She Left She Thrived She’s Worth Billions novel Chapter 473

On stage, Aria delivered her impassioned, rallying speech.

In the crowd, countless guests directed scornful looks at Melanie.

"What is wrong with the eldest Royce daughter? Is she so obsessed with petty family drama that she's sabotaging her own company's projects?"

"If she can't handle the job, she should step down! Instead, she forced her sister to start from scratch."

"Mr. Royce must still be carrying a torch for his late first wife, or maybe he feels guilty. Why else would he hand the COO title to a daughter with half-baked pharmaceutical skills?"

"So this is basically them bringing Aria in as an external consultant to save the day?"

"Having the nerve to be COO with zero real talent is just embarrassing."

Whispers and murmurs rippled through the venue.

Catching the snide remarks, Aria felt a surge of smug satisfaction.

This was exactly the reaction she had orchestrated.

Most of the guests she had invited today were clients of the Royce Group.

However, she had purposefully excluded anyone who had attended her welcome-home banquet.

Those people would have remembered that Melanie earned the COO title because she was the only one who passed Nathaniel Royce's rigorous technical test.

By inviting a completely ignorant crowd, Aria had controlled the narrative.

She knew that after hearing her carefully spun speech, they would write Melanie off as a talentless hack who only cared about infighting.

To Aria, this studio launch was her opening salvo, and it had to be a flawless hit.

Melanie, however, was entirely indifferent to the swirling rumors.

She had heard it all before; she was immune to it.

She despised wasting her precious time on irrelevant people.

Rather than fuming over the smear campaign, Melanie was far more intrigued by a different detail.

Why did Aria choose the Silver-Leaf Orchid Variant as her studio's flagship project?

Was it merely a ploy to hijack her cold medicine project and publicly humiliate her?

Melanie shook her head slightly.

No...

It wasn't that simple.

Melanie let out a quiet scoff.

On the surface, she had already kicked Aria off the project.

Yet after all this theatrical maneuvering, Aria had somehow deeply entangled herself in it once again.

Melanie's gaze shifted thoughtfully between Dominic and Aria.

Aria wanted the project to succeed so she could snatch the Royce Group away from her.

But what about Dominic?

Why was Dominic going out of his way to help Aria?

A giant question mark formed in Melanie's mind.

Dominic never did anything that didn't benefit him.

And Gregory Hale certainly wouldn't allow him to.

Aria walked back onto the stage, facing Dominic, and the two shook hands.

"Wow, don't they look amazing together? Do you think Dominic divorced Melanie because he fell for her sister?"