Walking into the room, Sara, scanned the room, noticing that the focus of everyone other than four people was on her. Being ignored by Abigail was absolutely want she wanted. If her grandfather observed the b*tch he treated as the perfect person ignore the star of the show would work perfectly for the night. It would justify isolating her as much as possible, helping her to cement her position in everyone's mind as the daughter of the Meng family and with her being the odd one out.
The slight concern was that Daniel was deep in conversation with her. But, considering the situation as she took a couple of paces more into the room, the easier it would be to tell everyone, because of Sebastian being with her that Daniel was being nice and keeping someone who could be a problem busy until the celebrations really kicked off.
Then there was Rebecca. That b*tch. She was walking away from the President's closest advisor Secretary Lin. Was she going to steal her thunder and announce her real identity. If she did the whole focus would be on Rebecca, not remaining on her, the star of the party. As soon as she could, she would have to have a chat to Yasmin to make sure Rebecca was chased away from here as soon as possible.
The final person was Secretary Lin. When Chelsea and she commenced planning this party, she had insisted to her mother that an invitation had to be sent to the Presidential Palace. Unlike her mother she knew at that time who Rebecca was, and as she was sealing the invitation which was sent just after the truth about her identity was revealed by her grandfather, she slipped in a handwritten note that informed the president she was a classmate of his granddaughter, and she hoped him coming would give her a nice surprise.
While both she and Chelsea hoped for different reasons that the President would agree to attend her 18th Birthday Party, they both knew that it was unlikely. However, when Secretary Lin called two weeks ago to advise that the President would make an appearance because he was in town for meetings with local officials before spending time with his family. Secretary Lin spelled out the conditions and, in the end, it was easy to agree with them, because the prestige of having the President at any function outweighed any condition that was imposed on them. Hopefully she would not have to wait long for the President to arrive, because she wanted to make the night as miserable as possible for Abigail.
Sebastian paused, leant over and whispered in her ear "Sara, do you want me to go and talk to my brother. He is disrespecting both of us."
Turning and with a smile on her face, Sara calmly responded "Just leave it Sebastian. Today is my birthday, and I want this to be the best celebration every. It would have been perfect is I had your engagement ring on my finger, but what is a week to wait, when we have our lives ahead of us."
Sensing all the eyes in them, Sebastian calmly said "OK," before he continued to lead Sara across the room to the stage, where he helped her climb up. As her parents and grandparents also reached the stage, Sebastian leant over and kissed Sara on the cheek before stepping back to stand by her mother.
Calmly Sara turned on the microphone and spoke "Before my father gives his speech and we settle down for the dinner, I said to my parents I wanted to speak to you. I cannot thank each and every one of you for coming to my eighteenth birthday party. You are all making this a magical day for me, despite having to be at school today…"
This drew laughter before someone shouted out "Like we all did…"
Sara, laughed slightly, before continuing. "I also want to say happy birthday to Abigail. As you may not know, Abigail and I share a strange connection, even though we have the same surname. We are not related, but this day eighteen years ago, my wonderful mother…" and with that Sara turned and smiled at Chelsea, who returned her smile.
"And Abigail's mother both ended in the same hospital and gave birth. My mother to me and Abigail's to her. My grandfather only years later found out the strangeness of the connection, in that we were both born at 7:55pm, which is just a few minutes away, and both weighed 3.1 kilograms. My grandfather thought that this was unique and when he went looking for the baby born at the exact same time as me, weighing the same he found her a few months ago, and offered to help her complete her education. I promised grandfather that I would include her tonight in the celebrations, so, could everyone please turn and wish Abigail, who is hiding in the back corner of the room, a Happy Birthday, and then I will turn you over to my father."
Sara watched as everyone turned and heard the comments from many of the women present about Abigail being a b*tch and hijacking the most eligible bachelor in the room, Daniel. As she heard these comments, Sara, knew that she had set Abigail up to become the most hated person in the room, not just for tonight but for weeks, hopefully months or even years to come.