?Chapter 845:


    She hadn’t given it much thought. She just did her best each time, always striving for perfection.


    The truth was, Otrultho was just the beginning. News of her triumph had already set the global art world aze.


    Maia’s stunning victory had traveled across oceans, reaching all the way back to Wront.


    Inside the towering Cooper Group headquarters, Kolton’s face had turned deathly pale as he red at the news footage disying Maia’s photograph, his features twisted with barely contained rage.


    “Maia again!” His voice erupted in a savage roar as his fist crashed down on the mahogany desk, sending a porcin coffee cup exploding into countless razor-sharp fragments.


    This nightmare kept repeating itself.


    He had given Mariana crystal-clear orders to stay away from Maia and concentrate solely on the art exhibition, but she hadpletely ignored him. Every hard-learned lesson had evaporated from her memory as she once again hurled the entire—<fn630f> ?? ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ???????s, ????s? ??s?? find?novel</fn630f>


    Cooper Group had been hurled into a media feeding frenzy. Kolton’s disappointment in Mariana ran deeper than the ocean.


    But something else burned even hotter in his chest.


    Maia’s calcted words at the exhibition had expertly weaponized the Otrultho art world’s fury, turning every ounce of their rage directly toward the Cooper Group like a guided missile. Their stock price was now plummeting into free fall yet again.


    Worse still, the headlines had exposed Chris’ true role.


    He had actually stooped to bing Maia’s personal bodyguard!?


    Kolton’s brow furrowed into deep, angry lines as his fury reached a boiling point that threatened to consume everything in its path.


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    “That bastard!” Kolton’s voice cracked through the office like a whip, veins bulging at his temples, eyes aze with fury. He mmed his fist on the edge of the desk, the impact sharp enough to rattle the pen holder. “Chris actually had the audacity to be a bodyguard for some outsider? To betray his own bloodline like that?”


    His chest rose and fell in jagged rhythm, seething with disbelief. The images on his phone shed again — Chris, silent andposed, standing protectively beside Maia in every single photo, as if he belonged there.


    The longer Kolton stared, the hotter his anger burned. He drew in a long breath, slow and trembling, as if trying to steady the storm beneath his ribs. A momentter, he remembered the party where he hadst run into Chris — and Maia had been there too.


    Could something have started back then?


    As he scrolled through the messages pouring in from his subordinates, his brow furrowed deeper. His face turned to stone.


    He had never expected this. Chris — the unwanted, lowborn bastard — turning out to be the son of Nic… or rather, Sophia S. Schrader, the renowned artist.


    Had he known that, perhaps he would have seen the storming. Without that connection, the Otrultho art world wouldn’t have turned so cold against the Cooper Group. Investors wouldn’t be pulling their funds or shorting their stocks. The revtion hit like shrapnel.


    He leaned back, stunned, his mind a whirlwind. “Nic… all this time, and she was hiding behind another name. Dead for years, and still she manages to stir the pot,” Kolton muttered through clenched teeth, his voice raspy.


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