In the beginning, Sonia was confused about why Tina suddenly fell, but she immediately figured out that she had feigned the fall herself and was now trying to frame her for it. thus, she chuckled and gazed at Tina with an icy look in her eyes as she asked, “And when did I push you?”
“Could I have fallen by myself if you didn’t push me?” Tina lifted her head and met her gaze angrily.
However, Sonia snorted and retorted, “Well, that’s actually possible. Who knows? Maybe you fell by yourself and you’re trying to set me up now.”
The second she finished speaking, Cynthia pointed a finger at her and yelled, “How dare you say something like that, Sonia Reed?! You’re the one who pushed Tina, but you turned around and accused her of falling by herself just to set you up. Who would risk getting hurt to do such a thing?”
“She’s right.” The people who were watching nodded in agreement, and the edges of Tina’s lips curled up ever so lightly as a smug look appeared in her eyes.
Let’s see how you wriggle yourself out of this, Sonia, she thought.
“You heard them,” Cynthia said, her hands on her hips. “Nobody thinks that Tina would do something like that. Moreover, I saw with my own eyes that you were the one who pushed her. What do you have to say now?”
“I—”
Sonia was about to speak up when a deep, male voice cut her off. “Tina!”
“Toby,” Tina whimpered. With tears in her eyes, she gazed at the man rushing toward her and extended her hand toward him.
After he helped her up, he looked at her dirtied dress and frowned. “What happened?”
“Yeah, Tina. Tell me what happened here.” Titus, who arrived with Toby, wanted to understand the situation as well. He threw a dirty look at Sonia. Clearly, he suspected that she was the one who pushed Tina to the floor.
Sonia merely rolled her eyes and snorted instead of saying anything.
Tina sobbed while she was in Toby’s embrace. “Earlier, Cynthia and I saw Miss Reed, so we came over to say hi to her, but she accidentally pushed me.”
“What do you mean she accidentally pushed you?” Cynthia barked indignantly. “Why are you still trying to make things look better for her at a time like this? Just tell President Fuller directly that it was Sonia who pushed you down on purpose.”
Toby turned to Sonia and saw that she was very composed; she didn’t seem to be flustered at all. From that, he knew that there was another side to the story in this situation.
However, to be fair, he still asked, “Sonia, did you push Tina?”
Before she could answer, Titus snorted and interrupted their conversation. “Toby, Cynthia witnessed everything. Why are you still asking her that question?”
“That’s right, President Fuller. But I’m not the only one. Everyone else saw it as well,” Cynthia said while pointing at the people crowding around.
The people weren’t expecting that she would drag them into the mess, so they were mad at her. Nevertheless, with Toby at the scene and the fact that Tina was his fiancée, they didn’t want to offend her. After all, offending Tina was as good as offending Toby himself.
Compared to getting on the wrong side of Tina, they would rather put Sonia on the spot instead. Thus, they quickly bobbed their heads, expressing that they had really witnessed the incident.
For some unknown reason, the sight of the crowd nodding sparked an inexplicable fire of fury within Toby, and it showed on his face. However, the people merely thought that he was really mad at Sonia because he believed that she was the one who pushed Tina.
Even Tina jumped to the same assumption, so she twisted her head around to throw a triumphant smile at Sonia when the others weren’t watching.
Upon seeing that, Sonia grinned wryly and thought, The villain is really happy, huh?
“What do you have to say, Sonia?” Toby asked flatly with his eyes fixed on her.
Titus was obviously disgruntled when he heard that. “Toby, why are you still letting her defend herself when the people here saw that she was the one who pushed Tina? Just send her to the police immediately!”
Toby frowned slightly, but other than that, he showed no other signs of having heard Titus. He simply kept his eyes on Sonia, for he wanted to hear her say that she didn’t do anything like that. Unexpectedly though, she played with her fingernails as she smiled slightly. “What should I say? And who would believe my words? Will you?”
Toby’s lips moved, and the words ‘I will’ almost slipped out. Still, his rationality took over him at the last second, and he dropped his gaze without saying a thing.
Just then, three strong voices boomed through the crowd simultaneously. “I believe her!”
The crowd turned to the source of the voices, and they saw three men with different looks and height, but all equally dashing, marching toward them. The aura they carried was so intimidating that the crowd opened up a path for them automatically.
The three men were none other than Charles, Zane, and Carl.
Like guardians angels, they strode up to Sonia and stood in front of her protectively before giving everyone a glare with their sharp eyes and declared loudly, “We believe that she didn’t push anyone!”
Even the onlookers had to admit that they were intimidated by the arrival of these three men, and some of them hung their heads out of guilt. Of course, there were also some ignorant daredevils that started discussing among themselves in hushed voices, saying that Sonia was so well-practiced in controlling men that all three of them could be on such good terms with each other even when she was flirting with them all at once.
But the majority of the people with such comments were women, and they all sounded jealous. It was obvious to anyone who saw them that they were envious of Sonia. Undeniably, they wished to be just like Sonia—loved and protected by so many outstanding men. Of course, Tina was one of them as well.
She always knew that Sonia always got along well with men, so she devised a scheme and impersonated Sonia to snatch Toby from her after she learned that Sonia was the one writing to Toby.
Initially, she thought that Sonia would have nothing left after she snatched Toby away from her, but to her dismay, the men revolving around her grew in number with Toby out of the picture.
This is so unfair! She was so angry that her eyes were bloodshot, and she was biting her lip.
On the other hand, the look on Toby’s face was unpleasant, and an incomprehensible feeling of enmity rose up in his chest the second Charles, Zane, and Carl showed up.
Furthermore, this sense of enmity intensified when a delighted smile broke out on Sonia’s face after she saw them arriving. He even had the urge to strangle all three of them.
“So what if you believe her? Everyone here saw that she pushed my daughter. What can the three of you prove?” Titus yelled, his face livid.
Tina gripped Toby’s sleeves tightly and sniffled aggrievedly in his arms. Right then, someone else joined the scene—the organizer of the banquet, Michael and Brenda.
Brenda approached the scene while holding her husband’s arm and glanced at Tina, who was in Toby’s arms. Then, she asked with a stiff smile on her face, “What’s happening here?”
“You arrived at the perfect timing, Mr. and Mrs. Laughlin,” Titus said. He shot Sonia another dirty look before telling everything that happened minutes ago.
After listening to him, Brenda nodded and said, “So that’s what happened. If I understood it correctly, everyone is now debating if Miss Reed really pushed Miss Gray, right?”
“Yes,” Titus answered solemnly while nodding. “But I believe that she was the one who pushed my daughter. Even Cynthia herself said that everyone had seen it.”
In response, Sonia merely smiled without saying anything. Charles, on the other hand, kept the argument going, a displeased look on his face. “So you’re just taking her word for it?”
Carl stood forward as well. He had a stony look on his usually gentle face when he spoke. “I believe Sonia isn’t a person like that, and I know her very well. If she was the one who pushed Tina, she would have admitted it. Since she didn’t admit to it, it only means that it wasn’t her.”
“Yeah, I think Sonia didn’t push Tina as well. On the other hand, Tina has past records of staging an act before,” Zane added. He was glancing at Tina with a half-smirk.
Upon hearing that, Tina burrowed deeper into Toby’s embrace, appearing to be terrified. Titus pointed his finger at Sonia and her friends while shouting, “Don’t you dare slander Tina!”
