One night, when Belle got home, exhausted from work, she went straight to bed without changing her clothes. She wasn’t even able to wash her face.
She doesn’t know how long she has slept when her phone started ringing nonstop. She glanced at the clock on her side table, it was only one in the morning.
“Hello?” she answered lazily.
“Are you sleeping already?” Nathalie asked, sounding hurried and worried at the same time. When Belle didn’t answer immediately, she cut her off. “Check the internet.”
As she noticed a hint of panic in her friend’s voice, she quickly grabbed her laptop and opened the main news website in Bree. Her eyes widened in shock.
Right on the site’s front page, the headline was written in bold letters, ‘FORMER EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF DE CLARION EMPIRE, OWNER OF SWEET SUE CYBERSECURITY, POISONED BILLIONAIRE FREDERICK DE CLARION.’
Belle suddenly felt cold all over her body. Her hands started shaking uncontrollably. Biting her lower lip, the first thing that came to her mind was to take down the news.
She immediately opened an application she created, typed a few codes in there and all the news related to her was deleted in a snap of a finger. She was able to sigh in relief.
However, the netizens were quicker than her. As she saw it later than most people, some have already taken a screenshot of the news and reposted it on their social media accounts.
In less than an hour, she became a criminal who tried to poison an old multi-billionaire. Belle suddenly felt worried about her company, especially her employees.
If this news reached their clients, they would highly likely withdraw their contracts with Sweet Sue. This will hit them hard. It could even shut them down.
Belle wasn’t wrong in her assumptions. In the morning, she received nonstop calls from their clients asking for the cancellation of their contracts.
At the De Clarion Villa, on the other hand, Frederick also read the news and he was furious. “Who let this one out?!” he roared, slamming his hand on the coffee table.
As far as he knows, no one outside the villa knew that he was poisoned deliberately. They even convinced the doctor who checked on him to dismiss it as a case of food poisoning.
“Fred, I think we need to switch out some of our helpers, especially the new ones,” John suggested.
The butler came up with the idea after what happened to his old friend. His first candidate for replacement was the helper who received the cake.
“Why do you say that? Are you suspicious of something?”
John nodded at the old man. “Every one of the staff in this household has already been serving you for 10 years, even more. Only one is new and that same girl is the one who received the delivered cake that poisoned you.”
“You think she’s conspiring with someone from outside?”
“I don’t want to think that and hopefully I’m wrong, but my gut feeling tells me there’s something wrong with her. I don’t mean to be nosy. I don’t normally go inside their rooms to check, but when I did one time, I saw designer bags and shoes in her closet. She also had a bundle of money on her dresser. She’s only been working here with us for more than a year and unless she came from a rich family and was only pretending to be a maid, then you too will wonder where she got all those expensive pieces of stuff and cash.”
Frederick nodded. He understood what John was trying to tell him. “Call Jacob, tell him I need help setting up my laptop.”
John did as he was told. While waiting for his son, he discussed with Frederick what he would say during his live broadcast.
After about half an hour, Jacob showed up with Tristan and Joyce. Frederick’s expression immediately turned sour after seeing the girl.
John also remembered something suddenly as soon as she saw Joyce. The birthmark on Belle’s wrist suddenly popped up on his head.
“What do you need my assistant for?” Tristan asked while pulling Joyce to sit down next to him.
Frederick ignored him. Instead, he turned his attention to Jacob and instructed him to set up his laptop as he would go on a live broadcast.
“It’s okay now Sir, you may press play whenever you’re ready.”
The old De Clarion nodded and waved at Jacob, telling him to get off of the screen. When the coast was clear, he quickly clicked on the play button.
“Good day, my fellow Bree citizens! To those who don’t know me, I’m Frederick De Clarion, former CEO of De Clarion Empire and Tristan De Clarion’s grandfather. I was the one on the headline of the recent news.”
As soon as Frederick got started, Joyce excused herself and walked toward the exit of the villa. “Where are you going?” Tristan asked after running after her.
“I don’t think I’m needed here. I’ll just go ahead. One of my friends asked me to visit this newly opened spa.”
Tristan glanced behind his shoulder, he wanted to go with Joyce but he couldn’t leave his grandfather either. He reached out for Joyce’s hand, “Will you be okay by yourself?”
Joyce nodded, giving Tristan a lazy smile. “Don’t worry about me, go back and help your grandfather with his broadcast.”
When Tristan nodded, Joyce turned around towards the gate. As soon as she was out, Tristan went back to the villa.
“I am doing this live broadcast to clear the rumor that surfaced recently and dominated most newspaper headlines. First and foremost, it is true that I got poisoned. Actually, I just got out of the hospital recently. However, it is not true that Belle Roberts is the culprit. Belle is very close to me, I treat her as my real granddaughter. She indeed brings me mango cake from time to time, and I was poisoned by mango cake as well. However, it is not the one from Belle.”
“First, she will only send me a cake when I ask her to. She bakes it and brings it to me personally. She will never have it delivered and the cake that poisoned me was brought here by a delivery guy, as per our household helper. Second, Belle Roberts’ mango cake, the one that she would bake personally for me, has a special ingredient I requested for her to include. The cake that poisoned me doesn’t even have that secret ingredient.”
“Considering all these, I am confident that it was not her who tried to deliberately poison me. It is someone else who is trying to set her up. As for the first publisher of the news, we’re taking action against the company for releasing news that is harmful to someone of good standing. That is all and may every one of you have a great day.”
Jacob quickly turned off the camera as soon as Frederick was done with his live broadcast. The old man let out a long sigh before leaning backward.
“You,” Frederick glared at his grandson. “Make sure to apologize to Belle for what you did to her at the hospital.”
Tristan lifted his head to look at his grandfather, brows furrowed. Jacob looked at his friend while nodding in agreement with what Frederick asked his grandson to do.
“The cake we received was not the one from Belle. It was my greed that led to my poisoning. I salivated as soon as I saw it, so I decided to eat it though I knew it was not the one I used to eat. You, on the other hand, have no right to hurt my little girl. You don’t have the right to hurt her emotionally, especially physically. You can’t do that to her. Never!”