Too Late Mr. White! I'm Married To Your Rival Now novel Chapter 148

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Aria's POV

Lillian's message hit me like a truck: [Screenshot.jpg][Screenshot.jpg] "Is this you in these photos?"

I opened the pictures and immediately spotted myself. There I was, clear as day.

"Unbelievable!" Lillian texted. "Some idiot posted photos of us meeting Julian on Valentine's Day, claiming he's in a secret relationship!"

I stared at my phone, completely speechless. How do you even respond to something like this?

"Girl, everyone online is digging into this and... shit! Someone already identified you as the 'mystery woman'!"

"Just end me now," I typed back, already feeling drained.

As if Aiden's "cheating scandal" wasn't enough, now I've been forcibly cast as Julian's secret girlfriend. The same Julian fans who were complimenting my beauty hours ago were now hurling insults at me.

"Seriously?! Married people should know better! Keep your distance from other men when you're married!"

"This Jones woman is something else! Spending Valentine's Day with Julian instead of her husband? Damn, she's playing games!"

"I heard Julian paid her 300 grand for that concert appearance—his company only covered 100k, and he paid the rest himself. There's definitely something going on between them!"

Julian already commanded massive attention, and I was still caught in Aiden's alleged affair drama. We were both hot topics. When photos of us supposedly spending Valentine's Day together leaked, the hashtag #JulianTheHomewrecker shot to number one trending within half an hour.

I watched the numbers climb higher and higher, completely powerless to stop it.

I was stunned. All I did was accept a ride home that night—how did that transform into a full-blown affair?

Lillian was fuming: "This is clearly targeted mud-slinging! It looks like they're attacking Julian, but they're really coming for you!"

I couldn't see the pattern clearly. "What do you mean?"

"Look at the hashtags about you and Julian! If I hadn't been there with you on Valentine's Day, you two would never be able to clear your names. Now both you AND Aiden are accused of cheating. This is obviously aimed at you—someone wants Julian's fans to attack you!"

"Just wait," she added. "Soon someone will leak so-called 'insider details' about your marriage with Aiden."

I don't follow celebrity culture or social media trends, so I didn't fully grasp what was happening at first. I just felt wrongfully accused. But with Lillian pointing it out, I started seeing the bigger picture.

True to her word—Lillian really knows her way around internet drama—a post titled "Rich Marriages: Playing Separate Games, Who's Truly Invested?" went viral almost immediately.

The anonymous poster claimed to be someone on the periphery of high society with inside knowledge. They wrote that the recently lovey-dovey but now scandal-plagued "Mr. S and Miss J" had a marriage of convenience—all public displays of affection were just for show while they lived separate private lives.

The post was deliberately vague without naming names, but with the top trending topic being my alleged affair with Julian, people immediately connected the dots.

"Mind blown! I was so naive! I thought this was a real high-society love story. Turns out it was all an act—and I was the foolish fan who bought into it!"

"This is wild! So Miss Jones married Mr. Carter just to save face? Their whole relationship is just business with zero feelings?"

"They were the first couple I ever shipped! I thought marriage would guarantee they'd never disappoint us! Now everything's crashed so fast, I'm in shock! Who should I even be mad at? Maybe they're both wrong, maybe neither is wrong—maybe I'm the only one who got it wrong!"