Chapter 23
In the face of their moral condemnation, Mabel remained calm and unfazed.
She retorted when practically everyone had vented their anger.
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“You got it wrong. I’m not the only reason they’re spending all this money on this fancy hotel dinner tonight. Supposedly, it should have been Rhea’s homecoming party, but she did something silly, which was all over the internet. Dale and Beatrice were humiliated, but they didn’t want to waste the deposit they gave to the hotel, so they claimed that today’s party was for my birthday. If you don’t believe me, think about it. Every one of you has known the Harper family long enough. Have they ever thrown me such a big birthday party?”
In the blink of an eye, the expressions of Dale, Beatrice, and Rhea changed drastically.
The crowd started to whisper to each other.
“Come to think of it, she’s right. Among all those years she has stayed with them, this is my first time to come to her birthday party.”
“To be precise, they never hosted any dinner party in her name
“Mabel, what did Rhea do? Tell us.”
A teenage boy shouted out quite confidently, beating Mabel to it “It clicked! I thought I had seen that woman in the white dress online! That’s the woman next to the artificial waterfall in the mall whose dress split open all of a sudden! Her ass was all out!”
news.
Hearing this, everyone present, whether they had seen the news or not, took out their phones to check out the relevant
At the sight of certain photos, they figured the teenage boy’s description was rather conservative. It wasn’t just Rhea’s bottom that was exposed.
Little did Rhea know Mabel would make such a move. Rhea spent all evening trying her best to avoid this topic. She even especially put on heavy makeup so that no one who had seen the photos would recognize her.
But that bitch Mabel got them to find those photos and videos of her, in which she was practically naked.
Aileen was one of those people. As soon as she saw the photos, she pulled a long face, pondering, ‘Gee! What was I thinking?
Turns out Rhea is so easy. She doesn’t deserve to be Matthew’s wife at all!‘
い
Rhea’s face turned pale, and she couldn’t shake off the feeling that everyone around her was checking out her body in a
meaningful way. She was neatly dressed, yet she felt naked, making her uneasy all over.
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Mabel explained, as calm as ever, “The red dress she was wearing was an adult gift I had saved
up months of my allowance to give myself. She said she liked it, and I was forced to let her have it. You know what happened afterward.”
Suffering an oops moment wasn’t Rhea’s fault. She got unlucky, and in fact, she was kind of a victim, and the crowd felt sorry for her. But hearing Mabel’s explanation, they simply felt Rhea had it coming. After all, she forced herself into a dress that wasn’t her size. There was no one else to blame but herself.
Mabel gloated while looking at the flustered Rhea, thinking, ‘Rhea, what do you expect? I saved up for that dress. You really think you could get away with it without even apologizing to me? Come on. I’m set to be the vindictive type, and since you mess with me, you’re doomed.‘
At this point, the onlookers finally saw Rhea’s true colors. Her pitiful appearance was just fake, whereas, in fact, she was probably the bully at home, picking on Mabel, the family’s adopted daughter.
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“Is it true, Rhea? Dale and Beatrice bought you a dress worth almost a million dollars, but you still coveted the dress Mabel saved up for months?”
“Serve you right. No wonder Dale and Beatrice didn’t want to throw you a homecoming party. You embarrassed them.”
“I remember that broken red dress cost only a few thousand dollars, right? Mabel gets so little allowance? It takes her months to save thousands of dollars?”
Everyone present was well–off, and some of them were even billionaires. Of course, thousands of dollars were too little for them.
“Now that I think about it, Mabel always dressed so plain, even a little shabby. Dale, Beatrice, is buying her better clothes too much of an expense for you?”
“Not to mention today was supposed to be Rhea’s homecoming party. Is it because Mabel is your adopted daughter that you’re reluctant to spend money on her?”
“Guess we all got Mabel wrong. Her life with the Harper family isn’t as glamorous as we thought.”
Dale and Beatrice had become the object of condemnation.
Both were hypocrites, always leading the others to believe they doted on Mabel even though she wasn’t related to them. And now, it suddenly dawned on everyone that it was just a pretense. Actually, there was a huge gap between how the couple treated their adopted daughter and their own.
Most of the guests tonight were Dale’s business partners. Feeling humiliated, he nudged Beatrice, indicating for her to deal with them.
Beatrice was left with no choice but to save the day. She said to Mabel awkwardly, “Mabel, I admit I was wrong about that. I shouldn’t have indulged Rhea and let her take your dress… But you’ve got to believe that Dale and I treat Both of you are our daughters, and there’s absolutely no favoritism in our family.”
you
both the same.
Her words were more like a cover–up, which showed how guilty she was. Hearing this, they manomena
suspicious that Dale and Beatrice had been treating Mabel harshly.
“Oh, really?” Mabel smiled and extended a hand to Beatrice. “Prove it to me there’s
y
more
my 18th birthday present?” Beatrice had already bought the gift per Mabel’s request, but she was reluctant to give it to Mabel and had planned to come up with an excuse to brush Mabel off. Unexpectedly, Mabel hadn’t forgotten about it and even asked her for the gift.
to
Reluctantly, she took out a delicate jewelry box from her bag and handed it to Mabel. Inside the box was a pair of dazzling
“Mabel, we paid over 6 million dollars for this. Well? You wouldn’t still think that Dale and I favor Rhea, would you?” Hearing the earrings‘ price, the crowd was stunned, figuring the Harper family was surprisingly well–off.
Greatly satisfied, Mabel put the earrings away. After all, pink diamonds were very valuable and were the rarest gemstone after red diamonds.
She thought, ‘Great. Seems Beatrice kept my words that day in mind. It would have been better if she hadn’t paid with my infinity card‘
Meanwhile, Rhea was filled with jealousy as she eyed the pink earrings in Mabel’s hand. Thinking that the earrings were as valuable as all the gifts Dale and Beatrice had ever bought her, she decided to sneak into Mabel’s room someday to steal the earrings away.
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