A Storm Is Brewing

Speculation

It didn't matter what I did; the internet hated me. On the best days, our firm email would get 200–300 emails sent from fake email addresses calling me everything from a bad mother to a whore. On the worst, we would have full days of no-shows and I'd go home to more letters of hatred waiting in the postbox. The staff at the office were kind to me, but I couldn't help but feel suspicious of everyone around me.

So who did I think it was?

That's the problem; I had no idea. Whoever it was didn't just need to have access to my schedule; they also needed to know more personal details of my life with Leah. The messages that were sent to the press spoke of the petty little arguments that Leah and I had. They mentioned things like me being frustrated about her not wanting to get Teddy a bike for Christmas and how she was out at another event just three days after the last one. They were fake, there was no possible way they could've come from my account, but the intricate details they contained made it impossible to make these aren't real sound at all believable.

I'm ashamed to say that Paula was my first thought. She was the person I spoke to when I was irritated with Leah and the person who knew the most about my whereabouts. It just didn't make any sense. Paula is intelligent enough to know the impact of a scandal like this on the firm; she knows it would just jeopardise her position if we had to cut back because of a dip in reputation. For days, I went around and around in my own head, desperately trying to find a reason why she would want to destroy my life like this. I didn't find one, but I did remember something that cleared her. One of the articles spoke about my overnight stay in a hotel just outside of London on August 13th and how the paparazzi hadn't managed to get a picture of me because I left through a side exit. Every other person in the office thought I was at that hotel, except Paula. She knew I was 200 miles away, meeting with a witness protection officer. There was no way she would've sent the paparazzi to a hotel she knew I wasn't in and risked them thinking she was lying or that the story was a non-starter. It wasn't her.

Of course, Rhys and Hannah crossed my mind. If I had any enemies, they would be at the top of the list. It didn't take long to eliminate them; I knew they'd have no way of knowing anything about my daily life, and even if mum was giving Rhys a rundown, even she didn't know enough to piece this story together so perfectly.

The moment when I started to realise that I was just driving myself insane trying to work out who the culprit was came when I began going through a mental list of Leah's family members. It was the lowest point for me, a point of pure desperation as I tried to uncover the truth and salvage my marriage.

It was then that I realised that a phrase I was taught in university had more truth to it than I had originally thought: a good lawyer doesn't win a case; a good legal team does. I didn't have a team, not in this battle. There wasn't one person in my life—not my mum, not Paula, not Leah—who hadn't doubted me.

So with every new tabloid story, I started to care less. I didn't care that the world hated me because I hated the world too. The problem with caring less was that it seemed to incriminate me more. The more I moved on with my life, the more they said I didn't care about Leah's broken heart.

Until that one article came out.

Leah Williamson spotted in a passionate kiss with an unknown woman.

That one ripped my heart out for two reasons. The first being the devastation that Leah had moved on, albeit with someone from her management team that I knew would probably now lose their job (not that I'm bitter, obviously). The second being the realisation that the media weren't just intent on making me the bad person in this story; they just wanted the clicks.