Chapter 8 You Can't Buy Me

• The digital attack hit exactly as Vanessa Crane planned — a brutal, toxic wave meant to destroy Clara Bennett’s peace for good. By Tuesday morning, every news site, university board, and social media feed in Ashbourne was flooded with an anonymous “exposé.” Fake documents, doctored audio, and forged bank records painted a cruel story: Clara Bennett wasn’t the long-lost Whitmore heiress. She was a cold, calculating fraud who had tricked a grieving family. The posts claimed she stole the silver magnolia locket from the real heir, faked DNA results through illegal clinics, and used Chairwoman Eleanor Whitmore’s grief to steal the Whitmore fortune.
• Inside the grand, guarded Whitmore estate, the mood was tense and deadly. Clara Bennett sat in the bright conservatory, a cup of tea untouched before her. She scrolled through the hate-filled articles on her tablet, eyes calm and empty. In her past life, such lies would have broken her. Now, she felt nothing. She had lived through worse. She wasn’t afraid anymore.
• Around her, both her families were ready for war. Her birth father, Richard Whitmore, paced like a caged animal, shouting orders into his phone to legal and PR teams. Her foster brother, Daniel Bennett, stood with fists clenched so tight his knuckles turned white, ready to fight anyone who spread the lies. Her two grandmothers, Eleanor Whitmore and Margaret Bennett, sat side by side on the sofa, hands linked, their faces cold with shared fury.