"Get that whore down here, right this minute!" My mother yelled very early in the morning. She knew I could hear her, which was why she was calling me a whore.
She loved showering me with colorful words whenever she was mad.
I groaned and covered my head with a pillow, hoping it would drown out the noise I heard in the house. I didn't like any sudden noises that would trigger my hangover and make it worse than it already was.
I had been out with my friends all night and I wasn't ready for the constant criticism my mother would give. According to her, I never seemed to do anything right.
Apparently, that wasn't enough because Greta, the head housekeeper barged into my room and drew the curtains before she grabbed the pillow off my head and threw it across the room.
I almost screamed when I opened my eyes and the light blinded me.
I hated Greta more than I hated my mother. She was the one who enforced the rules Mother put forth when she was overseas shooting for movies under her stage name, Eden Monroe.
"Madam wants you down right now," she said with the usual frown on her face. You could tell she was bitter with life.
"What does she want now?" I asked in a snarky way that apparently rubbed her off the wrong way because she grabbed me by my hair and pulled me out of bed, dropping me on the ground.
"I suggest you get your ungrateful ass downstairs before she loses her patience."
She grabbed me off the ground by my arm and pulled me out of my room to go downstairs. When we arrived at the bottom of the stairs where my mother was standing, she slapped me so hard that I fell to the ground.
I tried to get up but she slapped me two more times. She then put both hands around my neck and started to strangle me.
"What did you do?" She asked. "I should have never had you. I should have aborted you the minute I found out I was pregnant or left you at the hospital when you were born."
She was choking me so hard that I swore I saw stars in my vision. My head was spinning and my whole body was going into panic mode. I could taste death at the tip of my tongue and I was afraid it was coming.
"Madam?" Greta asked her.
"What?!" She yelled. The evil woman must have signaled something because Rosaline aka Eden Monroe let me go.
She stood straight, her fake blonde hair falling in waves. She had on makeup and a bold red lip. She was wearing a short satin red dress, that fit her Marilyn Monroe aesthetic perfectly. She even had pearls on her ears and a statement diamond necklace to complete the look.
Her stage name was Eden Monroe but her name was Rosaline Lowe.
She was a very famous actress who had won an Oscar, a Tony, and several Emmy awards. She valued her fame more than she valued anything else—including me.
I fought back my tears, especially when she stared at me with disgust. She hated me because I was a product of her infidelity with one of her less-known co-stars while she was married to her first husband, David Montgomery.
She had tried to claim I was his daughter but that had been impossible to pull off when I was born with blonde hair and hazel eyes, features that none of them had. My mother dyed her hair blonde and wore blue contacts but she was a brunette with brown eyes.
David had dark features so he immediately knew I wasn't his daughter when he saw me. He left her after I was born and she blamed me for it.
It was the biggest scandal of her career
She broke me out of my train of thought when she pulled me to the living room by my hair.
"Didn't I tell you to never leave your room looking like a disgusting pig?" She yelled gesturing at my body. I was in a nightgown and my hair was disheveled. I wasn't allowed to wear sweats, leggings, or sneakers unless it was for a brand deal.
"Greta told me—"
"Yeah, sure. Blame everyone else for your mistakes, you whore!" She screamed.
I never talked back to her. I had long learned that I couldn't deal with the consequences of my actions. She rarely got physical. Her abuse was mostly psychological, and she made sure it had a lasting impact.
I must have done something for her to hit me like that. The only problem was that I didn't know what it was.
"What is this?" She asked as she thrust a magazine at me. There I was, on the front page, seeing pictures I never thought would see the light of day.
My blood went cold and I started to hyperventilate. I thought the walls were closing in on me. My vision was blurry and I couldn't hear a word Rosaline said even though I knew she was yelling.
Only two people had seen those two pictures and either one of them had betrayed me. They sold private pictures to a magazine to embarrass me. All the years I had worked to keep my name clean and my reputation spotless had gone down the drain.
"I—"
"Listen to this headline—Blonde Bombshell Kennedy Lowe shares more than champagne with a man who has read more books than the years she has been alive. While her equally promiscuous mother seems to be going younger, she's going older. Like mother, like daughter—I warned you, Kennedy. I told you not to embarrass me."
I hurriedly grabbed the magazine and read the name of the journalist at the bottom of the page. I immediately knew who had leaked my photos. I made friends with bloggers and journalists alike and I know who could have leaked the story.
But I had to be sure.
"I will take care of this," I tried to tell my mother.
"Shut up, you ungrateful wench! How are you going to take care of this? You should have made sure the story never made it to the public."
"I can call—"
"My new movie is coming out in a month and you pull this? Not only are you ugly, you are also a liability. I already fixed it."
"I'm sorry," I apologized.
The staff were cleaning the house pretending they didn't see a thing, but I knew they did. The NDAs they assigned made sure my mother's secrets remained secret.
"There is no time for apologies. You're going to London to live with Julian. He is using his connections to make sure you get into Oxford and you get accepted into the aristocratic families."
"My whole life is here!" I yelled. I couldn't let years of built-in connections and bonds all go down the drain because of a minor scandal. "This will blow over."
"No. I am not going to let you embarrass me. Now go pack your bags and get ready to leave. The private jet is waiting for you."
"But—"
"Shut up! I wish I had abandoned you with your good-for-nothing father. I wouldn't be dealing with this mess. Either get on that plane and move to London or you can get out right now and forget I'm your mother. I never wanted you anyway."