The Fallen Queen's Dating Show Comeback
Catalina had just won the Best Actress Golden Globe. It was supposed to be the absolute pinnacle of her acting career.
But a broken heel on her way backstage sent her crashing right into the arms of Brogan Cohen. He was Hollywood's most untouchable A-lister, and the man she despised most.
A hidden paparazzo snapped a perfectly timed photo of him kneeling to untangle her dress, making it look like a deeply intimate, secret romance.
The internet instantly exploded.
Brogan's rabid fanbase tore Catalina apart, branding her a shameless clout-chaser.
To make matters worse, a rival actress weaponized the scandal, accusing Catalina of sleeping her way to the top to steal roles.
Within days, Catalina's world collapsed. Her upcoming lead role in a major indie film was suspended. Two luxury fashion houses unilaterally terminated her contracts.
Meanwhile, Brogan simply hopped on his private jet and fled to the South of France, leaving her trapped in her apartment as a mob of screaming paparazzi battered her front door.
She had spent years proving her talent, only to be blacklisted and labeled a manipulative homewrecker over a stupid accident.
The sheer injustice of it suffocated her. She hated Brogan with a fiery, visceral passion for destroying her reputation and running away like a coward.
With her career bleeding out, her manager slammed a contract on the desk: an unedited, live-streamed survival dating show on a private Caribbean island.
"You need to prove you are entirely repulsed by Brogan Cohen."
Catalina grabbed the pen and signed her name with aggressive, sharp strokes.
She was going to flirt with every model on that island, burn this false narrative to the ground, and make Brogan choke when he turned on his TV.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 7
Monday morning broke over Los Angeles with a harsh, glaring sunlight.
Catalina sat at the small wooden dining table in her apartment. She wore an oversized grey hoodie, her hair tied up in a messy knot.
She held a mug of black coffee in both hands, letting the heat seep into her cold fingers.
She stared at the iPad propped up on the table.
The Twitter trending page was a bloodbath. The negative hashtags, the vicious comment threads, and the paparazzi photos of her and Brogan were still multiplying like a virus.
She hadn't slept a wink. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the vile words burning into her retinas. The tight knot of anxiety in her chest felt like a physical weight, crushing the air out of her lungs.
Suddenly, her cell phone vibrated violently against the wood table.
The caller ID read Mark - Assistant Director.
It was the indie film she had spent six months preparing for. The role that was going to prove she was more than just a pretty face.
Catalina immediately swiped to answer. She sat up straight, clearing her throat to sound professional.
"Hi Mark, good morning," she said brightly. "Are we locking in the call times for next week?"
On the other end of the line, Mark hesitated. The silence stretched. In the background, Catalina could hear the loud, chaotic sounds of heavy equipment being moved.
"Caty..." Mark started, his voice thick with awkwardness. "I'm so sorry."
Catalina's grip on the ceramic mug tightened. "Sorry for what?"
"The primary financier pulled out at 3 AM," Mark confessed, his words rushing out in a panicked breath.
Catalina's hand jerked.
The heavy ceramic mug slammed down hard onto the table. A loud thwack echoed in the kitchen. Hot black coffee sloshed over the rim, burning her knuckles, but she didn't even flinch.
"What? Why?" she demanded, her voice rising in panic. "I'll take a pay cut. I'll work for scale. We can make the budget work."
Mark sighed heavily. The sound was full of pity.
"It's not the money, Caty. The investors ran a risk assessment. With the current public sentiment... you're deemed an uncontrollable commercial liability. The studio shut the production down indefinitely."
The words hit her like a physical punch to the throat.
The line went dead. The monotonous beep of the dial tone filled her ear.
Catalina's arm dropped. The phone slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the table.
She slumped back into her chair. All the strength drained from her muscles.
She had won a Golden Globe, the highest honor of her career, and within a week, she was completely unemployed. The injustice of it burned in her chest, a hot, suffocating pressure.
She grabbed her phone and opened Signal. She tapped into the three-person group chat with Jame and Denisse.
Her thumbs hit the screen with aggressive force.
Catalina: The movie is dead. They pulled the funding. I lost the role.
Denisse replied instantly.
Denisse: WHAT?!
Denisse: [Angry Face Emoji] [Knife Emoji]
Denisse: Hollywood executives are brain-dead cowards! I am so sorry, babe.
Jame's icon popped up.
Jame: I'm bringing the most expensive tequila I own to your place tonight. We are getting blackout drunk.
Catalina stared at the screen. A tiny fraction of the crushing weight lifted.
Catalina: Okay.
A few seconds later, Denisse sent another text.
Denisse: By the way... has a certain Mr. Cohen bothered you since the Hamptons?
Catalina's eyes locked onto the name. A cold sneer twisted her lips.
Catalina: We screamed at each other by the pool and I haven't seen him since.
Jame sent a voice note.
Catalina tapped play.
"Well, don't expect an apology anytime soon," Jame's voice rang out, laced with a hint of dark amusement. "He hopped on his private jet last night. Fled to Europe to dodge the paparazzi. Word is he's hiding out in the South of France for half a month."
Catalina stared at the audio waveform on the screen.
Her finger hovered frozen over the keyboard.
Her stomach plummeted, dropping so fast it made her nauseous.
He ran away.
The man who caused this entire apocalypse, the man who ruined her career, had simply packed his bags and flown to the French Riviera to drink wine while she lost everything.
A violent cocktail of betrayal and pure, unadulterated rage exploded in her chest.
She bit down on her lower lip so hard she tasted the sharp, metallic tang of copper.
She typed furiously.
Catalina: I hope he rots in Europe. I never want to see his face again.
She hit send. She locked the phone and slammed it face-down onto the table.
Thousands of miles away, cruising at forty thousand feet in the quiet, luxurious cabin of his Gulfstream jet, Brogan stared at a confidential email from his LA fixers. The subject line read: CAMPBELL INDIE PROJECT SUSPENDED - INVESTOR PULLOUT. His dark eyes narrowed into lethal slits. The realization that his mere presence had shattered her hard-earned opportunity hit him like a physical blow.
He reached into his pocket and dialed a highly encrypted number. It rang once.
"Boss," Alex, his executive assistant, answered.
"Call the executives at Twitter. Call the head of TMZ," Brogan ordered, his voice as cold and hard as ice.
"Sir?" Alex sounded confused.
"I want every single negative hashtag, every trending topic, and every unauthorized photo of me and Catalina wiped from the internet immediately," Brogan commanded. His tone left zero room for negotiation.
Alex gasped loudly. "Brogan, that's impossible. The manpower required... the bribes... you're talking about a seven-figure PR wipe."
"Pull it from my personal offshore accounts," Brogan snapped. "Do not route this through CAA. This has to remain strictly personal. Dwayne, that old fox, can never be allowed to get his hands on anything that could be used to speculate on my motives or leverage against Catalina."
"But from a business standpoint-"
"If it's not gone by the time she wakes up, Alex, I'll accept your resignation," Brogan interrupted, dropping his voice to a lethal whisper. He hung up the phone.
Back in Los Angeles, Catalina pushed her chair back and marched into the bathroom. She turned the silver faucet, cupped her hands, and splashed freezing cold water onto her face.
The shock of the cold snapped her out of her spiral.
She looked up at the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot, but her jaw was set in stone.
In this industry, no one was going to save her. She had to fight back herself.
She grabbed a towel, dried her face, and walked back to the living room. She picked up her iPad, ready to email Fran to demand new auditions.
The moment her finger swiped the screen to unlock it, a breaking news banner dropped down from the top.
It was from The Hollywood Reporter.
Her name was in the headline.
Keep Reading
The story is getting intense! Switch to App to
Unlock All Chapters
You may also like
9.3
Halie woke up to a sharp pain and a terrifying reality. She was in a new body, her face covered in a hideous web of scars, and her spiritual power reduced to a pathetic D-Class.
Before she could even process the memories of being framed, her bedroom doors were violently kicked open.
Her sister Seraphina sauntered in with a venomous sneer, followed closely by Halie's S-Class fiancé, Jett.
"Look at the disgrace of the Avila family. What a waste," Seraphina mocked, throwing a mirror at her bed.
"I can't be tied to a cripple. As an S-Class, I have to break our engagement," Jett added, his gaze full of disgust.
The nightmare didn't stop there. Her father called, screaming about how she had shamed the family name. He officially stripped her of her inheritance, froze all her accounts, and exiled her to the decaying Southern District to rot.
To make matters worse, a cold, mechanical voice suddenly echoed in her skull, warning her of an impending genetic collapse. Without an immediate energy infusion, she would face total organ failure in thirty days.
A ruined face, a treacherous family, a world that wanted her dead, and a literal death clock ticking in her brain. The original owner had died in absolute despair, a tragic victim of sheer cruelty.
But if they thought she would just sit there and die, they were severely mistaken.
Armed with a mysterious system and her brilliant scientist mind from her past life, Halie packed her bags. She chose the craziest survival quest: head to the slums, find the exiled, sterile S-Class "madman" Coleman, and cure him to harvest his life energy. It was time to start her counterattack.
8.6
I was the youngest Paladin in history, the absolute pride of the Azure Blade.
But after a disastrous mission in the snow, I was falsely accused of slaughtering my own squad.
Grand Master Bernardo Rowe didn't just exile me; he surgically severed my connection to the magic Aether, turning me into a crippled mortal.
Desperate to survive, I tried to climb the Holy Stairs to reclaim my legendary sword, "Rebellion."
Instead of answering my call, my own blade shrieked in absolute rejection and blasted me down the thousand stone steps.
My bones snapped like dry twigs, and I was left in a pool of my own blood.
The pilgrims laughed at me. The guards declared me a lost cause and left me to rot in the dirt.
I should have died there, betrayed by the Order and the holy magic I once served.
But a silent, massive laborer named Cato Sims dragged my mangled body into the shadows.
He healed my shattered skeleton in mere days with impossible skill, yet he allowed lowly servants to spit on him and beat him just to keep my presence hidden.
I didn't understand why my holy sword had abandoned me, and I understood even less why this stranger was protecting a condemned criminal.
When I finally snapped and demanded to know his price for saving my life, he didn't ask for money or my body.
"The mountain does not forget its debts. I am reclaiming what was taken from it."
Staring into his unyielding eyes, I realized my exile wasn't the end, but the beginning of a terrifying truth.
7.8
Elie Joyce’s entire life was controlled by Ebert Ewing, a ruthless billionaire who held her sick grandmother's survival and her family's freedom in his hands.
But on a freezing, stormy night, he forced her into a scandalous scrap of red silk and handed her over to a notorious, disgusting predator.
"You aren't an escort. You're just a free gift."
Ebert mocked her, using her as a disposable bargaining chip to secure a corporate funding round.
When the predator humiliated her, forced high-proof vodka down her throat, and violently pinned her to the floor, Ebert simply watched with dead eyes.
And when Ebert finally intervened to brutally beat the man, it wasn't out of mercy.
"She is my property. Even if she is trash that I threw away, a filthy pig like you doesn't get to touch her."
Afterward, he dragged her battered, barefoot body into his car, only to kick her out into the torrential rain, leaving her on the dark streets to die.
Standing in the storm, shivering and bleeding from broken glass, the last shred of Elie's hope shattered.
She had sacrificed her dignity and soul, enduring his violent bites and cruel control, just to keep her family alive.
Why did she have to suffer this endless, twisted humiliation for a psychopath who only saw her as trash?
But she didn't break.
Tearing a strip of his expensive shirt to bandage her bleeding foot, Elie gripped her broken stiletto like a knife.
With her eyes turning cold and calculating, she limped out of the shadows.
She was going to survive, and Ebert Ewing would soon realize she was no longer his obedient prey.
9.3
Born into privilege, Eleanor never imagined her life could shatter in a single night. Then her father disappeared with his mistress, her mother fell from a building and slipped into a coma, and everything she once owned turned to dust.
Determined not to ruin Jonathan's future with her family's disgrace, she ended their relationship and became the bride of a man trapped in a vegetative state.
She believed that was the last time their paths would cross. But two years later, Jonathan pinned her in the dark and whispered, "Long time no see, my sister-in-law."
7.3
Naelis Haldrith is many things, daughter to the South's most strategic Alpha, an Omega with Alpha genes, and an unapologetic misfit. During summer break, she decides to journey to Frostpine and spend her heat cycle with her boyfriend, the golden pea of the Thalric pod.
But during a collared moment, a secret of his is revealed, and Naelis realizes that their relationship was more complex than it seemed. Choosing to return to her pack, she steps outside under a storm, and it is at that moment she crosses paths with a man she had never seen before.
Zoran Vyer Thalric. Uncle to her ex. Member of the Elder's Council. The otherworldly primordial with red-ringed eyes and a wolf barely chained beneath his skin. Desire sparks instantly, and her sights are immediately set on him, but... he is a devotee of the Citadel, celibate, untouched, and unwilling to be the calm to her fury.
She is fire, wild and untamed. He is steel, honed and contained. And for the first time, Naelis is the hunter after her prey, and the line of resistance slowly blurs as he finds his years of enforced self-control and suppression unraveling at the tint of her touches.
And with a maniac on their radar, this summer break will demand blood, sacrifice, and passion that howls to the moon.
8.7
For eighteen years, I lived as the lowest Omega in the Silver Moon Pack, surviving only because Alpha Gideon took me under his wing.
But the moment his coffin was lowered into the ground, his wife and the new Alpha son immediately turned on me.
"Her presence has brought a curse upon us!"
Luna Lyra pointed a trembling finger at me in the freezing rain, blaming me for Gideon's sudden death.
She stripped me of my pack ties and permanently exiled me into the deadly wilderness with nothing but a wooden toy.
The entire pack watched with cold contempt as I was thrown out like garbage.
To make matters worse, the new Alpha later hunted me down in the woods, threatening to kill me just to steal the only thing Gideon had secretly left behind for me—an ancient, unreadable book.
I didn't understand why they hated me so deeply, or what terrifying secret this blank book held that made my own pack want me dead.
But the moment my foot crossed the pack boundary, an ancient, immense power I never knew I had snapped free inside my veins.
I was no longer their weak Omega.
And when I escaped deeper into the forest and crashed straight into the arms of a wounded Rogue, my destiny completely rewrote itself.
Because he wasn't just a Rogue, but the legendary Northern Alpha King.
And as his glowing golden eyes locked onto mine, our inner wolves roared the exact same word:
"Mate!"