Chapter15 Is She Your Illegitimate Daughter?
Seeing Dominic backing her up, a gleam of triumph flashed in Ariana's eyes. She walked over to Dominic with an obedient manner, speaking gently. "Uncle's right. After all, Uncle's in charge of the company. Cousin, you should listen to Uncle."
The words sounded like she was mediating, but every syllable was fuel on the fire, reminding Miranda that here, Dominic was the authority. She was just a daughter who could be cast aside at any moment.
"Is it your place to talk?" Miranda's gaze was cold as ice. She couldn't even be bothered to spare Ariana a sideways glance.
"You!" Ariana hadn't expected her to be so disrespectful in front of Dominic. Her eyes immediately reddened with grievance.
"Miranda! Is that any way to talk to your cousin!" Dominic immediately came to her defense, pointing at Miranda accusingly. "Ariana cares about you. What kind of attitude is this! No manners at all!"
Miranda's heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand. It turned ice cold in an instant.
Manners?
When her own father accused her of having no manners in front of all the company executives for the sake of an outsider, the last bit of ridiculous filial affection in her heart shattered completely.
Looking at this self righteous man before her, she suddenly felt incredibly alienated.
For Ariana, he could twist the truth.
For Ariana, he could dismiss all his own daughter's efforts.
Was this really her father?
A sharp, bitter sensation shot through her nose, but Miranda forced it back down. Instead, her lips curved into a deeply mocking smile.
She stepped forward, her gaze boring straight into Dominic, speaking word by word, each syllable echoing clearly in the deathly silent conference room.
"Dad, the way you protect her, people who don't know better might think she's your illegitimate daughter."
"You... what nonsense are you spouting!" Dominic's face instantly turned the color of liver. Like someone had poked at a hidden secret, he refuted furiously. "I think you're becoming more and more unreasonable!"
"I'm unreasonable?" Miranda laughed coldly. "I poured my heart into launching the company's most promising project, and I'm unreasonable? Meanwhile, Ariana can't even do her job properly, yet you want to hand the entire project's future over to her?"
"I've seen Ariana's proposals. They're far more detailed and complete than yours!" Dominic argued unreasonably. "She may be young, but she's got drive and ideas! This is for the company's good!"
"Fine. Since you trust her so much," Miranda's eyes sharpened as she completely tore away that layer of false warmth, "how about we compete?"
Hearing this, Ariana immediately seized the opportunity and jumped in. "Sure! How do we compete? But cousin, if we're competing, there should be stakes, right? If you lose, you hand over that twenty percent of shares you're holding!"
Her eyes held undisguised greed.
Miranda looked at her eager expression and laughed coldly to herself. "Fine. What are your stakes?"
"I..." Ariana choked for a moment, then said self righteously, "If I lose, I'll never participate in Project Starlight again!"
"That's not fair!" Christian, who'd been silent until now, shot to his feet, glaring at his father. "Ariana isn't qualified to join this project in the first place! She's betting something that wasn't hers to begin with. Why should my sister have to bet her actual shares?"
He turned to Dominic, his eyes full of disappointment. "Dad! If my sister wins, shouldn't you put up something too? How about you bet your shares!"
"Ridiculous!" Dominic rejected the idea without thinking.
"Ridiculous?" Christian laughed bitterly. "You're forcing your own daughter to bet her shares for the sake of an outsider, but when I try to get justice for my sister, that's ridiculous? Dad, do you even care about us anymore?"
The interrogation left Dominic's face alternating between red and pale. Of course he coveted Miranda's shares, but in front of all these people, he couldn't appear too eager.
Just then, Miranda's cool voice sounded again.
"Christian, we don't need to bet Dad's shares." She looked at Dominic, her gaze calm and steady. "Since this all started because Dad wants Ariana to join the new project, let's use Dad's assets as stakes instead."
She paused, her gaze falling on Ariana as she continued slowly. "How about Dad's golf course on the outskirts? If Ariana loses, Dad, you transfer that golf course to me."
Dominic's brow furrowed deeply. That golf course was one of his most important private assets, worth a fortune.
Before he could speak, Christian immediately upped the ante. "Dad, here's an idea. If my sister loses, I'll transfer my ten percent stake to you! Betting against one golf course, you can't lose on this deal no matter how you calculate it!"
Ten percent of shares!
Dominic's breathing instantly quickened. His shares plus another ten percent would make him the absolute controlling shareholder of Lancaster!
In his mind, how could Miranda, who'd been a housewife for three years, possibly compare to Ariana, whom he'd carefully cultivated since childhood?
This bet was in the bag!
"Fine!" Dominic slammed the table, as if afraid they'd back out. "It's settled then! Let's go to the project department right now. Let everyone see who truly has the ability to lead this project!"
The group marched toward the project department.
The head of the project department, Lisa, was a decisive career woman. After briefly hearing Dominic's request, she expressionlessly placed two identical sets of project materials in front of Miranda and Ariana.
"The core technical framework for Project Starlight has been preliminarily established, but there are inevitably bugs we haven't discovered yet or potential risk points that could cause problems."
Lisa pushed up her glasses, her tone businesslike. "You have one hour. Whoever finds more critical flaws and proposes more feasible solutions wins."
The competition began.
Getting the materials, Ariana immediately started writing confidently. She'd already obtained internal materials about this project from Dominic and had even paid a professional team to analyze it. Right now she was just transcribing prepared answers.
Meanwhile, Miranda sat quietly at the computer, her fingers flying as she rapidly pulled up set after set of raw data from the backend, her brow furrowing tighter and tighter.
An hour passed in a flash.
Ariana proudly handed Lisa her "results" covering three full pages. She glanced back and saw that the paper in front of Miranda was still blank. She was just frowning at complex code, seemingly at a complete loss.
She was certain she'd won!
Lisa took what Ariana handed over, scanned it from top to bottom, her face still expressionless, only saying flatly, "Leave it here."
This bland reaction made Ariana a bit uneasy, but she quickly pushed the feeling aside.
She walked over to Miranda, looking down at her, her lips curving into an undisguised sneer.
"Cousin, if you can't figure it out, stop pretending. Admitting you can't do it isn't embarrassing."