't have leverage."
I smiled for the first time that day.
"You'd be surprised," I said.
Because whoever created that video had made one mistake. They had tried to destroy me in public. And if there was one thing I knew how to survive, it was fire. Outside, the cameras kept flashing. Inside, the villain they wanted me to be finally opened her eyes.