Chapter 459

Melissa blinked back tears, her eyes stinging as she felt everyone in the hall staring at her with thinly veiled mockery.
Someone let out a sharp laugh.
“Seriously? She shows up with a fake and still has the guts to call out the original artist. How humiliating.”
“Anthony made it pretty obvious he wants nothing to do with her. Yet she’s still calling him by a pet name. She’s got no shame.”
“I mean, Anthony and Halation really do look good together.”
A world-famous artist with a gold medal wasn’t someone you could compete with just by throwing money around. Next to the Blair family, Melissa was nothing.
Dorothy never imagined things would go this far. Out of respect for Melissa’s mother, she decided to take a risk and speak up, even if it meant crossing Patricia. “Ms. Carter was tricked. She’s a victim here too. Anthony, can’t we just drop this?” “No way.” Dorothy barely finished speaking, and Melissa, completely mortified, was ready to bolt when a clear voice rang out from the crowd.
Emily stepped forward, heading straight for Charlotte. She shot Melissa a hard stare. “If this was just an accident, maybe we could let it go. But you tried to mess with Lottie on purpose, and you don’t get to walk away like nothing happened.”
Charlotte couldn’t help but smile a little at Emily’s fierce defense.
“Emily, what are you doing?” Dorothy asked, her voice tight. She could feel things slipping out of control. “This is your grandmother’s birthday. The Carters and the Blairs aren’t strangers. Don’t make a scene.”
“Grandma wouldn’t want Charlotte to get blamed for something she didn’t do.” Emily shot back without missing a beat. “Ms. Carter, you just said you got scammed into buying a fake painting, right?”
“Yes.” Melissa’s voice was small and shaky. Her heart thudded in her chest.
“That’s a lie.” Emily held up a phone, her tone cold. “You never bought the real Sunset. You paid over a million to hire someone to copy it. You’ve known all along your painting was a fake, and you still tried to make things hard for Charlotte. If Sunset hadn’t happened to be her work, you would have pulled it off.”
“If anyone doesn’t believe me, I’ve got a recording from the forger right here. It’s easy enough to check.”
“Patricia, I
“Ms. Carter.” Patricia’s voice cut in, smooth but chilly. She forced a polite smile: “Thank you for coming to my birthday party. I do appreciate it Buttet’s not pretend the Carter family and the Blair family know each other, but we’re not that close. Whether your gift is genuine or not doesn’t matter much to me. However
Her smile vanished. “What you should never have done is try to frame Lottie.”
Charlotte looked up, catching Patricia’s eye. A hint of a smile played at her lips.
“For the Carter family’s sake, if you
།
apologize to Lottie, we’ll call it even.
But this is your one and only
ce.” Patricia drew Charlotte
change.”
closer, her words slow and icy. “If you don’t, this won’t be the end of it.”