Blow it up? I thought, slightly disappointed. Is this still not a big enough issue? What exactly is he up to? I watched him narrow his eyes as they gleamed cunningly. I knew he was up to no good.
The cocky mirth he had was enough to tell me that whatever he was going to do was serious. I might as well wait for him to pull out the big guns. After all, I wasn’t wise myself. Sometimes, I’d even call myself rather silly.
The next day, I was painting when I heard some urgent knocks on the door. When I opened it, Nathan was in front of me. Despite my surprise, I asked calmly, “What’s up, Dad?”
Nathan craned his neck to look into the room behind me and asked, “Is Mr. Lane in there?”
I frowned and shook my head. “He’s at the office. If you need to discuss something with him, you’d better go there.”
“What do you mean? Am I not allowed to come and see you?” Nathan scoffed coldly and squeezed right past me into the living room. When he caught sight of the easel propped up, his eyes shined and he said, “Crystal said you were painting again, but I thought she was kidding. Are you really doing that? You should know where your own talent lies. Stop embarrassing the Tanners.”
I rolled my eyes and said impatiently, “I got kicked out of the Tanner family ages ago, didn’t I? I’m sure it has nothing to do with any of you. Are you going to lecture me again? You can probably save it.”
“You selfish fool. If it wasn’t for Crystal, I wouldn’t bother coming here to see you.” Nathan’s expression was steely as he glared at me. “We’re organizing a family dinner tomorrow. Invite Mr. Lane over so I can discuss something with him.”
“Is that necessary?” Christopher had already decided to go with me, but Nathan didn’t need to come over to tell me especially. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like something fishy. What is Crystal up to?
“Just go when I ask you to! I don’t care who you think you are now. You were brought up by the Tanners, so you shouldn’t forget your roots,” he spat before leaving.
“Unbelievable!” I slammed the door. Sure, I may have grown up in the Tanner family, but no one treated me like I was one of them. Even their pets were more privileged than I was.
Someone knocked on the door again. Thinking it was Nathan, I yelled, “What else do you want? You came all the way here to force me to go, so it’s not like I can turn you down! If not, you’ll probably get Scarlett to emphasize how disrespectful I am at some other banquet, right?”
“Eve, it’s me. Open up!” Sabrina called.
The moment I realized it was Sabrina, I rushed to open the door. Out of breath, she started to rant. “That b*tch Crystal openly bashed you online! She’s probably waiting to use you as a stepping stone. She’s purposely getting famous off this whole art fiasco!”
“What’s going on?” I asked, extremely confused.
“Take a look for yourself!” Sabrina dragged me to the computer and searched up a social media webpage.
Crystal’s interview appeared. As the special guest of the National Youth Art Exhibition, Remington, Spencer and she got the chance to exhibit their own artwork. Afterward, there was a charity auction for those paintings. Crystal had painted a bunch of flowers and was answering interview questions from journalists.
When they brought my name up, Crystal stiffened and her eyes went red. She looked down pitifully and wiped away some tears before saying, “Y-Yvonne is a very strong-willed woman. As long as she wants something, she must have it. Still, please don’t misunderstand her. She may have ripped Lyle and I apart, but she couldn’t help herself. I don’t know what happened between her and Mr. Lane, so I can’t speak about that. Mr. Lane is one of Lyle’s business partners, and Yvonne met him during a banquet. I don’t know when they started having a thing, and all I can do is apologize for what they did to Monica. Please stop blaming Yvonne. I’ll apologize in her place.”
She was clearly blowing things out of proportion! Clearly, she was on Monica’s side and rubbing my name even further into the dirt. I could already imagine how popular she would be after this interview blew up and how hated I would become.
