Chapter 118 Chapter 118
The banquet, marred by Nísia's toxic incident, did not last long. In about forty minutes, the guests began to disperse. Out of etiquette and respect for Daniel Lutz, no one dared mention Nísia's name on their way out, but the silence they carried was louder than any criticism.
Daniel returned to the Lutz mansion with his nerves in tatters. Anger simmered beneath his polished surface. He had welcomed Nísia under his roof because he believed in her intelligence and good sense, but now she had proven to be an unruly burden that threatened his precious reputation. His heavy footsteps echoed through the silent hall of the house.
“Where is Miss Oliveira?” Daniel growled at the first maid he encountered.
The woman hesitated, her expression strange and fearful. “She... she went to the hospital, sir.”
Daniel's incendiary aura cooled for a second, replaced by a dark confusion. “Hospital?”
“Yes, sir. The young lady returned half an hour ago, crying inconsolably. She was beside herself, screaming that she was going to commit suicide. She fainted after hitting her head against a column and was rushed away. The mistress is with her.”
“Suicide?” Daniel let out a dry, humorless laugh, his gaze turning icy. He was well acquainted with the theatrical dramas of those who try to escape responsibility.
At the hospital, the atmosphere was one of pure despair. Nísia was lying on a stretcher, her forehead wrapped in white gauze where a small spot of blood was beginning to stain the fabric. Rosana sat beside her, heartbroken but also exhausted by the chaos.
“Is this what I raised you for for eighteen years? Is this how you repay me?” Rosana vented, her frustration overflowing.
Nísia covered her face with the blanket, sobs shaking her body. “Mom, there were so many important people at that banquet... industry leaders! They looked at me like I was a monster. I'll never have the courage to face anyone again!”
Her voice rose an octave, laden with desperate venom: “It's all Katherine's fault! If I die, the blood will be on her hands! She makes my life miserable, she always takes everything away from me!”
Rosana, who still didn't know the technical details of the disaster, tried to calm her daughter down. She knew that Nísia was too cowardly for blood; the fact that she had crashed into a column indicated that the humiliation had been unbearable.
“The world hasn't ended! I'm still here!” Rosana used a firmer tone. “Stop screaming and tell me exactly what happened!”
Nísia burst into tears again, a mixture of injustice and shame. She had seen her gala night turn into a courtroom where she was the defendant. When Rosana threatened to leave, claiming that the baby in her womb needed rest, Nísia finally gave in. She opened the blanket, revealing her tear-stained face and swollen eyes.
“Fine! If you want to give up on me too, I'd rather be dead! No one cares about my efforts!”
Rosana sighed, her mother's heart softening at her daughter's fragility. She took Nísia's hand and gently wiped away her tears. “I would never give up on you. You are part of me. Now, breathe... and tell me everything.”
Slowly, between sobs and pauses to catch her breath, Nísia began to recount the sequence of events that had taken her from the top of the world to rock bottom in the hospital.
When she got to the part where she confessed to trying to frame Katherine Lutz, Nísia's voice faltered. She hesitated, stuttered, and looked away for a long time, but the weight of despair forced her to tell everything. After all, since childhood, the only person in the world she really trusted was her mother, Rosana. They were accomplices; there were no secrets between them.
Rosana listened to every word in tense silence. Her calculating mind worked quickly, filtering out her daughter's hysterical crying to grasp the key points of the disaster.
She narrowed her eyes, focusing intensely on the crucial detail:
“Wait. Are you telling me that that booklet... was Josiane's draft?”
Nísia sniffed loudly, tears smudging her previously flawless makeup.
“Yes!” she sobbed. “The last part was just random scribbles by Katherine Lutz!”
I thought it was strange at the time, remember? And when I mentioned it to you, we both said it must be Josiane's “special touch” and genius. I didn't suspect anything! How could I have imagined that, in the end, I would end up mixing a poisoned formula and almost cause a fatal disaster?! Cicero Arbex must want me dead now!
She grabbed her hair, roaring with indignation and panic.
This incident not only destroyed the impeccable impression that the prestigious Arbex family had of her, but also destroyed, in one fell swoop, her entire bright future in the demanding fragrance industry!
Now, she broke out in a cold sweat just thinking that Cicero Arbex would never allow her to set foot in a laboratory again. And what was worse: her mentor, the renowned Dandará, had abandoned her.
Nísia checked her cell phone screen for the thousandth time. No messages. No calls.
Clearly, Dandará had discarded her like toxic waste.
It's over. My career is over.
The stark realization made her collapse completely, unable to maintain any shred of rationality. She cried copiously on the luxurious sofa.
Rosana sighed, poured a glass of cold water, and rudely pushed it into her daughter's trembling hands.
“Drink this and calm down right now!” Rosana ordered, her cold voice cutting through Nísia's hysteria. “There's no use crying over spilled milk. The damage is already done! And you know what? You were incredibly foolish to bring this ruin upon yourself.”
Rosana crossed her arms, her eyes shining with tactical reproach.
"If you hadn't tried to play smart by incriminating Katherine Lutz in front of everyone, maybe things wouldn't have gotten so out of hand. At most, they would have accused you of incompetence or lack of talent in creating perfumes! But no... you had to lie. Now the situation has escalated and become a matter of character and fraud.
Seriously, Nísia, where was your head?!
Nísia lowered her face, her shoulders shaking, completely unable to refute her mother. She had dug her own grave.
Rosana looked away. With a heavy sigh, she stood up, rested her hand on her pregnant belly, and began pacing back and forth in the room, organizing her thoughts amid the chaos.
“I didn't expect that damn manual to cause our ruin...” she muttered, more to herself than anyone else.
The truth was that Rosana had found that manual hidden in a small crevice in the house, covered by a thick layer of dust. She had only leafed through the first few pages and, seeing the genius of the formulas, thought it would be the perfect weapon for her daughter, so she stole it and kept it.
During the last few months, she had been so concerned with protecting the male child she was carrying in her womb that she had not paid enough attention to Nísia's studies.
In retrospect, guilt gnawed at her. If she had analyzed the manual more carefully when Nísia raised suspicions about the “scribbles,” this bomb would not have exploded in their faces.
Stopping in the middle of the room, Rosana turned to her daughter, her expression taking on a somber seriousness.