Page 26 of Only Ever Mine

I ignored that. Of course I was tense. The idea of expanding Amélie had always been a dream, but now it was a reality.

Reality was terrifying. Not to mention the fact that Christian Valen was at the center of all of this.

The memory of our last dinner played in the back of my mind, unbidden.

His dark gaze locked onto mine, the way his lips had tasted like champagne when he kissed me goodnight.

I swallowed hard and refocused. I couldn’t afford distractions right now.

Then my phone rang.

I almost ignored it, but something about the number made my stomach tighten.

Shit.

I stepped away from the line, pressing the phone to my ear as I wedged myself into a quieter corner of the kitchen.

“Scarlett Lane speaking.”

“Miss Lane, this is Madison Graham from Luxe Dining Magazine. I wanted to reach out for a comment on the allegations published this morning.”

My blood ran cold.

“…What allegations?”

A pause. “You haven’t seen the article?”

I turned away from my staff, gripping the phone tighter. “No. I’ve been working.”

Madison hesitated. “I… I suggest you read it before we continue this conversation.”

Heart pounding, I pulled my phone away from my ear and quickly searched for Luxe Dining’s latest issue.

It only took seconds before I found it.

The headline hit me like a punch to the stomach.

"Amélie’s Rising Star or Industry Fraud? Former Employees Speak Out on Scarlett Lane’s Shady Business Practices"

I stared, barely breathing, as I skimmed the article.

Words like stolen recipes, credit theft, professional sabotage leaped off the screen.

A fabricated story about a sous chef I supposedly blacklisted.

Accusations that I had stolen dishes from my team and passed them off as my own.

An anonymous source claiming I wasn’t the brilliant chef people believed me to be.

It was a smear campaign.

A deliberate, targeted attack.

My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out the steady hum of the kitchen around me.

My vision tunneled in on the damning words splashed across my phone screen, my breath coming in short, uneven bursts.

Who was behind this?

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