Roman and Julienne's heart desire
Chapter 74: The strike beneath the skin

Chapter 74: The strike beneath the skin

Somewhere deep inside the Jenkins estate—a home wrapped in cold stone, manicured hedges, and generations of pride—Cassandra Jenkins stormed down the grand staircase in a silk robe and slippers, her phone clenched tightly in one hand.

"Lewis!" she called, voice sharp with disbelief. "Lewis, you need to see this—now!"

Lewis Jenkins sat in his study, a tumbler of aged bourbon in one hand, his gaze fixed on stock reports he barely understood anymore.

The collapse had begun, quiet and patient—like termites inside a wall.

He didn’t look up. "What is it this time?"

His wife marched in, shoved the phone into his line of sight, and hissed, "That... is your daughter."

Lewis squinted at the screen.

There it was.

A freeze-frame that hit harder than any scandal ever could: Julie, tear-stained and trembling, outside some elite university building, with Roman Thompson—the Roman Thompson—bending over her like she was the only woman that mattered.

Roman’s hand cupped hers protectively.

Julie’s head hung low, vulnerable, like something had broken inside her.

Lewis’s eyes widened. "What the hell...?"

"Oh, you haven’t seen the whole thing," Cassandra said bitterly. "Watch."

She tapped play.

In full motion, the moment unfolded—students whispering, phones out, Julie crying, Roman arriving in a black car, stepping out, brushing past the university staff like they were made of dust.

The protector. The billionaire.

Cassandra paused it again, her finger shaking with rage. "What is she doing with him? What kind of stunt is this?!"

Lewis looked away, but not fast enough. Something was bubbling behind his eyes.

"I warned you," Cassandra spat. "I told you that disowning her wasn’t enough. That girl has always had a serpent’s charm—look what she’s done now.

" She crawled into some scandal, started crying, and suddenly the king of the business world shows up like a knight in shining armor?"

Lewis shook his head slowly. "This doesn’t make sense. How the hell did she even get close to him? Unless..."

"Unless she seduced him," Cassandra finished coldly. "Exactly what I was thinking. Always pretending to be helpless."

"She’s not stupid," Lewis murmured. "She was always calculating."

Cassandra sneered. "And she’s using Roman Thompson like a damn ladder. Do you know how dangerous this is? If people find out she’s your daughter—"

"She’s not my daughter," Lewis snapped.

The words hung in the room like smoke.

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed. "Well, legally, and to people yes. And if she gets her claws into him, we’re done for. She’ll have power. Real power. She’ll bury us."

Lewis set his glass down.

"Blood doesn’t lie, Cassandra," Lewis said, eyes flickering with something old and angry.

"No," he said firmly. "She won’t get that far. I’ll see to it."

Cassandra smiled thinly.

"Good," she whispered. "Because I didn’t raise a seductress in my house—and I refuse to let the world think I did."

She polished the final touches—smoothing skin tone, removing digital noise—and attached it seamlessly at the end of the widely circulated video clip.

A short fade transition from the real footage of Julie in tears... to her—Rachel’s altered image posing like a vixen in silk, labeled with a timestamp and a whispered suggestion:

"This was her real game all along."

A subtle tag in the corner of the video: Leaked via anonymous thread – verify if you dare.

Then Rachel uploaded it.

Not from her own device, of course.

She used one of her ghost accounts, routed through a VPN, uploaded to a private Discord server posing as a student leak group, then from there, let it "accidentally" spill onto Reddit.

From Reddit, it leapt to X.

From X, it exploded.

Tem minutes later Rachel watch as people send comments.

Sat curled into her window seat, her laptop open, fingers curled around a mug of untouched tea.

She refreshed the comments every few seconds, watching the wildfire catch.

@PillowTalk411:

So she fakes tears and then this surfaces? We’ve been bamboozled.

@CampusConfessor:

#JulieExposed is trending. That’s all I’m gonna say.

@MoneyTalksOnly:

Roman got played. SMH. They always fall for the crying ones.

@QueenLucia:

Imagine seducing the richest man alive and pretending to be the victim. Gurl. I need lessons.

@AnonWolf:

That image at the end??!! That’s not a university girl. That’s a pro. Damn.

Rachel chuckled lowly, eyes reflecting the screen’s light like a cat’s in the dark.

Then came the video reactions.

The stitch edits. The memes.

Somebody looped the image with crying Julie and slow zoomed on Roman’s face, adding the caption:

"He was never comforting her. He was falling for her trap."

And the worst one?

A slow fade edit captioned:

"From Tears to Temptation: How Julie Snared the Billionaire."

It was cruel. Brutal. Perfect.

Rachel closed her eyes, letting the noise of the internet scream through her like music.

"I told you," she murmured. "They always fall for the soft ones. But when the soft girl turns out to be a fox in silk sheets... they won’t just cancel you, Julie. They’ll bury you."

She opened her eyes again.

Already, Julie’s name was trending—but this time, not with sympathy.

Now it was hashtags like:

#JulieExposed

#ScamQueen

#FromVictimToVixen

#RomanScandal

#ThompsonAffair

#JulianneWilsonLied

Rachel leaned forward, tapping her keyboard again. This time, she posted a fresh "anonymous tip" on another gossip site:

Then she sat back, stretching her legs and grinning at her reflection in the window.

"Your sympathy wave just turned into a tsunami, sweetheart."

Julie sat beside Roman on the garden terrace, her body finally still after a day that felt like a slow unraveling.

The sun had dipped low in the sky, casting honey-colored light through the jacaranda leaves.

Their purple blossoms danced lazily in the warm evening breeze, falling in quiet spirals onto the stone pathway.

The garden was peaceful—almost untouched by the chaos of the outside world.

Here, surrounded by birdsong and the trickle of the fountain, time slowed.

And for a brief moment, Julie felt like she could breathe again.

Roman sat beside her, silent but solid, his presence as grounding as ever.

His hand rested over hers, thumb lightly tracing the back of her fingers.

She took comfort in that touch—the one thing that hadn’t shifted since the storm began.

"You know this isn’t going to slow down," he said at last, his voice quiet, almost reluctant to disturb the calm between them.

"I know," she replied, her voice soft.

"They’ll come harder. They’ll dig deeper. Some people won’t stop until they see you in pieces."

She turned to him slowly, meeting his gaze. "Do you regret it? Coming to get me... standing beside me in that video?"

Roman didn’t answer right away.

His eyes searched hers, and something fierce flickered there—protective, unyielding, familiar.

"I’d burn the whole institution to the ground if it meant keeping you safe," he said.

Julie looked down, blinking hard. The statement wasn’t new.

He’d always been like that with her—unapologetically devoted.

But every time he said something like that, it still struck something deep inside her.

Something broken and still healing.

"You mean that," she whispered.

Roman leaned in slightly, brushing a loose strand of hair away from her cheek.

"I meant it the first time I said it. And every time after."

She looked at him, the corner of her lips twitching faintly.

"Even when I walked into your life like a ghost in the road?" she said, a sad smile touching her face.

Roman’s expression softened.

He remembered it vividly—how she’d wandered into the road that rainy night, barefoot, her eyes hollow, like she had no idea whether she wanted to live or vanish.

Yes he didn’t hit the brakes just in time, but inwardly Roman thank God that he is the one who hit her.

Then heard her cry in the hospital ward that he realized—this girl wasn’t fragile.

She was broken. And he didn’t know why, but he had to fix her.

"You didn’t walk into my life," Roman said gently. "You collided with it. Shattered every plan I had. And I’ve never been more grateful for anything in my life."

Julie lowered her gaze, her cheeks glowing with warmth.

"I thought you were going to leave me there," she murmured.

""No, he hadn’t braked in time. But even now, Roman thanked God it was him—and no one else—who had hit her."

He reached over, tucking her hand into both of his. "Julie, I love you."

The words weren’t new. He’d said them before.

In whispered conversations. In quiet nights when the weight of the world pushed too hard.

But hearing them now—spoken so openly in the daylight, after the world had tried to shame her—meant something more.

Julie didn’t ask if he meant it.

She didn’t gasp in disbelief or stare wide-eyed.

She simply cast her eyes down, lashes fluttering, and let a smile curl the corners of her lips.

"I know," she said softly.

Roman’s eyes darkened with emotion.

He pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Then let them come. Let them try to tear us apart. I’ll be here. Always."

She rested her head against his shoulder, her heart still aching but no longer alone.

From the patio doorway, Grand Lisa watched the two of them.

A glass of wine dangled from her fingers, untouched, as her eyes lingered on the pair with something like approval—and a quiet resolve that turned her gaze sharp.

Julie might not have come from her blood.

But the girl had earned her place with more than just love. _{f|ree(w)ebn\o.vel.com}

She had survived.

And now, she would be protected.

Because in this house, no one destroys family and walks away unscathed.