Chapter 41

As time passed, more guests arrived to offer their congratulations. The entire venue was filled with people. A famous entertainer performed on the main stage. Below, guests chatted and laughed over wine.

"Dahlia, this is a nice place. You'll be the owner in the future, right?" Florence glanced around, thrilled.

"Mom, I'm just partners with the Harmon family. I'm a secondary stakeholder, even though we established a company together," Dahlia explained.

"That's good enough. Once we're allied with the Harmon family, we won't have to worry in the future!" Florence was delighted.

"Sis! Your career is booming! You must have made a lot of money. When are you getting me a nice car?" James smiled ingratiatingly.

"I give you quite a lot of pocket money every month. Isn't that enough?" Dahlia asked, unhappy. She disliked giving handouts, even to her brother.

"It used to be. But I invested all my savings in Nolan Pharmaceuticals, so now I'm broke," James said exasperatedly.

"Then you'll just have to wait for the dividends," Dahlia said dismissively. Turning, she caught sight of Dustin and Natasha.

"You invited Dustin? What a downer!" James followed her gaze and frowned.

"I didn't," Dahlia flatly denied.

"He came uninvited? That's shameless!" James grimaced. His gaze landed on Natasha, and he perked up. "Hey, who's that beauty next to him? She's stunning!"

"Beauty? She's a vixen!" Florence said calmly. "She caused trouble at the Jackson Group, and I almost slapped her!"

"It was her?" James's tone turned cold. He spat, "Shit! Dustin is heartless. How dare he bring this bitch to such an important occasion? He's an eyesore!"

"Look, Dahlia, he's finally revealed his true colors. It's a shame. You were so nice to him, yet he's ungrateful and tried to ruin this occasion. I have to teach him a lesson!" Florence prepared to confront him.

"Mom! Today's the opening ceremony, don't cause trouble!" Dahlia quickly grabbed her mother. She knew her mother's scenes never ended well.

"Hmph! I'll let him get away with it this time!" Though upset, Florence tried to calm herself. She couldn't embarrass her daughter.

"Dahlia, you're here?" Chris approached with Jeff, smiling. "I want to introduce you to someone. This is Mr. Anderson's son, Jeff!" Chris presented Jeff as if he were something valuable.

"So, you're Jeff Anderson? It's a pleasure to meet you!" James immediately tried to curry favor. This was Swinton's elite; Jeff held far greater status.

"I didn't expect you, Mr. Anderson! The Nicholson family is honored!" Florence beamed. Mr. Anderson's son clearly was a big shot.

"Nice to meet you, Jeff." Dahlia smiled warmly.

"You must be Ms. Nicholson. The rumors are true—you're stunning!" Jeff had heard of Dahlia, one of Swinton's Four Beauties and a rising star.

The passage has been cleaned up for grammar, punctuation, and word choice. The improvements include:

• Consistent tense: The narrative is now consistently in the past tense.
• Word choice: Replaced some informal or less precise words (e.g., "handouts" with "giving handouts," "putting on a performance" with "performed").
• Sentence structure: Improved sentence flow and reduced overly long sentences.
• Dialogue: Improved punctuation and formatting of dialogue.
• Removed inconsistencies: Corrected minor inconsistencies and errors.
• Clarified meanings: Removed ambiguity where possible.

The asterisk-marked words in the original ("pased," "embarras") are assumed to be typos and have been corrected.