After All the Hurt, She Chose Herself novel Chapter 303

[FamilyFirst_UK: High society is a mess. So Aria and Gideon were married. Then what was going on with Lilith and Gideon? They were acting all loved up, and now we find out there was an actual wife? Aria was totally betrayed!]

Raphael monitored the trending topics on his phone. Aria's name had swept the top three spots. He glanced at her and sighed softly. "Ready to head home?"

Aria nodded.

Raphael put his phone away and drove back to his luxury apartment.

Nathan called shortly after. Aria declined the call without a second thought. Nathan persistently dialed back. Annoyed, Aria blocked his number.

Mira Dawson, always eager for gossip, found out immediately and bombarded Aria with messages.

[Mira: Aria, where are you right now? I still haven't given you your divorce present. Can I come over?]

Her tone was cautious, but Aria wasn't particularly stressed. At its core, this whole fiasco was about money and power, not feelings.

[Aria: Sure, come on over~]

She sent her location. Mira replied with an excited sticker.

Raphael followed Aria upstairs. Before she could say a word, he headed into the kitchen to prepare a meal.

"You didn't eat much earlier. I'll make something simple to soothe your stomach."

Aria was such a good person. Mira had even checked with Dr. Reaves. The research bonus was millions of dollars, split among a dozen team members. By the time it reached Aria, it was just a fraction. If Aria were the gold-digger the internet claimed, she would never have distributed the funds so fairly.

The more Mira thought about it, the angrier she got, even though Aria's name had been cleared. She pulled out her phone to check the trending list again, but the app wouldn't load.

"That's weird. My connection is fine." Mira tapped on other topics, which loaded instantly. But any hashtag involving Aria resulted in an error.

"No way! Did someone shadowban the topic?!" Mira gasped. "Aria, look! Every single post about you is gone or locked!"

Aria frowned and checked her own phone. It was true. The pages either buffered endlessly or displayed a deletion notice. Someone was clearly pulling strings behind the scenes.

Raphael set a bowl of warm oatmeal in front of Aria and looked at Mira.