THE FORGOTTEN HEIRESS-Chapter 355: Causing Unnecessary Drama

The event organizers returned after a few minutes, their faces serious. "We’ve reviewed the footage," one of them said, addressing the judge.

"It shows that the bottle was indeed at Empress Brew’s station earlier in the day."

The judge turned to Peggy. "Ms. Carter, it appears there has been a mix-up. The bottle does belong to Empress Brew. Please return it."

Peggy’s face turned red with anger and embarrassment. She turned her face away and handed the bottle to Horatio without a word, but before his hand could touch the bottle, a cracking sound was heard on the ground.

Everyone: "..."

"What just happened?"

Horatio’s eyes blazed with anger. "What have you done, Peggy?" He was so angry that he directly called her by her first name.

Peggy met Horatio’s gaze squarely. "Are you blaming your incompetence on me? I handed the bottle to you but you purposely dropped it."

"Really? I didn’t even touch the bottle before you deliberately dropped it?" Horatio snapped.

Peggy snorted. "I was clearly not looking but you had your eyes on the bottle, yet you couldn’t hold it, how is it my fault?" she threw back sharply.

Looking at the whole situation, Mrs Anderson was at a crossroad, she didn’t know what to do as time was ticking.

In the long run, she could only plead with Lauren helplessly, "Miss Holmes, we’re sorry for what had happened, but you have to improvise if you still want to take part in the competition.

What she couldn’t reveal was that there was a special force behind Peggy whom she couldn’t provoke, so they had to turn a blind eye to her actions.

Lauren gritted her teeth as she glared at Peggy. It’s only a fool that will think she didn’t do it on purpose. If not, why would she look away just before Horatio held the bottle?

"Don’t think that by sabotaging others, you’ll eventually emerge the winner," Lauren directly exposed Peggy’s schemes.

Peggy’s eyes darted around but she still denied. "I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ms Holmes."

Lauren’s expression turned cold, a chilling aura emanating from her as she addressed Peggy directly. "You know what you did, Ms Carter. This isn’t over."

Peggy just smiled and her eyes glinted with satisfaction. "Good luck, Ms Holmes. You’ll need it."

"Wait. Why does it look like Ms Peggy deliberately dropped Lauren’s syrup. Or did I not see it well?"

"You’re not wrong. I also saw it. She was clearly trying to sabotage the efforts of Empress Brews."

Instantly, Peggy’s supporters rose up.

"Why would Ms Carter need to sabotage anyone to win? She’s already proven herself in the past," one competitor said.

"You’re right, after all, she’s won the competition back to back and doesn’t need to sabotage anyone to continue to win. Although they’re all quite good from the clips released online from the morning challenge, we still know in our hearts who will emerge as the winner eventually,"

Another added, "This just sounds like sour grapes. Maybe Empress Brew is just trying to stir up trouble because they’re intimidated."

"Yeah, although Café Solstice came a few points behind Empress Brew in the morning round, it doesn’t mean we don’t know what Ms Peggy is capable of."

Seeing how they were standing up for her so well, Peggy had a smug look on her face as she turned to Lauren.

"Perhaps Empress Brew is not too confident in this round and wants to find a perfect excuse for the loss," she taunted.

"But that doesn’t mean they should cause unnecessary drama and interrupt the process," someone angrily said

Lauren sneered, took Horatio’s hand and turned away.

She had prayed that nothing would happen this afternoon that would make her have any interaction with the cunning woman but it seems, Peggy was bent on causing trouble.

After losing sourly in the morning competition she knew Peggy wouldn’t take it lying down but she didn’t expect she would engage in such a despicable act. After all, stealing was not something to be proud of, but it is obvious she had overestimated Peggy’s self esteem. She would do anything to win... including stealing. Tsk!

’They were causing unnecessary drama, right? We will soon see who the scriptwriter is.’

Horatio gritted his teeth, Peggy’s deceptive charm had worked again, turning the crowd against them.

At the same time a fierce battle was going on between Empress Brew’s fans who believed that Peggy deliberately dropped the bottle after being discovered so that Empress Brew would have nothing to use.

They were countered immediately by Café Solstice fans who argued that Peggy was just being set up by Lauren and Horatio since they knew they wouldn’t win.

"Don’t be too sad, everyone, I know what to do," Lauren said to her team when she got to their station.

"But what are we going to do without our syrup?" Mia asked. She didn’t understand what they had done to the leader of Café Solstice to be targeted continuously.

"Was it because of the morning win? But they only came second, why target them and leave the team with the highest score?"

"I doubt that’s the reason," Jamie said. "And the annoying thing is that she keeps getting away with it. Was it because she had won twice that they were so deceived by her fake innocent look?"

"Complaining won’t take us anywhere. Let’s focus and be done with today’s competition first. After that, we can look into the whole thing, okay?" Lauren admonished.

Now, with no time to spare, they had to improvise for a new drink, she took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts.

After taking a look at the timer, she said,

"We still have about fifty minutes, we can turn this around if we act fast," she said and quickly instructed Horatio to get some ingredients who hurried to get the raw form of it from the store.

They worked as fast as they could to prepare something unique but exquisite enough to still wow the judges.

She combined a lavender-cardamom syrup with hints of rose-ginger and a touch of saffron-vanilla to form a rather complex but exquisite syrup.

She hadn’t introduced the recipe yet at Empress Brew but it was a gamble she felt was worth taking.

An hour later, the coordinator stepped forward again. The tension in the room was palpable as the teams stood by their creations, waiting for their turn to present.

"Time’s up!" Ms. Anderson announced. "Please bring your drinks forward for the judges to taste."

One by one, the teams presented their signature drinks. The judges, seated at a long table draped in white linen, examined each drink carefully, noting the presentation before taking a sip. They whispered among themselves, jotting down notes on their scorecards.

Everyone had presented their drinks, and the tension in the air was palpable. Peggy’s drink had received the highest praise so far from the judges, with scores that seemed almost insurmountable.

Whether it was a deliberate plan by the judges because of the misunderstanding that happened earlier, Empress Brew happened to be the last to be called on for their presentation.

Just before Lauren was called forward,

Peggy sidled up to her, her voice dripping with false concern.