🌹R O S E🌹

🌹CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE🌹

I wake up by my phone ringing, and not my alarm clock, but my ringtone. I turn in my bed and check the still ringing phone, the ID says that Lena is calling me. The fact that the clock is about six in the morning is crazy for her to be calling me, she hates the mornings and hates waking up in the mornings.

I answer the phone. "Hello" I say in a tired voice, I'm a bit tired as I just woke up and I haven't had my morning shower yet. "You're in deep shit" She only says with seriousness in her voice. I don't think she's wouldn't be calling me at six in the morning if it weren't important.

I sit up on my bed. "What do you mean?" I ask, now that I've already awoken, there is no way I'm ever going to be able to sleep now, I might as well get ready for the day. She sighs on the other line. "I knew you didn't know" She says, a bit disappointed, I'm not sure if she's disappointed in me or something else.

Then she starts to murmur to herself, about something that I can't hear. I think she's nervous about something, she's always murmurs and mutters to herself when she's nervous and that's clearly what's happening right now. I have no idea what she could be meaning or why she's like this.

Lena's usually the type of person that doesn't show much of her emotions, she often tries to hide them as best as she can, though sometimes I can see right through her and it never works, but at other times I admit that I'm oblivious to it, as I'm horrible at reading people's emotions.

"Lena, talk" I say into the phone, not even sure if she can hear me or not, but I need to do something to get her attention to me, so she can tall me what is the matter. She says I'm in trouble, but I have no idea what she could be meaning or what I did.

I didn't even do anything, or I don't think I did. "All right, all right" She says, though I do sense a bit of something in her voice that doesn't sound like anything good. "Do you get the newspaper in the mornings?" She asks, I have no idea what she's on about now.

"You know I don't read the newspaper, so I declined them" I tell her, she knows this. She was with me when I told the post office that I didn't want any newspaper or junk mail that isn't important for me. She was only there because she was complaining about how she always got mail that was supposed go to the next building and her mail was there.

Both our problems got sorted out and her mail thing was checked into and the last time I knew, everything's fine now. And, they stopped sending me the newspaper and other junk mail, as I requested and I haven't had a problem with it.

"All right, I'm going to send you a photo of the front page of the newspaper and then I want you to call me" Lena only says and hangs up on the phone, she doesn't even give me time to speak or respond to that. I look at my phone with a confused look.

I have no idea what's going on but I guess I'm going to find out when she sends me that picture. I wait for it, for about one minute or so, while I wait, I take everything ready for the shower I will be taking after she has showed me this picture of the newspaper.

My phone makes a vibrating sound, signaling me that I've got a message from Lena. I open my phone and she's sending me a photo. I click on it and my jaw drops open and my eyes widen when I see exactly what she means. "I'm in deep shit" I say to myself.

'Who is Rose Ace?' Is written on the front cover of the newspaper and there's a picture of me, it's the picture of me in a dress. I remember this. This was taken last year, when I attended my Uncle's birthday party, he and dad are so close and I love him.

Under the picture is an article about me, there has never been an article about me in the newspapers, or at least none that I know of. My mom made sure that nothing was leaked to the press about me or anything concerning me. How did people get all of this information.

'The mysterious Ms. Rose Ace has been seen multiple times with our favorite bachelor Mr. Alexander Knight, the two have been spotted outside of Selone Inc soon to be Knight Inc. Another spotting of the two is in front of a florist shop. Could this be a romantic trip?'

'No information on Rose Ace is possible to find. Is this innocent looking woman hiding from the law? Our sources tell us she has also been spotted with the bachelor Mr. Damon Garder. Is the gold digging criminal woman blackmailing those two?'

I stop reading after that, tears streaming down my face. Do people actually think this? I can't believe that they think I'm those things, when I can never do anything like this. The only reason why no one knows anything about is because of my mother, she hid me from anyone.

Made sure that I was never in any papers. I thought I was in trouble when I heard that there were rumors about me in the company and I thought all of that was over and I didn't have to worry about that anymore, but now things have taken a turn and for the worse.

This is so bad, this is worse than anything and I can't believe this is happening to me. I always knew that as soon as I started my own business, the newspapers will be all over me, but that isn't now. And, I can't believe that people are ruining me.

I dial Lena, I need to figure this thing out and as soon as possible, I don't want a lot of people to see this, then again I already know that this is printed on millions of newspapers. Everyone will read this, and if I'm not mistaken, the news articles that are in the papers are also on the internet for those who don't want to read the actual paper itself.

This is too messed up. Lena picks up right away after I call her, I guess she was expecting me to call her, she also said it before. "What the hell is this?" I ask her, breaking into sobs. This is just too much for me to handle. Having people read this and think this about me.

It's insane. "How can they just assume that I'm a criminal?" I ask her without even letting her answer the last question that I had asked her. "I don't know. People are horrible and cruel. They don't deserve a person like you, no one does. Well, except for a certain Alexander Knight. That does remind me, did you really go with him to a florist shop?" She asks.

Lena has always been good at changing subjects when she needs to. I guess I have no other choice but to talk about that. I don't want to remind myself of the things that people wrote about me. I didn't even read the whole article, but I did read enough to know the opinion they have on me.

I sigh. "Yes, I did go with him. He took me there yesterday, and the strange thing is, he told me he needed a woman to help him, but he never even needed help or even my help. He didn't buy anything or do anything in there, only talked with the owner and then we left. It was unnecessary for me to even go with him" I say.

I purposely leave out the part about the white rose and everything connected to that, I don't want her to freak out about it. She will read too much into all of it and I don't want that to happen. I already have the whole country having some opinions of me, I don't want her to think like that too.

"There's something else you're not telling me, something about Damon Garder. I remember you mentioned him at some time, but now people think you're going out with him. Please, at least tell me something about that. I have the right to know that, I'm your best friend" She tells me.

She's using the best friend card to get what she wants, she loves using that card on me. And, that always works on me, I guess that is why she always uses it on me. "I sort of had dinner with him last night" I say and close my eyes, she's going to freak out in...

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She let's out a squeal of happiness. "Seriously, perhaps your ship with Mr. Knight can sink. You've got another hot man with abs. I may even start to ship you soon. How did it go, please tell me it went well. I need to have some ship still floating" She says.

"How is he like? I mean, I heard that many women like him and he's thinking about committing. Oh, my, god. What if he's planning on committing with you. That's a dream come true. I'm going to find a ship name for you and I'm going to get you two together. Forget about Mr. Knight, go after Mr. Garder" She tells me.

And, here I thought she was so excited that I'd be with Mr. Knight. I'm just glad that she isn't thinking about that now, since he's my boss and the most idiotic man in the whole wide world, and he's a dick and so rude to everyone, even me. I don't get a chance to even comment about her rant there before she hangs up.

Possibly finding ship names for me and Damon, not much to my liking. Shaking my and letting out giggle I set my phone back on my nightstand as I hop into a shower. After the shower I go to the kitchen, still with dripping wet hair and make myself some breakfast.

A toast and a fried egg, just something simple but still healthy. I also have orange juice to drink with it. I eat in silence and let my hair dry. My mind is everywhere, trying not to think of the things that I just discovered this morning, or a half and hour ago.

I don't even know how I'm going to be able to get through this day and my whole life. News articles can destroy a person, they can literally tear people down, humiliate them so they can't even show their face anymore. But, there is also a good side about articles. I can't find one at the moment, but I know there are.

After I've eaten I go to my bedroom and the clock is only about quarter to seven in the morning, it's far too early to go to work now, as I'm sure it's not even open at the moment. In truth, I have no idea when the company opens in the morning, but I would assume it's at seven in the morning.

Going through my closet, I find the things I want to be in for the day. My phone starts ringing while I'm roaming through the closet. I check the ID, and it's Damon. "Hey" I answer. "Hey, beautiful" He says. Since last night he's been calling me 'beautiful'. I really don't mind it.

Until I had to leave for work, I talked to him and it's actually really nice to talk about him. But, work awaits me and for the first time, I'm not looking forward to going to work. Not knowing what's gonna happen is the worst part of it all.