Chapter 11

Julian waved Daniel away to make the arrangements.

A little later, there was a knock at Vivian's door. When she opened it, the butler explained in a carefully businesslike tone that Julian wanted her to make room for Elise.

He braced himself for an outburst. He had expected shouting, perhaps a furious tirade directed at him. Instead, Vivian was silent for a moment, then smiled.

“Go ahead and move everything,” she said quietly. “Just be a little more careful with my things.”

She shut the door before he could conceal his surprise.

The expression left her face at once.

She had never taken Elise seriously. She had looked down on her, and when the brothers continued to ignore Elise after bringing her home, Vivian had stopped worrying altogether.

After the way Julian had treated her today, arguing with him over the rooms would only make him dislike her more.

Slowly, she raised her head and stared in the direction of Elise's room, her resentment sharpening into hatred.

Her phone vibrated.

Someone had mentioned her on X.

Vivian liked browsing the app, but using her main account could be inconvenient. She had created another account where she posted about her daily life and luxury purchases, enjoying the admiration they brought her. It had grown to almost a hundred thousand followers, enough to give her a considerable audience.

Wealthy daughters attracted less attention than celebrities, but a big enough scandal in one of their families could still trend. When the Whitmores had found Elise, the story had kept people talking online for days.

Their long-lost daughter had come home. People called her a modern Cinderella, a forgotten princess finally restored to her family. Some even wrote fan fiction inspired by her. A little girl lost in childhood, found years later by her enormously wealthy birth family: everyone seemed to envy that dream of a life.

Then Vivian had used several other accounts to start posting dirt on her.

She had edited photographs to make Elise look ugly and shared them so people could laugh at her clothes. She had spread stories about Elise chewing with her mouth open and having no manners. Post by post, she had turned the returned princess into a trashy nobody who didn't belong in their world.

People loved watching someone admired fall. The rumors gave them their chance, and they seized it eagerly.

With Vivian encouraging them, the stories had multiplied. Soon, the first things anyone associated with Elise were bad manners and an inability to fit in. Then people had noticed something else: unlike Vivian, Elise had no photographs with any of her brothers. She had never even appeared with them in public.

To the people spreading the rumors, that settled it. If there was nothing wrong with her, why wouldn't her own brothers like her?

Vivian's account had been at the front of the attacks from the beginning. Among the people who hated Elise, it was now one of the best-known accounts around.

More than three hundred people had suddenly tagged her. She tapped through and found them all under the same post.

The post was the usual sneering complaint about Elise: a shabby little nobody pretending to be a princess, disliked by everyone, who ought to go back to her produce stall.

Vivian smiled and scrolled down.

The replies were much the same, with one exception. One comment had thousands of responses and only a handful of likes. The account was called Elise Is a Good Kid.

Where is your respect for the truth? A decent citizen deals in facts! Honesty and responsibility, that's what you should be learning. Spreading this nonsense goes against everything this country is supposed to stand for. One of these days you'll all end up at the police station for a refresher in basic citizenship!

Vivian frowned. Who fought online with language that old-fashioned?

She opened the replies. People were mocking the account from every direction, but being outnumbered hadn't slowed this person down at all. They were answering each attack in turn, every reply delivered in the same antiquated, scolding tone.

That explained the mentions. Unable to get the better of this person, the furious commenters had remembered the prominent account that was always leading the charge against Elise. Now they wanted its owner and those hundred thousand followers to help.

Vivian looked at the username and smiled contemptuously.

Elise actually had a fan?

She took a screenshot of the comment and posted it.

Getting awfully worked up over a few little remarks. Could this be Elise Whitmore's secret account?

She knew perfectly well that Elise didn't use X. That hardly stopped her from adding another rumor to the collection. She didn't need proof. A suggestive comment would do.

Her following was only around a hundred thousand, but almost all of those people were active. Within moments, the post had been shared hundreds of times.

Someone should check the IP. It's obviously her secret account. Imagine making another account just to fight people online. Has there ever been a more embarrassing rich girl?

A few minutes later, someone replied:

I can trace IPs. I'll do it.

Another person sounded less certain.

Wait... isn't this doxxing? Are we sure this is okay?

The other replies buried the objection almost immediately.

In less than half an hour, someone posted what they claimed were the first two digits of the IP address behind Elise Is a Good Kid. They announced that the digits matched addresses in Elise's city. The account's owner must live there too, they argued. It might well be Elise herself.

That was enough for the people in the thread. Her detractors were delighted.

#EliseWhitmoreSecretAccount quickly began trending.