Sweet Romance11 min read
I Came Back for One Life: A Princess-Not-So-Princess Story
ButterPicks16 views
They shoved microphones at my face like hungry bees. I let them buzz.
"Miss Laurent," a man with a camera said, "what do you say to people calling you spoiled, fake, unworthy of the industry?"
"I say," I answered, and my voice was steady like a knife, "you don't get to rewrite my life with three clips and a rumor."
"Oh come on, you know the videos—" a reporter barked.
"You cut them," I said. "You chose what to air." I smiled. "Now, can we make space? People might get hurt if someone trips."
"You're laughing?" another shouted. "Do you think this is funny? People threatened your family!"
"I heard that," I said. "I'm sorry. I won't let anyone threaten anyone." I did not look down. I did not cry. I had been forty before; I had grown softer, not broken; I had learned how to hold a room with my voice, not my fear.
A woman in glasses folded her lips like a snap trap. "Miss Laurent, do you have anything to say about the leaked photos and the nightclub evidence?"
"Show me the photos," I said.
There was a rustle like a sheepfold shuffling. Someone flicked a phone screen toward me with the wrong confidence. "They're everywhere. You can't deny—"
"Then put them on your screen," I said. "If they're real, we can settle this right here."
One of them sniffed. "We already checked. Experts said—"
"Then bring the expert," I said. "If you're afraid or lazy, fine. But if you're going to destroy a person, do it in public. I'm giving you the public stage now."
The woman with the broken phone—her voice had gone high—"And if we do, Miss Laurent, would you accept when the public decides you're guilty?"
"No," I said. "I'll accept the truth. If it's mine, I will apologize. If it's not, I will sue." I watched their faces tighten. A camera flashed. Somewhere in the crowd someone hissed.
A young reporter stepped forward, all open expression and hands like sun. He smelled like coffee and clean shirts: Nathan Sullivan.
"Miss Laurent," Nathan said, quiet enough that only I could hear. "Can I ask a question about the farming show videos? People wonder if you've been lazy, if you refused work."
"I worked harder than some of those who filmed me did," I said. "Ask me anything."
He liked my answer. He put his pen down and asked like someone removing a thorn gently.
"Do you regret the choices that led you here?" he asked.
"I regret nothing I earned honestly. I regret some love," I admitted. "But regret won't change what was done to me. Evidence will."
He met my eyes and then the whole room felt smaller. "I'll post a fair piece," he said. "Orderly questions, real quotes. I don't play the mob."
There was something in his voice that made me flicker. I had been that girl before—too trusting, too thin between hope and hurt. This time I held a stone in my chest.
"Thank you," I said. "That's more than most have offered."
After the press surged away, my assistant and my manager both looked at me like people who had seen a small miracle.
"You were... incredible," Kendra Buchanan said. "Meredith—"
"Meredith," I corrected, and then: "I had to do it. I remember how my last life ended. I remember the pile of clippings and the empty house. I won't die there again."
Kendra swallowed. "There's been... a shift. Nathan's article is clean. Some channels pulled their clips. My phone is buzzing—company calls."
I laughed softly. "Good. Let them fuss. For now, let me breathe."
That night I dialed a number. Lorenzo Burke answered on the second ring.
"Lorenzo," I said.
There was a short silence and then a polite voice. "Meredith. Why are you calling me? You know my name will stir things up."
"I need to know if you ordered the photos," I said. "In my last life, you had ways."
His laugh was cold. "You always make things dramatic. Why would I spend my time on that? I moved on."
"People signed off?" I pressed.
"Some people are cruel," he said. "But not every cruel thing is my doing. Leave me out of it."
I listened until the line hung like a curtain. There was a sliver of relief and a gnawing question: who then?
The answer came slower than I liked. Reborn memories folded into other people's lines of life. At two a.m. I read a book I hadn't planned to read: a fragment, a fanfic, a bitter little tale where I was not the heroine but a passing rag on someone else's stage. I found names. I found plots. I found motives.
There was a man who liked power more than people—Shane Booker; a woman who wanted the center more than the craft—Vittoria Rinaldi. They were small in the book but big in the world.
I went to sleep with a plan.
"I will fight," I said to the ceiling. "No more dying because others choose the shape of my life."
Weeks unspooled. Nathan became my small light. He called as often as his shifts allowed. He was careful and blunt a little, and he admired the way I refused to be squashed.
"Do you want to be rescued?" Nathan asked once over rice and cheap TV dinner at the lake.
"I want to be practical," I said. "But... I will accept help."
He pushed a napkin at me. "I'll help with the truth. And dinner next week."
Three heart moments came quickly, like a rain that settled rich.
He sheltered me from too-bright cameras once by stepping from behind the car, jacket in hand, and draping it over my shoulders when a wind kicked at my dress. He didn't say it was because I had looked cold; he just did it. I felt warmth creep into my wrists.
"You're shaking," he said. "You're not alone tonight."
Another time, a producer cornered me on set with questions meant to humiliate; Nathan stepped in front, clear voice.
"Hands off her privacy," he said. "Ask questions like a reporter, not a predator."
The crew looked over; someone whispered, "He really means business for a kid." Nathan flushed but did not step back.
"You're different with her," a make-up girl said later. "You don't do that with the others."
"I never met anyone who needed it," he said. "Not like this."
And once, when the cameras were off and I fumbled a line so badly I wanted to go home, he just squeezed my hand for a second.
"You're not alone," he said, voice small. That second's contact was a whisper of something like permission—for me to trust and for him to be allowed in.
I learned fast the thing I had been given: a second life and the knowledge of another world's script. The book had scenes, and I had the map. I would cut my way through their traps.
"Sign with them," Nathan said one night. "Tomato Entertainment can be a hiding place and a step. Griffin Bowling runs it—they won't push you down if they see value."
So I let them sign me. Jared Said was my new manager—harder in his laugh, softer in his warning. "You understand the contract," he said. "Seven years. No public romances."
"I understand," I said. "I also know what I'm worth." I said it like a promise to myself more than to him.
They placed me under training. I memorized scripts like a prayer and learned to take work without stealing myself. The world responded: the smear faded. Evidence I had demanded showed holes: the alleged old phone was a modern device; a grain of proof—a mole in a photo—mismatched. People retold my story in kinder tones. Nathan's careful pieces shifted the tide. Kendra cried in my kitchen the night the first apology came in a private message from a showrunner.
Then I set a trap.
"Let's call a press conference," I told Kendra. "Let's invite everyone who ever spat at me. Let them see the paper trail."
"That's dangerous," Kendra said. "But you planned this."
I walked into a lighted room like a woman who had accepted everything and asked for nothing.
"Miss Laurent," Shane Booker sneered in front of a half-full gallery of cameras. He had the slick look of someone who bought good haircuts and better legal counsel.
"You were behind the smear," I said.
He smiled like a judge at a farce. "I? Hardly. I build careers. I don't ruin them for sport."
"Your words to the director were taped," I said. "You called for 'someone expendable'—exact phrase—so you could 'quietly retune the show.' Who benefits? The person you'd want to place as your favorite."
Shane shifted. "You have no proof."
"Do you want to hear it?" I asked.
He bristled. Someone in Shane's camp hissed, but a voice came up from the back—a phone recording that Nathan's article had leaked to the right place.
Shane's arrogance slipped. He said, "That's doctored." His hand went to his pocket like a man preparing a coin trick.
"My lawyer verified the chain," I said, calm as the sea. "He verified the server log. He verified payments from an account with your company's signatory name."
The room tightened. Cameras leaned forward. Shane's face went oddly pale. He looked like a bully finally hearing the real voice of the classmate he had shoved.
"You're making accusations," he spat.
"Yes," I said. "And I have accountants here who will read transactions, editors who will show cut footage, and—" I nodded toward a woman who had hitherto remained quiet—"—Vittoria Rinaldi, the actress who benefited from making me the scapegoat."
Heads turned toward Vittoria. She was suddenly very small under the lights.
"You can't," she said. "This is monstrous."
"Is it monstrous to use a person's life for ratings?" I asked. "Is it monstrous to steal a girl without family and make her life a headline for weeks? Is it monstrous to trade dignity for buzz?"
Shane's smirk faltered. He looked at his PR people like a man trying to remember a script. "This is defamation."
"Then tell your truth," I said. "Tell them how you asked the director to cut me into a villain. Tell them how you arranged for those 'old' photos to circulate. Tell them how a dinner at your home included the man who signed the production checks and the woman who played 'innocent heroine' for your favor. Tell them why the director is suddenly unemployed."
The first change was in the room's sound—murmurs like wind through a field.
Shane's face hardened. "You have no place to stand," he said. "This is wild."
"Is it?" Kendra, always brave when she'd slept, stood and produced a folder. "We have bank records from an anonymous tip. Pay orders from The Harper Agency to a photography firm, the same day as the images."
A camera aimed. People shifted. This was public.
Shane's row of allies glanced at him and then at the evidence. Their faces slipped into the look people get when a very large thing is suddenly fragile.
"You forged this," Shane snapped. "You're a disgrace."
I stepped closer. "I could be," I said. "But the people behind these transactions are not me. They signed with a corporate name. The corporate name points to your company. The signatures point to your assistant. The assistant is here."
He laughed, a short sound. "You're insane."
"Then why is your assistant whispering into your ear like she's ashamed?" I said.
He reached the far stage of reaction: angry, then testing, then fear.
"You're making a spectacle," he snarled.
"Of a spectacle you made," I corrected. "Now, how will you defend your actions to the investors who found an invoice marked 'cleanup—publicity'?"
The first microphone strained. An investor's assistant was on a call. The investor's voice came like thunder: "If there is a trail tying you to false publicity and damage, my board wants a meeting. If there's an audit, your expenditure lines up with penalty conditions."
Shane's jaw twitched. He felt the noose of money and reputation he had wrapped around himself.
The audience watched as his face changed—smug to startled, startled to furious. He said, "You can't—"
"I can," I said. "Because I'm done letting others write my endings."
Shane's cast crumbled. Vittoria said, "I didn't know—" and then the admission opened like a trap door. "I thought they were small favors. I thought they'd help my positioning." She pulled at her sleeve. "I didn't think—"
"You thought," I said. "You thought you could be the heroine by making me the villain."
Shane's voice had lost a level. He turned to his people, swallowed, then lunged for his phone. "Call the legal team," he barked. "Call—"
"It's already called," said Nathan quietly from the back, and then louder: "My piece runs tonight, thirty-minute special. The public ledger is posted."
Shane's face went through what people in movies show as collapse. He tried to summon denial, then outrage, then pleading.
"You're a liar!" he shouted. Sweat beaded at his hairline. The cameras loved everything, and they captured each flicker.
"Tell them what you ordered," I said.
His eyes darted. He might have fled if the room had not become a courtroom, crammed with people who wanted an explanation. He found his voice thin as it trembled. "I never—" He stopped. The world watched as the mighty man shrank.
Then the shift EVERYONE needed came. The board began an emergency statement, and an auditor stepped forward to read the initial findings—facts that declared Shane had authorized a "targeted content campaign" that crossed ethical lines.
I felt the pressure break like glass under my foot. People gasped, whispered, took out phones. Some stood up, some sat. A woman in the corner started to applaud slowly and loudly, then others joined until it was a ripple into a wave.
Shane's reaction was a study: first shock, then a desperate denial, then an ugly attempt to minimize, then a sudden choked plea.
"Please," he begged at the end, his voice small, "I can fix it. I can—"
"Fix what?" someone in the front said. "How do you fix a life you tried to erase?"
He sank, finally, into full collapse—the arrogant posture gone, the practiced fury replaced with open pleading. People took out phones and livestreamed. Camera shutters made the sound of a storm.
"This is public," Nathan said in a small, steady voice. "He will answer. The board has suspended him. Investors will audit. Apologies will be demanded. Legal consequences will follow."
Shane tried to bargain, then to bargain with me. "Don't—I'll pay—" He offered money like a conjurer offering an escape. His face was a version of the man I had once loved with a softness that had no place with what he'd done.
"No," I said. "You cannot buy this back. Not with money."
"Please," he whispered.
Around him, people took photos; some filmed his breakdown and uploaded it; a woman near the back, who'd once sneered at me, now covered her mouth and cried. The room's temperature hung between pity and triumph. The crowd's judgment shifted from curiosity to verdict.
It was brutal and public and right.
Afterward, when the cameras left and people still talked like thunder, Nathan stayed by my side.
"You did it," he said.
"I didn't do anything," I said. "I just asked a question and put the facts on the table."
"You did it," he corrected, eyes soft. "You made them see the truth. You didn't scream. You didn't beg. You stood."
"Why are you here?" I asked, because he had stepped into the flood and not left.
"Because I think you deserved someone to see more than a headline," he said. "Because someone should stand for the truth even if they're small. Because—"
He didn't finish. He didn't need to. He smiled in a way that made my chest clench a little—the third heart moment—when a man I've only known for weeks looked at me like I mattered beyond the noise.
Our world bent a little after that. The board sacked Shane; Vittoria's deals were put on hold; the director who'd helped was questioned. The firm paid fines. The public watched as moral currency shifted.
The life I had tasted in a book taught me this: people repeat stories because they make sense for them. I rewrote my part because I had the pen now.
Weeks later, at a late-night practice session, Nathan tucked a stray hair behind my ear and said softly, "You don't have to be brave all the time."
"I don't have to be brave?" I echoed.
"No," he said. "You can rest. You can be small. You can be messy. You can be hungry and stubborn and afraid. I'll still be with you."
That was the moment—no drama, just a hand warm with care, a man letting me see that steadiness must be earned and then freely given. I felt my heart step like a slow foot into water. I let it.
We did not rush. I did not try to own his loyalty; I learned to return his gentleness.
There was a price: the company contract, the watchful CEO Griffin Bowling, the whispered tests. But I had been born twice. I had the memory of all the ways I had been broken before and the taste of victory now.
At a small award party months later, when a table of producers murmured and a rival actor tried to make a joke at my expense, Nathan's hand found mine under the table and gave a small, secret squeeze.
"He's never done that before," someone whispered.
"He's different with you," another said with a grin.
I saw a man who had learned to be brave quietly, and I learned to love him by the small, protected things he did, not grand gestures.
When the world asked, I answered them like a woman who had found a voice in her second chance. When enemies fell, they fell in public. When friends came forward, they came with open hands.
A year later, standing on a small stage to accept a part that paid less and meant more, I looked out at the audience and saw Nathan, smiling like the rest of the room couldn't measure. I smiled at him back, and he nodded as if to say, quietly, "You did it."
I am neither saint nor villain; I am a woman who came back and decided to keep living. I took the second take and made it mine.
The End
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