Chapter 148: Twisting Facts
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
The middle-aged man held the invitation card and handed it back to Lucas with both hands, bowing and apologizing at the same time. “My apologies, Mr. Gray, this invitation card is authentic. I’m sorry for unintentionally offending you just now! I didn’t mean to. Please forgive me.”
Then he straightened up his body and shot Bryce an extremely cold gaze.
It was all Bryce’s fault for spurring him to ask Lucas to produce the invitation card for inspection. He was just a steward of the Hales, and if he were to offend an honored guest, he would be in trouble!
With his mouth wide open in disbelief, Bryce took two steps back while muttering incessantly, “How can it be authentic? How can he really have an invitation from the Hales… No, this is impossible! He must have stolen it from someone…”
Smack!
Bryce was given a hard and tight slap on his face, disrupting his incoherent muttering!
Dominic had walked over at some point. After slapping Bryce to shut him up, he put his hands together while facing the middle-aged man and the other guests around him. With a look of sincerity, he apologized, “Sorry, everyone. It was my grandson Bryce Carter who made a mistake in a moment of rashness. We are very sorry for disturbing all of you.”
Lucas slowly sipped on some tea and casually tossed the invitation card that the middle-aged man handed over onto the table.
In fact, the invitation card indeed didn’t belong to Lucas. Jordan had taken it from Seth Miller, who had kicked up a fuss with them just now. Actually, Flynn Davis also had a few invitation cards, but he didn’t give any to Lucas because the latter had previously declined to attend the baby shower.
After hearing what Dominic said, the people around them immediately started discussing among themselves.
In fact, everyone could tell that Bryce wasn’t acting in a moment of rashness, but rather, he obviously had a feud with Lucas and thus was so overbearing toward the latter!
At the thought that Lucas used to be a live-in son-in-law of the Carters but was later chased out together with his wife and her family, they reckoned that there must have been some interesting story behind it.
Almost all the people present belonged to prestigious families in Orange County, and all wealthy and esteemed families had dark secrets.
For a while, countless speculations emerged in the minds of the people.
A few young people who knew Bryce began grinning and gibing, “Mr. Carter, surely the man in front of you isn’t the one who got involved in a scandal with your cousin Cheyenne Carter, is he?”
Hearing the disdainful tone in the word ‘scandal’, Bryce immediately became riled up. He felt that he had found a supporter. “He is exactly that penniless punk. After creating that scandal, we had no choice but to get Cheyenne, who ruined the family’s reputation, to marry him. We let him sponge off us and provided for him entirely, yet this ingrate doesn’t know what it means to be grateful!”
Bryce deliberately exclaimed loudly and even glanced at Lucas with contempt, as if Lucas owed the Carters a great favor.
“Oh? How is he an ingrate?” someone asked curiously.
“Hmph, not long after he got married, he absconded with hundreds of thousands of dollars from his father-in-law and returned only after six years. After squandering all that money, he still had the cheek to come back and continue making us provide for him. That isn’t all. He’s also really arrogant and vicious. He talked back to my grandfather on several occasions, causing my grandfather to pa.s.s out. He even dared to hit me just because he was a soldier for a few years. Look, this ingrate was the one who broke my wrist!”
Bryce held up his wrist, which was still wrapped in gauze, and showed it to the people around him in a bid to produce ‘evidence’ of Lucas’s misdeeds. “Unfortunately, that shameless woman Cheyenne Carter was somehow bewitched by him and insisted on colluding with this ingrate to anger us. So in the end, we were left with no choice but to kick them out of the family and disown them because we couldn’t stand it any longer!”
Bryce twisted facts and made the Carters out to be kindhearted souls. He even branded Lucas and Cheyenne as ingrates who were heartless and unfilial.
After making this statement with pleasure, Bryce felt that he had vented all his pent-up anger and aggravation. He felt that he once again became superior to Lucas.
Snap!
Suddenly, a clear and crisp cracking sound abruptly filled the air, halting Bryce in his attempt to continue framing Lucas.
Lucas crushed the teacup in his hand into pieces, and the fragments started falling onto the table.
Everyone instantly fell silent and stared at him in astonishment. Amid the complete silence, he said, “Nonsense. You even insulted my wife. It seems you’ve forgotten the warning I gave you before.”
Lucas’s gaze was icy cold, and his eyes were full of a sharp glint as he glared daggers at Bryce with a terrifying aura that seemed to be able to crush people into pieces.
The air around Lucas seemed to freeze, and many subconsciously took a few steps back as they felt a chill arise in their hearts.
Facing Lucas’s intimidating gaze, Bryce felt overwhelmed with fear. Lucas’s eyes were like daggers piercing through his heart, making his body quake and drenched in cold sweat. Even his legs turned into jelly.
Supporting himself against the chair beside him, Bryce insisted, “I-I’m not spouting nonsense. You and Cheyenne Carter had indeed messed around and got involved in a scandal. Dare you say that you had nothing to do with what happened to the Carters recently?”
Lucas stared at Bryce coldly. “Since you mentioned what happened then, how come you don’t remember that the scandal only happened because you and the Carters had deliberately set Cheyenne up in a bid to encroach on the Brilliance Corporation?”
Lucas’s words made everyone flabbergasted!
Almost everyone in Orange County had heard of the scandal that Cheyenne and Lucas, who was only a chauffeur then, were involved in. At that time, everyone said that Cheyenne was a beautiful and dignified woman on the surface but was actually desperate and indecent in private, so much that she actually got involved with a lowly chauffeur.
Cheyenne’s reputation was destroyed overnight, and despite the Carters taking away the Brilliance Corporation, which she had single-handedly established and developed, people only felt that she deserved it. They even thought that the Carters had done the right thing because she would only disgrace the Carters further if she remained as the chairperson of the Brilliance Corporation.
However, they heard something shocking now. It turned out that the Carters were the ones who planned that scandal all for the sake of s.n.a.t.c.hing the Brilliance Corporation away from Cheyenne.
The news was too astonis.h.i.+ng!
The expressions of Bryce and Dominic changed drastically. They never expected this scoundrel to find out about that matter, which they had been very secretive about and was made known to only a few people.
But no matter how Lucas learned the information, they definitely couldn’t admit to being the masterminds!
Otherwise, not only the two of them, but the Carters would also be thoroughly embarra.s.sed. Their business, which finally picked up after lots of painstaking efforts, would take another hit!
Who would be willing to cooperate with a company that had no bottom line and would resort to any means for the sake of profits?
Bryce and Dominic glanced at each other, both understanding each other’s thoughts.
Having gained Dominic’s support, Bryce was emboldened as he hollered, “Bulls.h.i.+t! The Carters have never done anything like that. You’re just smearing us, you good-for-nothing!”
As he spoke, he picked up a bottle of white wine and tried to smash it at Lucas’s head relentlessly!