The CEO's Secret Replacement Bride

The Stolen Design Draft

Elena woke up at 5 a.m. that day, sitting on the bed touching the worn sketchbook she kept under her pillow, her fingers still had thin calluses from holding a drawing pencil all year round. The plagiarism accusation replayed in her mind over and over. She’d spent three full months polishing that jewelry design draft, staying up until 2 a.m. every night adjusting the curve of the pendant and the matching of the gemstones, even drawing 17 different versions of the sketch before finalizing it. All that effort almost went to waste because of Luna’s dirty trick. Early the next morning, Asher’s assistant knocked on the door with the investigation result: Luna had paid someone to forge a fake plagiarism record to report her to the competition organizing committee, then snuck into the mansion when she broke in last time, stole Elena’s final draft from her bag, signed up for the competition under her own name, and even passed the preliminary round with the stolen work. “That’s my original work! Every line of that draft was drawn by myself!” Elena’s eyes turned red with anger, clutching the worn sketchbook full of her draft manuscripts tightly in her hand. “Calm down, I have all the evidence you need.” Asher handed her a cold USB drive, his warm palm brushing the back of her hand to comfort her, “Surveillance footage of Luna stealing the draft from your room, all your hand-drawn sketch manuscripts dated three months ago, every modification record of the electronic draft saved on your laptop. We’re going to the organizing committee now to get your work back, and make Luna pay for what she did.” Elena nodded, putting her cold hand in Asher’s warm palm, his familiar cedar scent wrapping around her, giving her enough courage to face this. When they arrived at the organizing committee office, Luna was sitting there bragging to the director about “her” design, her face full of arrogance. She sneered when she saw them walk in: “You plagiarist still dare to come here? Save your breath, the committee will never change the decision, you’ll never get the competition qualification back.” Asher ignored her sarcasm, directly handing the USB drive to the confused director: “All the evidence you need is here, proving this design is 100% Elena’s original work. Luna stole it and slandered her for plagiarism to steal her spot.” The director plugged in the USB drive and checked the contents carefully, his face turning darker and darker when he saw the hand-drawn sketch with coffee stains on it, which Elena had accidentally spilled when she stayed up late drawing three months ago. Just as he was about to question Luna, Ethan walked in holding the first draft of the design that Elena had shown him three months ago for advice: “I can testify this is Elena’s work. I even suggested she change the main gem from ruby to sapphire back then. If it’s really your work, Luna, tell me what is the core inspiration for the pendant’s vine pattern?” Luna froze completely, she couldn’t answer at all. She’d only stolen the final draft, no idea about any of the design details. Asher also played a recording of Luna bragging to her friend on the phone about stealing the work, and she completely collapsed on the chair. The director immediately canceled Luna’s competition qualification, permanently banned her from all competitions held by the design association, and bowed to Elena to apologize: “We’re so sorry for our mistake. Your design is the most outstanding work in this preliminary round, you can directly enter the semi-final, we’ll give you 5 extra points as compensation for the trouble we caused you.” Elena smiled happily, touching the half-written semi-final draft she kept in her pocket, the heavy stone in her heart finally falling to the ground. On the way back to the car, she suddenly felt a sharp nausea rise in her throat, bent over and retched by the roadside, but couldn’t vomit anything. Asher immediately took off his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders, supporting her worriedly: “Are you carsick? Or did you eat something wrong? I’ll take you to the hospital for a check-up right now, don’t hold on.” Elena nodded, thinking it was just because she stayed up too late these days to modify the design draft, not knowing the hospital check-up would bring them both a huge surprise.