My Bestie Reported My Fake Degree, But My Real Identity Terrified Her Chapter 10

My Bestie Reported My Fake Degree, But My Real Identity Terrified Her Chapter 10

She sat in the third row and flipped through the booklet, her gaze resting on the black redaction bar for

three seconds.

Then she raised her head, swept her eyes around the room, and found me.

I was sitting in the reserve seating area off to the side.

I was not in the formal attendee section.

The corner of her mouth lifted slightly.

In her mind, sitting in the reserve seating area meant I was not an official attendee.

It meant I was only there to observe.

It meant she had won.

The first three agenda items moved quickly.

Gemma went onstage for the third item.

Her PowerPoint was beautifully made, with detailed data and a clear structure. She had used my proposal framework, my technical path, and my client negotiation strategy, then repackaged everything and put her

name on it.

Applause kept coming from the audience.

The director sat in the second row, nodding again and again.

Gemma returned to her seat amid the applause, her pearl earrings glowing softly under the lights.

She turned her head and glanced at me.

There was a relaxed certainty in that look, the certainty of someone confirming her victory.

The host stepped onto the stage.

“We will now move to the fourth agenda item.”

On the large screen, the black redaction bar slowly disappeared.

Gemma’s gaze turned to the screen.

“Project Codename: Prism. Classification Level: Secret. Core R&D Lead

Words appeared line by line on the large screen, like a file being opened in public.

The final line stopped.

The entire room went silent for a beat.

Then that line lit up.

Core R&D Lead: Lynn Hart.

I heard a very faint sound from the third row.

It sounded as if someone’s hand had knocked something off.

The sound of a pearl earring falling onto the floor was almost impossible to hear, but everyone saw Gemma

bend down to pick it up.

The host continued, “Project Prism is a core visual integration system jointly developed by the corporation and a national laboratory. Development took four years, and the project has now entered the commercial licensing stage.”

The screen began playing the technical overview of the project.

Every frame was familiar to me.

I had designed it myself.

I remembered the underlying architecture behind every line of code.

I had written it myself.

“The project’s technology has already been licensed for use in seven commercial applications across the

corporation.”

The names of the seven commercial scenarios appeared one by one.

The third was the project Gemma had just presented onstage.

The fifth was the new proposal Gemma had pushed after taking over my collaboration with Mr. Parker.

The seventh was the technical optimization proposal Gemma had submitted to the director last month, the one he had praised three times.

All of them were on the list.

Gemma sat in the third row, clutching that pearl earring in her hand. She did not put it back on.

The host made an inviting gesture. “Please welcome Lynn Hart, Core R&D Lead of Project Prism, to the stage for the project release signing.”

I stood up from the reserve seating area.

I walked down the center aisle.

When I passed the third row, Gemma looked up at me.

There was no expression on her face.

It was not anger. It was not shock.

It was only a blankness so complete that no emotion had time to surface.