Filed to story: Watch Out, I’m The Lady Boss (Eleanor & Sebastian) Book PDF Free
“I’ve been flat-out at Nyx Collective,” Violet fake-complained.
“Thank god my boss gave me leave for this party.”
Someone perked up.
“You work there? Then you know who designed this?”
Violet’s grin flickered, then went full Cheshire.
“Yes, I’m a designer at Nyx.”
“So you made this?” the girl pressed, eyes glittering.
Violet hesitated, then nodded.
They crowded in, desperate for a closer peek at the “must-have” accessory.
“Bullshit! That’s Elean’s design,” Yvaine snapped.
“You had zero to do with it.”
Silence snapped across the marble hall. Everyone’s jaws hit the floor. Heads swivelled.
When she saw me, Violet blanched so hard her mascara threatened to drip.
Her smug smile shrivelled. She jabbed a manicured finger at me.
“Eleanor Vance, this isn’t your crowd. How’d you get in here? Did you sneak in or fake an invite?”
Before I could launch my own barb, Yvaine yanked two crisp envelopes from her clutch and slapped them onto Violet’s palm.
“Official Laurent invite,” she said.
“Addressed to Elean and me. Where’s yours?”
“My what?” Violet kept staring at me.
“Your invite.”
“It’s… in my purse.”
“Care to show it?”
“Why?”
“Just humour me.” Yvaine shrugged.
“Unless you don’t have one.”
“I…” Violet reached inside her purse, but her hand stayed there.
Yvaine crossed her arms.
“I’m waiting.”
“I must have… misplaced it.”
“Or you don’t have one. You came here as someone’s plus one, didn’t you? Or did you sneak in via the back door?”
The entire hall went mute. Violet’s cheeks flamed.
I winced a little. As much as I wasn’t Violet’s biggest fan, even I had to admit, watching her get roasted alive by Yvaine in front of a crowd this size was… rough.
Still. I wasn’t about to throw her a life raft.
I said to Violet, “I know exactly why you tried to accuse us of crashing the party. You thought if you got us thrown out, no one’d be able to prove you didn’t design that necklace.”
The crowd edged closer.
Violet stiffened.
“I did design it.” She gripped her phone.
“I have the original drafts to prove it. You’re not stealing my work!”
My eyes narrowed.
She could be bluffing, or she might really have the drafts.
As another Nyx Collective designer, Violet had access to other people’s drafts. And Savannah said she wanted to use my necklace sketch as a sample for a studio workshop.
Maybe I’d underestimated Violet. I hadn’t expected her to save a copy on her phone. Had she been planning to pull a stunt like this?
She held up her phone.
“Look! I have the drafts right here!”
A cluster of guests leaned in. One glance at her screen and their suspicion flipped sides. Suddenly, I was the villain of the night.
Violet’s smugness dripped off her like cheap perfume.
I didn’t react. Just waited.
Waited until she’d shoved that screen under every nose in a ten-foot radius.
Then I said, “Good thing you showed everyone. Saved me the trouble.”
Her phone-hand wobbled.
“What do you mean?”
I said to one of the girls currently inspecting the drafts.
“Why don’t you zoom in? Check the engraving on the tiny diamonds.”
Violet’s face twitched. She made a futile grab for the phone.
The girl zoomed in obediently. Her eyes went wide.
“There’s an M,” she blurted.
“Tiny, but it’s there!”
A ripple went through the crowd.
“That’s the designer’s signature, right? The M?” someone whispered, loud enough to be not-whispering.
“It says M. Bloody hell, it really is Eleanor’s design!”
Violet’s face went from ghost-pale to lobster-red in two seconds flat. She snatched her phone back and mashed the power button like she was trying to murder it.
Too late. The whispers were already turning into open laughter. The kind that bites.
“If you’re gonna steal,” I said sweetly, “at least do it properly.”
I took two slow steps forward, stopping just short of her personal space, and gave her necklace a pointed once-over.
My brow furrowed slightly, like I’d just spotted something nasty in my drink.
“That piece around your neck shouldn’t even be here. It’s the prototype-the very first design. And last I checked, that thing was locked behind glass at Nyx Collective’s flagship showroom.”
I tilted my head and gave her the kind of look reserved for particularly dumb criminals.
“Stealing’s really your only talent, huh?”
For half a second, the room froze. You could hear a champagne bubble pop.
Then Yvaine cracked up, loud and savage.
“So the necklace’s stolen too? Damn, is the Lin family that broke? Can’t even afford jewellery anymore?”
Violet looked like she wanted to melt straight through the marble floor. Her face was so red, it practically clashed with the lighting. She fidgeted with the necklace, probably feeling like it was burning a hole through her skin.
I saw the moment she thought about running. She shifted her weight, glanced sideways, just about to bolt-
When the ballroom doors flew open and a fresh wave of noise crashed in.
Daniel Granger had arrived. And right beside him, looking disgustingly smug in bubblegum pink, was Catherine Vance.
Daniel wore a sharp black suit, cold and expensive like something he’d nicked off a mannequin at Dior. Catherine floated next to him, not holding his arm but close enough that they might as well have been glued together.
Murmurs rippled across the room.
“God, they look good together. Perfect match.”
“Told you Daniel never liked Eleanor. Catherine’s always been his real choice.”
My grin slipped. Just peeled right off my face.
Seeing them side by side in public hit me. It wasn’t heartbreak. It wasn’t rage. It was more like reaching for a glass of champagne and tasting dishwater instead.
I knew Daniel too bloody well. He’d planned this.
Louisa was still in hospital. Which meant she wouldn’t see this. Wouldn’t hear about it until much later, after the whole social circle had already gotten cosy with the idea of Daniel and Catherine being a thing.
By then, Louisa, who hated Catherine with the passion of a thousand suns, would be trapped. Everyone would expect her to accept it.
After I’d refused to keep playing fianc?e with him, this was his Plan B.
The plan was slick, sly, and absolutely filthy.
I thought back to the last public event I’d dragged myself to with Daniel.
We’d arrived together, technically, but he peeled off the second we said hi to the hosts. Left me standing there like a coat rack while he spent the night chatting golf swings and table football with his idiot friends.