Stand By Me Darling
Chapter 113: Her Reaction

Chapter 113: Her Reaction

He will never let his story be on the trending anymore. If his name trends with a woman, it should be with his Iris and no one else.

And soon the Internet was filled with pictures of Olivia visiting an nursery home and interacting with the old people there with a smile in her face.

Soon people forgot about the engagement announcement and talked about how wonderful and charitable their future Princess Consort is.

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Talia who was taking a nap in the couch, woke up hearing the bunch of notifications in her phone. Blaming herself for not putting the phone in silence before she laid, she picked up her phone to see her name trending in Esteria and Rosandale once more.

And she read the official statement from Northern Star and she felt her heart drop into void.

Fred is engaged with Sophia?

The Council’s decision?

Talia felt her eyes go blank. The floor beneath her feet slipping from under her feet.

Is this really happening?

She stared at her potted plant and it seemed like it became a cartoon figure waving it’s hands. She felt funny in the head and she blinked her eyes hard twice before seeing the plant immobile as it is supposed to be.

Is this hallucination a withdrawal symptom of the medications I took?

She felt lucid for a moment but soon she felt that overwhelming feeling that arose from the pit of her stomach. She was pulled back by the knock in her door.

Like a clockwork doll, she walked to the door and opened it. It was Joe in front of her and he was screaming something at her and she didn’t hear it.

Seeing Talia staring blankly, Joe pushed her away and entered the house.

Talia knew Mr. Ed was asking her something but she couldn’t hear him either but felt her stomach churning and ran to the bathroom.

After throwing up everything in her stomach, she didn’t even have the strength to get up and her legs wobbled as she tried to stand up.

Sophia Clairmont!

Talia remembered that beautiful and pleasant girl. She was a year junior to them in high school and she relentlessly followed Fred back then but somehow couldn’t find her way in between them.

How did she find a way to be near Fred now? How long she and Fred were together? Did Fred really lie to me saying whatever came to his mouth to get my grandfather’s company?

Was I wrong about him?

No! It can’t be! Please God... Please don’t let that be true...

Talia couldn’t stop her tears and staggered her way to the washbasin to wash her face. She saw Amy standing by the bathroom door with a worried expression.

Talia opened the tap and the water flowed from the spout to her hands and she stood there staring at the splash made by the water on her hand.

She didn’t know how long she was staring at her hand but she saw the skin of her fingers got wrinkles in them. It should be a long time.

She bent and washed her face. She refused to give up. She won’t let Fred get away from her. He is hers.

She splashed water on her face and patting her face dry, looked at herself in the mirror. Suddenly she felt clear and she could finally breath properly.

He told me to trust him! There should be more to it!

"We got information from reliable sources that Mr. Arthur Sinclair attended the Head Council meeting wearing the Crest of Brunton’s before the announcement was made public," Amy reported seeing Talia a bit composed.

Talia looked at Amy a bit surprised. She is not going ask me why I got an attack because she already knows the reason? These Rosandale Kingsguard are a bit scary!

But if Arthur attended the meeting himself, Why did he accept this engagement?

Talia started to think in his point of view.

Sophia... Sophia... Did you have a hand in it? Sophia Clairmont... Clairmont...

That’s when Talia realised where her emotions got the better of her rationality.

She thought since Arthur was pursued by Sophia in the past, she might have something to do with this announcement.

But she is not.

Clairmont... She remembered that guy in the board of directors of Northern Star with some miniscule one or two percentage share in the company. She had attended a lot of meetings with her grandfather.

Although a percentage share in Northern Star is a lot of money by any standards, that guy always wanted to have a lot more.

And Arthur during his recent visit here, mentioned about the talks of nationalisation and that some of those board members were spreading those ideas among workers.

That Clairmont must be one of them!

And now, Fred by accepting a marriage alliance with the Clairmont family have made Clairmont family an enemy of the others who want a piece of the pie.

She knew Lord Clairmont cannot hold back his thoughts now and will let it run wild. He will imagine himself as the chairman of Northern Star and also as the Duke of Oakley. And in his arrogance, he will not treat his allies nicely and will end up angering them.

This will create a rift among the allies against the Brunton family. Also who knows how many wanted their daughter to marry Arthur? Now that Clairmont pushed his way through, they’d naturally hate him and try to bring him down.

Also by now, those who have extreme loyalty towards her grandfather would have felt something amiss and will try to be vigilant and so many of the evil deeds of those against the Brunton family will come out.

Thus none of the nobles will trust the other now and there will be no unity among the nobles now.

Well done, Fred!

He started a coup against the nobles!

Talia laughed looking at the mirror. Amy got scared a bit at their Princess laughing out of nowhere.

"Mr. Ed! Leak the last letter I sent to the Esterian Government for applying visa!"

Talia shouted and Mr. Ed nodded at her with a smirk.

Of course their Princess is smart. Rather than releasing a statement claiming she applied for visa and got denied, it would be much better if that letter got leaked anonymously.

That was a heartfelt letter, handwritten by their Princess almost begging the government to let her visit her grandfather.

By leaking that letter, the Princess can prove her filial piety and turn the Esterian Government as monsters at the same time tugging the heartstrings of people by the plight of a granddaughter who is not allowed to meet her sick grandfather because of a sin she committed ten years back.

While Mr. Ed got to leaking the letter without any connection to her, Talia smiled assured.

For one, Fred did not betray her.

And secondly by leaking her letter now, no one will talk about the engagement anymore and everyone will be discussing about her. She didn’t care if people talked bad about her. Sophia clearly is not important as Talia and if given the choice people will talk about Talia more. She didn’t want Fred to be talked together with another woman.

But she did feel a bit of sadness for Sophia. Sophia tried to make Arthur look at her in many different ways during high school. But she couldn’t even get a glance from Arthur since he was always looking at her. And now that Sophia’s engagement is announced, she should be really happy if she is still in love with Arthur. But sadly, even now together with Fred and Sophia’s name, her name got attached nonetheless!

’Guess poor Sophia can’t get rid of her and have Fred for herself then or now! Poor poor girl’

Talia couldn’t hide her glee and grinned from ear to ear.

But this is not enough. Talia wanted Sophia’s name to sink deeper into the ether. There is no way she can be seen together with Fred.

She got her phone and was surprised to see Olivia’s name trending in Esteria. These past few days the tabloid news were filled with news about Olivia and how amazing and wonderful she is.

Of course people will care more about their future Princess Consort than Sophia whose marriage was assigned by the Council.

People liked true love, like the story Olivia and Edward are spinning. The "I met her one day and I knew she was the one" kind of stories.

Talia thought Olivia couldn’t take Sophia taking the limelight from her and so she released the puff piece about her, but little did she know Arthur was behind it and he didn’t want to be talked with Sophia and so he made people talk about Olivia.

And soon her letter was leaked by "anonymous sources" with confirmation of her handwriting and soon Talia became the trending topic overtaking everything else.

The social media platform almost crashed by the comments made and the articles regarding this posted.

If this letter is true, the article that got released yesterday about the meeting between Prince Edward and Talia was false!

The narrative was that Prince.Edward wanted to invite Talia back but she got angry and insulted him. It means that Talia didn’t want to return.

But now by this letter, it clearly states that Talia wanted to return to Esteria but her visa was rejected.

What about the stark contrast in narrative?

The whole Internet exploded trying to get the truth.