True Heiress vs. Fake Queen Bee Episode 16

📖 The Story Continues

True Heiress vs. Fake Queen Bee — Episode 16

Candice repeated the accusation loudly enough for everyone in the corridor to hear. She called Hailey filthy and suggested only one kind of girl entered a boys’ locker room wearing a towel. Gail and McKenna reacted with exaggerated shock, performing innocence for the phones still recording. Hailey felt every staring eye like a hand against her skin.

Luke’s expression darkened. He told Candice that enough was enough, then ordered the boys who had drifted back toward the doorway to leave. When no one moved immediately, his voice hardened. “Did I stutter? I said get out.”

The authority in his tone cleared the doorway. Several students lowered their phones, no longer comfortable participating in the spectacle. Luke positioned himself in front of Hailey, offering privacy without touching her. CeCe stayed at Hailey’s other side.

Candice watched Luke defend the girl she had labeled worthless and changed tactics. She softened her voice, praised him for playing knight in shining armor, and stepped closer with a flirtatious smile. If she could pull his attention away from Hailey, the humiliation would become complete. She assumed the Kaplan name made rejection impossible.

Luke did not let her finish. He said the thing he hated most was a trust-fund snob who used privilege for the sole purpose of bullying others. Every word referred to the persona Candice had worked so hard to create. In his eyes, being an heiress did not make her desirable; it made her conduct more contemptible.

“How about you get out before I make you?” he asked. The hallway fell quiet. Gail looked toward Candice, waiting for retaliation, but the false heiress had no response that would not expose how badly the rejection wounded her. Her phone remained the only power she controlled.

Hailey studied Luke from behind the jacket collar. He believed Candice was wealthy and still confronted her without hesitation. He had helped Hailey when he thought she possessed nothing. In a school governed by appearances, his instinctive decency felt almost unreal.

Candice stepped back, cheeks burning. She announced that she would show the photos to the entire school and let everyone decide what Hailey was. Luke reached for the phone, but Candice jerked it away. The movement brought McKenna within range.

“Not so fast,” McKenna said. Until then she had laughed beside Candice, but curiosity—or the desire to control the scandal herself—made her grab the device. Candice ordered her to give it back. Their fingers closed around opposite ends of the phone.

Hailey used the distraction to pull her clothes beneath Luke’s jacket. She asked CeCe to help her reach the girls’ locker room, yet the argument now blocked the hall. McKenna accused Candice of refusing to share the best footage. Gail tried to separate them while continuing to film.

The phone slipped free. Candice lunged, and McKenna snatched it again with a triumphant laugh. “Oops. My hand slipped,” she said, holding the device beyond Candice’s reach. Then she backed toward the nearby restroom without watching where she was going.

Hailey saw the open door behind them and sensed the situation about to become even more chaotic. She told them to stop, not because she cared about Candice’s phone but because the crowd had already turned humiliation into entertainment. No one listened. Candice shoved past Gail and chased McKenna inside.

CeCe guided Hailey to the girls’ locker-room entrance while Luke remained between her and the cameras. Hailey paused to return his jacket, but he told her to keep it until she was dressed. Their eyes met for a second longer than necessary. Even in the middle of scandal, warmth flickered through her anger.

From the restroom came Candice’s furious demand for the phone. McKenna taunted her, apparently holding it above one of the toilets. Gail hurried after them, calling for everyone to calm down while laughing too hard to sound sincere. The students in the hall surged toward the new spectacle.

Hailey could have escaped and left the three bullies to fight over their own evidence. Instead, she thought of the images still stored on the device and what Candice might do once she recovered it. Deleting them now could end the threat before it reached the school network. She tightened Luke’s jacket and followed CeCe toward the restroom.

Inside, McKenna stood beside a stall with the phone raised. Candice reached for it, and McKenna twisted away. The device tumbled from their hands, struck the edge of the toilet, and vanished into the bowl with a splash. Both girls screamed.

For a stunned beat, everyone stared at the water. Then Candice ordered McKenna to retrieve it. McKenna refused until Candice reminded her that the photos and her social future were sinking together. Panic overcame disgust, and she thrust one hand into the bowl.

Hailey stopped in the doorway, caught between disbelief and satisfaction. The phone that had been used to degrade her now rested in the least glamorous place imaginable. Gail begged McKenna to hurry before the water damaged it. Candice blamed everyone except herself.

Panic replaced the disgust on McKenna’s face. She pulled upward, but her arm did not move. The watch or bracelet at her wrist had caught beneath the inner curve, trapping her hand. She told them to stop laughing and help.

Candice seized McKenna’s shoulder while Gail reached toward the flush handle by mistake. “No!” several voices shouted at once. Hailey stared at the absurd scene and realized the balance of humiliation had reversed. Yet as McKenna’s panic rose and Candice struggled to save the phone, the restroom door opened behind them, threatening to expose all of them to whoever had arrived.