Chapter 5
A thick stack of urgent Lumina project documents slipped from Rachel’s arms with a loud crash, scattering crisp white pages across the floor.
The entire room fell silent.
Felicity’s face twisted in annoyance. “What are you doing? Can’t you even hold hold onto a few files?”
But Rachel didn’t even seem to hear her scolding. She pointed at me, her voice trembling with shock.
“Ms. Syrell?! What–what are you doing here?!”
It was as if all the air had been sucked from the room.
Every expression of mockery, ridicule, or smug delight froze in place.
The triumphant smile on Felicity’s face turned to stone.
“What… what did you just say?”
She whipped around to glare at her assistant, her voice rising with a shrill
crack.
“Who? Who did you just call, Ms. Syrell?!”
Rachel flinched at Felicity’s outburst, her face going pale.
She dropped to her knees, frantically gathering the scattered documents, all the while bowing her head and stammering apologies in my direction, her voice quivering with fear.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Syrell! I had no idea you were dining here…
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“I didn’t mean to disturb you. I truly apologize! I’ll pick these up right
away.
“Ms. Syrell?”
The same classmates who had just mocked me for “marrying some old guy” now stared at me, eyes wide as saucers, echoing the title in stunned disbelief.
“Which Ms. Syrell?”
Rachel paused in her scramble, glanced up at Felicity in confusion, then turned to me with cautious respect.
“The very Ms. Syrell that Ms. Claridge has been trying so hard to collaborate with–the head of Lumina’s Moonlit Pack and chief designer, I. Syrell. Ms. Ivory Syrell.”
Boom!
Her words landed like a thunderclap in the dead–quiet room.
In an instant, everyone’s expressions changed.
Kenzie, who’d just been oozing superiority, now had her mouth hanging open, as if she could swallow an egg whole,
All around, my old classmates‘ faces transformed–from disdain and contempt to sudden, desperate enthusiasm.
“Oh my god! Ivory–no, Ms. Syrell! You’re really Lumina’s chief designer?!”
“Wow! I always knew Ivory–Ms. Syrell was top of the class, so poised, so extraordinary! She was never meant for an ordinary life!”
“This is incredible! Now that’s real talent!”
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Chapter 5
“Ms. Syrell, your outfit is so understated, yet so elegant! Only a true designer could pull that off!”
“Ms. Syrell, do you remember me? Taylor, I used to sit behind you in high school! You’re really making us all proud!”
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Compliments poured in, each more fawning and exaggerated than the last
far more so than when they’d been flattering Felicity.
Everyone scrambled to cozy up to me, as if they’d forgotten the cruel
things they’d said about me and my “family” only minutes before.
Felicity’s expression had gone beyond sour; she looked downright humiliated.
Her earlier offer to set me up with a “janitor” job was now nothing but a joke.
And Carlos.
He finally snapped out of his shock, his handsome face still tense, but at last he spoke to me for the first time.
“Ivory, I never imagined you’d still be this outstanding.”
As for Felicity, sitting at his side, she might as well have been invisible.
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