When Aelia came out of her room, she saw Azrael waiting for the two sisters, in front of the stairs. People had already started to gather downstairs. The festive mood of the party was enhanced by the gentle melody playing in the background. People had already started to mingle with each other with wine glasses in their hands.
When Azriel saw Aelia in the dress, he had a strange expression on his face. Amelia and Aylin came up to him and greeted, "Brother!"
Azrael asked curiously, "Why didn't you wear the dress that I picked up for you? Do you like this style better?"
Aelia did like this dress better, but she felt a little guilty. Soon a warm blush spread to her cheeks, but to not hurt her brother's feelings, she explained how Reine had ruined her dress.
"Brother, I had made sure that no one would enter my room. If I knew that despite it, this would happen, I would have locked it in my closet", said Aelia with guilt.
Hearing what Reine had done, Azrael felt extremely angry. He wanted to go at that very moment and drag the girl out to admonish her for her improper behaviour.
However, seeing the guilty look on his sister's face, he gave a small sigh and said, "Alright! You know that it's not your fault! And this dress does look better on you!"
He mumbled, "That bastard really does have a good eye for fashion!"
On hearing his mumblings, Aelia looked curiously at her brother. Just as she was about to ask for more details about the sender of the gift, Azrael, pretending to not see her inquisitive gaze, said, "Alright! It's already ten minutes past five. Let's go down!"
Having said that, he started to bring his two sisters down the stairs.
When the guests saw the three siblings, they couldn't help but sigh in admiration. It was not even an attraction towards the opposite gender, it was simply admiration towards something beautiful.
While Azrael dressed in a black two-piece suit had a languid air about him, Aylin looked charming and cute in her white skater dress. Aelia appeared elegant and beautiful in her salmon pink ball gown with her lush golden blond hair done in a formal Dutch fishtail updo.
After they came down the stairs, Mr Romanov approached his three children. Wishing his eldest daughter a happy birthday, he took his children along with them to greet the other guests.
As they were mingling with the guests, many of the ladies started crowding around Azrael since it was a rare opportunity for them to approach him.
As Aelia was wearing a new pair of shoes, her feet had blistered a little after walking around continuously for an hour. Though she felt that the shoes hurt her feet a little, she had to admit that they were rather beautiful. It was a pair of beautiful mid-heel mesh pointed toe pumps. As she went to a corner of the room to give her feet some rest, suddenly a strange hush fell over the hall.
Aelia looked up to see Reine coming down the stairs. She soon realised what had caused the crowd's abnormal reaction. Reine was dressed in a gown similar to hers, in fact, the designs of the two gowns were so close together, that someone who didn't know which gown was made first would be unable to tell which was the original design.
Reine too had felt the strange gaze of the crowd. However, she thought that the people were just admiring her beauty. Seeing the gaze of the crowd on her, Reine felt extremely satisfied. She thought that paying such an exorbitant amount of money to make this dress in resemblance to the dress that she had seen in Aelia's room was absolutely worth it.
She thought to herself, 'It's not like anyone will know that this dress is actually a counterfeit product. What people will see is the design! Even if that bitch sees me in this dress, what can she do? It's not like she can now shout out to others that this dress was fake! Besides, when the guests see her wearing that ugly dress, they would just think that she was jealous.'
Reine could not wait to humiliate Aelia in front of the crowd. When she saw her friends, Leila and Natalie, she went up to them and asked, "Hey! Have you guys seen Aelia? Has she not come down yet?"
Seeing a strange expression on the faces of those two, she felt a little irritated and barked, "What?"
Leila pointed at one corner of the room. When Reine turned and looked in that direction, she felt extremely angry to see Aelia in the same dress as her.
Now, she understood the meaning of people's gazes. They were staring at her in confusion and trying to find out which dress was an imitation of the other one.
Reine thought to herself, 'Where did my plan go wrong? I had made sure that this dress would be damaged enough to not be suitable for wearing it to the party!"
Actually, to make sure that Aelia would not be able to wear that dress, she had ordered a maid to damage it. She was also sure that the maid was too afraid to not follow her orders, as she had some evidence against her.
'Then what went wrong? Could it be that she had mended the dress in the short span of time?'
Reine felt that was impossible. For the dress was made of sheer fabric and was too delicate to be mended, not speaking of within a few hours.
But she had to make the best use of the situation.
She approached Arlia and thought, 'Bitch! You brought this humiliation upon yourself! Don't blame me for being unreasonable!'
Reine completely ignored the fact that she had already schemed to humiliate Aelia, even before the incident of the dress.
When Aelia saw Reine approaching her, she could feel that she had come to cause trouble. She instantly became alert and looked at Reine.
Reine showed a wronged expression and said, "Sister, why didn't you tell me that you liked this dress? Then I would have given it to you! Now people are wondering which dress is the original one!"