𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐋𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐒 | 𝐋𝐍𝟒

𝐗𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐈

Scandals..

Milaine Vanboven never cared for them. Never had, never would.

She wasn't the kind of person who spent her life worrying about what strangers thought of her. Their opinions were meaningless — background noise to the symphony of her own life. Her goal was never to be loved by the public, to be adored, or to be understood.

It was simple: be the best at tennis and protect the people she cared about. That was it. Success on the court, and kindness off it. Those were the only things she ever truly valued.

And yet, somehow, lately, she had failed at both.

Her tennis career, once so smooth, had turned into a rollercoaster after her shoulder injury — a betrayal of her own body she hadn't seen coming. And off the court, she had hurt the people she loved the most. One after the other, unintentionally, yet painfully all the same.

But if there was one thing Milaine Vanboven had mastered, it was ignoring the noise. No amount of boos in a stadium, no hateful chants from a crowd, no slander in the media had ever been able to break her focus.

If anything, the louder they booed, the stronger she played. She thrived against the current.

It never affected her before, and it wasn't affecting her now..

For the past three days, her name had been dragged through every corner of the internet. A cheater. A liar. A disappointment.

Still, she stayed silent. She didn't post a statement, didn't reply to the journalists, didn't hire a PR team for a fire to put out. She simply turned off her notifications, uninstalled social media apps, leaving the passwords for Viv to manage, and packed her bags.

Because she had a tournament to win.

Now she was in London, tucked away from the chaos of the world, staying at her mother's and Ralph's fancy mansion on the outskirts of the city.

Her days were disciplined, almost repetitive. She woke up early every morning, before the sun even considered rising. She trained hard with Willem, relentlessly, pushing herself through drills and exercises as if trying to sweat the past out of her body. Rehab for her shoulder with Omar followed — a shoulder that, thankfully, was stronger now than it had been in years.

Then she would have lunch with her mom, and they would talk.. For once in their lives they were actually getting along just fine..

In the afternoons, she disguised herself under a weird, oversized hat and sunglasses, wandered around the quiet streets of London, picked up a coffee, and returned home without a soul recognizing her. In the evenings, she would sit quietly with her coach, working on her mental game..

And at night, she had dinner with her family — Ralph cracking bad dad jokes and telling long-winded stories, her mom's snarky comments and Denis's laughters filling the room , and for a few hours, the world outside didn't exist. It was peaceful.

It was everything she needed.

Two days from now, she would step onto the sacred grass courts of Wimbledon for her first-round match.

The world would be watching. And she would be damned if she didn't prove every single one of them wrong..

•••••••

The day before Wimbledon, Milaine had to leave her mother's and Ralph's peaceful home behind. As much as she would have loved to stay, it was time to move closer to the center of it all — to the heart of the storm.

Her hotel was only a thirty-minute drive away, still in London, but closer to the All England Club. Convenient for practice. Convenient for focus.

She pulled up to the entrance in a black SUV, the windows tinted, but the commotion outside was impossible to miss. A sea of cameras, reporters, and flashing lights waited for her ,they knew she was coming. They had been waiting.