The Indifferent Ex-Husband: Heartstrings in the Mall of Fate novel Chapter 419

"What was it I told you back in the day?" Martin coolly pointed at her, "Marian, if you wanted a name to flaunt, I could've shelled out the cash for that, but I didn't want the Frost family or the project to get tagged with a rap for copying and nicking someone else's work. And I definitely didn't want Yolanda to get smeared with that kind of dirt."

He recited their original conversation to her, word for word.

"And how did I grill you over and over again?" Martin's voice grew even icier, "I kept asking you where that design came from, and you swore up and down that it was all your own work, even dug out the original sketches to show me. And what now? You've got the nerve to cry and say it wasn't on purpose? If it wasn't on purpose, would you have gone and copied the electronic version too? Looks like you've been planning this for a long time."

Marian was a bit dazed by the slap, her face stinging, and hearing Martin's accusations, she couldn't help but instinctively shake her head and stammer out a defense. "No, I just wanted to try and replicate it to understand its use of lines, I just thought the whole design was so clever and I wanted to take it apart to see how it works. I never thought about passing it off as my own work."

"You're still making excuses? Which designer picks up someone else's work and decides to knock off a copy?" Martin glared at her, his anger far from cooled, "As a designer, you did something as low as plagiarism, and you have the gall to go do interviews with journalists? Who gave you such guts? You think everyone's a fool?"

Martin's anger surged even higher at the thought.

Today's tender was supposed to be just that – a tender, with no journalists invited, no arrangements for their presence, all news releases were to be sent to the media by the brand department after the tender. But Louis, paving the way for Marian, had invited a whole bunch of reporters over.

He couldn't believe Marian would dare to face the press, knowing full well she'd plagiarized.

This was far beyond ignorance.

Marian shook her head even more vigorously. "It wasn't me who wanted the interview; the reporters were invited by Grandpa today, he said I just had to cooperate with a photo op. I didn't know why there were extra slides in your slides."

She was about to say she didn't know why there were design diagrams in Martin's slides when she realized what she was admitting and quickly shut up, but it was too late – Martin had caught the implication.

He scoffed, "Oh, wondering why there was an extra diagram, huh?"

"Let me tell you, I added those images at the last minute. Since the reporters were invited, we shouldn't waste the chance for some PR. I wanted to hype you up like Brandon did for Sophia, but look what happened." Martin's mouth curled into a cold smile, his eyes coldly fixed on Marian, "The bigger the stage I give you, the more you embarrass yourself. I never dreamed that you, a designer, would stoop to something so despicable as plagiarism."

"I didn't, I really didn't." Marian couldn't help crying again, deeply resenting the accusation, "I'm not plagiarizing, you all assumed it was my work without letting me speak, you didn't give me a chance to explain, and you submitted the work for approval without my consent, it's all your doing."

"Right, it's always someone else's fault, never yours, you're being forced by others. Are you even listening to yourself?"

Martin coldly cut her off, "Marian, you're still not owning up to it. You're crying not because you realize you were wrong, but because you regret not double-checking the PPT, for letting yourself get caught. From start to finish, you've never really reflected, only trying to wiggle out of blame."

Marian fell silent, no longer arguing, just sobbing out an apology, "I'm sorry."

Martin didn't soften at her show of weakness.

"Brandon has already proposed three choices for you. One, clarify that you're not Yolanda; two, publicly apologize to Sophia in Marian's name; three, we'll decide whether to proceed with the project. If we do, we must publicly clarify that Sophia is the real head designer."