Fake Mating To My Ex's Powerful Enemy

Chapter 329: Chapter 329 Someone Tampered with These

Christina’s POV

"Why wouldn’t I be? Go ahead. Let Harry drive you and take a couple of guards, just in case," Hudson said, watching me closely.

"No. Harry should stay with you. I’ll take Kit." I was already grabbing my purse, mind racing toward whatever disaster awaited me at the studio.

Kit drove me to the studios in silence. When we arrived, Priya was already standing at the door like a guard, her shoulders tense. The moment she saw me, relief crossed her face.

"Thank God you’re here," she sighed. "The client’s upstairs in the conference room, and she’s furious."

"Which client?" I asked, already feeling my stomach tighten.

"It’s Mrs. Mitchell," Priya whispered, glancing nervously toward the stairs. "She claims we gave her all the wrong sizes."

I frowned. Penelope Mitchell. She’d come through a string of referrals and placed a generous order for a complete diamond parure: necklace, earrings, bracelet, bangle, ring, brooch, and even a tiara. The whole package was worth a small fortune.

"What does she mean, wrong sizes?" I pressed as we hurried up the stairs.

"That’s what confused me too," Priya said, keeping up beside me. "She says every measurement is wrong. The necklace is too long, the earrings are too heavy, and she has a whole list of other complaints."

"That’s impossible," I muttered. "How could something like this happen? I’ve been in this business for years and never made such a basic mistake."

Every piece from my studio was custom-made. We always had fittings before casting, and clients signed off on final designs with measurements included before production. There was a strict verification process to prevent exactly this kind of error.

"Maybe the factory mixed something up," I suggested, refusing to believe I could have made such an amateur error.

Akira growled inside me. "Someone’s trying to sabotage us. I can smell it."

Priya shook her head. "I don’t know what happened. She’s threatening to blast us online, demanding a refund, an apology, and probably our firstborn children too. I tried calming her down, but she wouldn’t listen."

"I’ll talk to her," I said, though unease crawled up my spine like ice.

When we stepped into the conference room, Penelope Mitchell’s hostility hit me like a wall. She didn’t stand to greet me or even acknowledge my hello. Her perfectly made-up face was stone, her glare sharp enough to cut diamond.

"What kind of shoddy operation are you running?" she demanded immediately. "How could you make such a stupid mistake?" freewёbnoνel.com

"Mrs. Mitchell, I’m truly sorry the order isn’t what you expected. I’m just as confused about the difference in measurements—"

"Don’t give me excuses!" she snapped, cutting me off sharply.

She shoved a jewelry box across the table. "See for yourself. The necklace is far longer than I asked for, the tiara’s too tight, and the rest is equally terrible." She thrust a sheet of paper at me. "And here’s your signature approving all of it."

"I..." My words died as I stared at what appeared to be my own signature.

"Look for yourself." Penelope downed a glass of water, fury radiating from her.

I lifted the box with steady hands despite my racing heart. Even at a glance, she was right. The pieces were all wrong sizes. They matched the figures on the job sheet in front of me, but those weren’t the measurements Penelope had originally approved.

"Before you try blaming me," she said, her voice cold as ice, "the job sheet your staff sent originally had the correct measurements. That’s what I signed. I never approved this version. I don’t know if your staff or your factory screwed up, but it’s completely unacceptable. I needed this set for the Whitman charity gala, and it was too late to replace it. I had to buy something off the rack!"

I held the job sheet in my hands, examining every detail. It had her signature, mine, and the studio’s seal. Everything looked real, yet everything was wrong.

"Someone tampered with these," Akira snarled inside me. "Look closer. This isn’t right."

"Whatever you say now is meaningless," Penelope spat. "I don’t care how it happened. Your studio is at fault. You’ll bear the loss."

"Mrs. Mitchell," I said carefully, maintaining eye contact, "I completely understand your anger. Something clearly went wrong here. It appears we’ve made a mistake, and of course we’ll reimburse you in full."

"Not enough," she shot back. "You made me lose face at the Whitman event. You’ll pay damages. I’m suing, and I’ll make sure everyone in my social circle knows to avoid your studio. I trusted you on a friend’s recommendation. I saw her pieces and thought you were reliable. Clearly, you only did good work then to reel in more business, and I was the fool who got palmed off with garbage."

She stood abruptly, gathering her designer purse. "My lawyer will contact you about payment and compensation."

Without another word, she swept out of the room.

Priya crept in after she’d gone, eyes wide. "What do we do, Christina?"

My brows furrowed as I examined the job sheet again. "We’ll pay. Whatever went wrong, we didn’t deliver what she ordered, and we have to take responsibility."

Priya winced. "That’ll cost us a fortune."

"It doesn’t matter. It’s what we have to do." I ran my finger over my signature, something still bothering me about it. "But I need to know what happened. Let’s check the saved job sheet on the server."

Priya hurried me to her workstation and pulled up the saved file. The measurements there were wrong too, matching the incorrect job sheet Mrs. Mitchell had shown us.

"Impossible," I whispered. "Someone tampered with the database."

"You think someone’s framing us?" Priya asked, her voice trembling slightly.

I tapped my fingers against the desk.

"I don’t know yet. Let’s check the security footage. Maybe whoever messed with the computer forgot about the cameras."

Priya nodded. "I’ll get on it right away."

Though deep down, I doubted it. Whoever did this was no amateur. The job sheet was probably altered remotely, and Priya’s computer might have been hacked.

"Someone’s trying to damage your reputation," Akira said. "This is deliberate, Christina. We need to tell Hudson."

"Not yet," I thought back. "Let’s gather evidence first."