?Chapter 442:


    Marissa asked, “Xander, is Emilee your girlfriend?”


    Xander replied quickly, “No, she’s not. I haven’t even paid her much attention. It’s all her doing.”


    Marissa frowned as she read Xander’s messages. His reassurances did little to quell her frustration. “Then address it as quickly as you can,” she replied.


    Xander reassured her, “Understood, chief instructor. Watch what happens next.”


    As her conversation with Xander concluded, Marissa sank into deep thought. Given that Emilee had unterally attached herself to Xander for publicity, she would hardly use Marissa of stealing her boyfriend. It was clear that someone else was orchestrating this scandal.


    The rumor was more than mere hearsay; it included an article along with several images of her and Xander shopping in a mall and visiting the Crystal Hotel. All these images were from surveince footage. It was apparent that the individual spreading these rumors had meticulously tracked her and Xander’s movements.


    Securing surveince footage from the mall was quite straightforward: one could simply pay off the right people, pull the appropriate strings, or invent a convincing reason to gain ess. However, obtaining footage from the Crystal Hotel was a much more formidable task.


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    The Crystal Hotel, owned by the affluent Hoffman family, catered to a high-profile clientele with extremely rigorous management practices, making its surveince footage almost impervious to unauthorized ess. Very few had the clearance needed to view it.


    Yet, the instigator of the rumors had managed not only to ess this footage but also to take screenshots, indicating a strong connection to the hotel. Marissa instinctively suspected rissa.


    While Bu had ess to the hotel’s surveince, it was improbable that he would divulge details concerning his own brother, leaving rissa as the prime suspect. The realization that rissa might be behind these rumors struck Marissa as particrly surprising, given her eminent status.


    For the esteemed president of the Peridot Consortium to stoop to such underhanded tactics as monitoring her movements and spreading rumors online was indeed bewildering. Such ndestine activities would typically be expected of a lowly trickster, not the prestigious president of the Peridot Consortium.


    Marissa found the entire scenario ironically amusing, her lips curling into a wry smile. She mused to herself that rissa was quite ridiculous. Moreover, she deduced that rissa likely thought she was Tiffany, as the rumors seemed to target Tiffany, not Marissa.


    Now her curiosity was piqued—what kind of grudge did rissa have against Tiffany that would drive her to engage in such petty acts of vengeance?


    Marissa decided there was no use in being indirect with rissa. If rissa harbored such resentment towards her, exploiting any trivial matter to publicly disgrace her, she was sure to seek vengeance in the future. It was better to confront the issue directly.


    With this realization, Marissa calmly pocketed her phone and turned to Allyson. “Mrs. Brit, this rumor is clearly an act of malice. You shouldn’t take it to heart.”


    Allyson responded, “But the word going around is that yesterday Xander proposed at the Nash family’s ce, and you epted.”


    “That’s just idle talk,” Marissa responded coolly. “You know how Xander is prone to bluster. He blusters, and others spread it. I can’t control that.”


    She and Xander had only pretended to be a couple in front of Bu and rissa. Since there was no longer a need to maintain this facade, she chose not to acknowledge it.


    However, Allyson, sharp as ever, was not convinced. “Even if the rumor is untrue, the photos must be real, right? You and Xander were seen shopping together and visiting the Crystal Hotel.”


    Marissa was about to fabricate an exnation when Connor, who was sitting next to her, chimed in just in time


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