The Hidden Empress Stripping Her Secrets After Divorce novel Chapter 186

After Lyra hung up the phone, a sudden wave of intense unease washed over her.

His tone just now... it was far too cold. It wasn't his usual detached politeness, but rather an eerie calmness suppressing some volatile emotion. That line, "I have some things to ask you," made her skin crawl.

What did he want to ask?

Could he... have found out something?

Impossible. Vivian Valentine had sworn that all her overseas messes were completely scrubbed. Lydia had been silenced, and Penelope was currently too tied up with her own chaos to cause trouble...

She forced herself to calm down, picking up her phone to double-check her outfit and makeup coordination for tomorrow. But just as her finger brushed the screen, the phone violently vibrated—

It wasn't a call. It was a barrage of news push notifications, so relentless that they made her heart race with dread.

Frowning, Lyra went to swipe them away. But the moment her eyes locked onto the headlines, her entire body froze solid.

*Exclusive: The Real Father of Lyra Langford's Illegitimate Child Exposed! A Bankrupt Foreign Billionaire Returning to Find a Scapegoat?*

*Unmasking the 'First Love': Marriage Fraud, Extortion, and Emotional Manipulation—Does the Lancaster CEO Know?*

*Exposing Lyra Langford's Chaotic Life Abroad: Juggling Multiple Men—Ballet Dancer or High-Society Escort?*

Her fingers began to tremble uncontrollably, and the phone slipped from her grasp, hitting the floor with a sharp crack. A spiderweb of fractures splintered across the screen, but the glaring headlines remained terrifyingly visible.

"No... impossible..." she muttered to herself, her face draining of all color until it was as white as a sheet. "We suppressed this... Vivian told me it was all handled..."

Now she finally understood why Christian's tone had been so chillingly off on the phone.

He knew.

He knew everything.

A knock sounded at the door. It was the Langford family's longtime nanny. "Miss? Are you alright? I heard something shatter..."

Lyra violently snapped out of her daze, forcing her voice to sound steady. "I-I'm fine. I just accidentally knocked over my water glass. Go back to sleep, I'll clean it up."

"Are you sure? You sound..."

"I said I'm fine!" Lyra's voice cracked and shot up in pitch, before she hastily lowered it. "Go to sleep. I'm just exhausted."

The line went silent for a few agonizing seconds, the thumping bass fading as Vivian presumably stepped out into a quieter area.

"Lyra..." Vivian's tone shifted, sounding incredibly hesitant. "This time... I don't think I can help you."

"Why?!" Lyra's stomach completely bottomed out.

"Lydia Maxwell is dead set on blowing this up into a massive scandal," Vivian lowered her voice. "And she's got someone incredibly powerful backing her. She's not even giving Christian face on this. The evidence they dropped is way too solid—photos, timelines, witnesses... It's impossible to suppress."

"Then what do I do..." Lyra choked out, her voice laced with absolute despair. "I'm ruined... Everything is ruined..."

"Lyra, listen to me." Vivian's tone turned dead serious. "The best thing you can do right now is... say nothing. Don't respond at all, and wait for the heat to die down. You're staying at the Langford estate anyway, just keep a low profile, and eventually, people will forget..."

"Forget?! How could anyone forget this!" Lyra practically screamed. "Christian already knows! He wants to see me tomorrow, and he's definitely going to demand answers! If I don't explain this perfectly, my life is over!"

"Then just explain it!" Vivian snapped back, losing her patience. "Say the photos are fake, that someone maliciously photoshopped them! Just deny it to your dying breath. What can they actually do to you?"

"But... but those photos..." Lyra stared at the shattered screen, her eyes fixed on the image of her pressing her face against the foreign man's cheek, her fingers digging painfully into her palms.