Violet hadn’t designed them.
She’d copied every piece.
Not ‘borrowed’, not ‘inspired’—straight-up copy-pasted.
The original was from a niche brand based in Antwerp, called Roux & Lune.
They didn’t have much of a social media presence and managed barely two, three dozen sales a year.
Their stuff wasn’t trending. Their designer didn’t even show her face.
The business looked more like a pet project for some rich girl with too much time and daddy’s money.
But during uni, my design professor had mentioned the brand in passing.
I’d looked them up that night and bookmarked the whole site.
And I’d followed their updates ever since.
I placed the livestream screenshots of Eliza Black side by side with Roux & Lune’s catalogue photos.
Not one alteration. Violet hadn’t even bothered to change the clasp.
I frowned and turned to her.
She was still smirking, a hip planted smugly on the edge of my desk, looking down at me through her thick lashes.
‘Still staring? Babe, I hate to break it to you, but that’s not your name in the post. Eliza picked me, ME. Well, better luck next time.’
‘That’s all you have to say for yourself?’
‘What else were you expecting?’ She pretended to reflect, then said, ‘Oh, right, I do have one more thing to say. You know there’s only one spot for the competition next month, right? I’d say it’s mine. Not that you ever had a chance.’
She chuckled and swiped at her phone again. ‘Want me to read out a few of the comments people left under the post? Some of them are actually pretty funny.’
I shook my head. ‘You’ve got some fucking nerve.’
‘What?’ Violet blinked, face scrunching. ‘Hey, don’t swear at me just because you’re jealous. I wasn’t expecting a hug from you, but at least show some gratitude. Me becoming famous means Nyx is famous now, and that’s good for everyone here, including you.’
I lowered my voice. ‘Yeah, and if shit hits the fan, you’ll drag everyone down with you, including me.’
Her brow furrowed. ‘What are you talking about? What do you mean drag Nyx down? Go check the comments. Everyone’s tagging the company with heart emojis. Last time Eliza wore your piece, she got flamed for looking cheap. Now she’s got my set on and people are saying she’s finally stepped it up. Nyx should be bloody thanking me. Even Vanna’s probably thinking of sending flowers.’
I’d seen the comments. Most of them were positive.
A few fans were even saying Eliza’s loyalty to Nyx made her ‘relatable’ now. Like sticking with the same brand proved she had depth.
There were all sorts of photos of her on the carpet, nose slightly up, jaw set, like she knew the cameras were going to dissect every damn detail.
The fans loved it. They ate it up.
But the louder the cheering got, the worse the crash would be.
Bored of gloating to me, Violet straightened. ‘Well, I’m off now. Vanna’s taking me to lunch. Guess she’d like to talk about a promotion. Or a bonus. Who knows? I’ll keep you posted.’
I yanked her shoulder hard, forcing her to spin around.
‘Ow! What is wrong with you?’ She jerked her shoulder out of my grasp.
I looked her dead in the eye. ‘You know exactly where you got that design. And you handed it off to an actress with a hundred cameras aimed at her face, with millions of people watching. You didn’t even tweak a single curve. You really thought no one would notice?’
Confusion registered on Violet’s face, then a flash of panic, then denial. ‘I... I don’t know what you are talking about.’
Someone yelled across the room.
‘Oi—look at this! Someone just tweeted that Eliza’s jewellery set’s fake!’
The room froze for half a second.
Then every chair rolled back and half the office grabbed their phones.
‘It’s some alt account,’ someone said, scrolling fast. ‘Already over a thousand shares. Might hit trending any minute.’
‘How could Eliza be wearing knock-offs? Did someone switch it on the way?’
Violet’s face turned the same colour as the paper in the printer tray. She grabbed her phone.
Her thumb kept missing the unlock button. By the time she got into the screen, her grip on the phone had gone shaky.
‘Wait—someone’s saying it’s not fake, it’s copied.’
‘There’s side-by-side pics. Not “copied”, mate. Identical. That set dropped three years ago.’
Chairs scraped. Heads turned. The entire room was now staring at Violet.
Her right hand braced the top of a cubicle for balance, but her knees looked like they might give in.
No one said anything loud. The volume dropped to whispers.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘Did she actually rip it off?’
‘Looks that way. And the original looks better, if I’m honest.’
Someone snorted, but it got cut off when Savannah Lane stormed out of her office, heels thudding fast on the laminate.
She waved her phone in the air. ‘Vivian Holloway just rang me from Venice. Full-on screaming. Violet Lin, what the hell have you done?’
Violet didn’t respond. Her eyes weren’t tracking properly, and her mouth opened and closed like she was chewing words that wouldn’t come out.
Savannah flung her phone down. It bounced once on the floor, then hit the leg of a chair.
‘Eliza needed this event. Her whole comeback PR thing hinged on it. And now she’s getting roasted for wearing knock-off jewellery like some two-bit influencer. Vivian says the hashtag’s already climbing. What the hell am I supposed to tell them now?’
Someone at the back muttered, ‘She just posted on Instagram. And X.’
Every screen lit up again.
Savannah yanked a phone out of the nearest hand—her own was still lying face down on the floor—and squinted at the feed.
It was Eliza’s verified account. Caption in both English and Italian.
The post said she’d ordered the jewellery in good faith, wore it with full trust, and now felt completely blindsided if it was really a plagiarised design.
She claimed she’d been lied to by the brand. Said she was heartbroken. Then she dropped screenshots—design drafts and chat logs, proof that she’d bought the design in good faith. Updates are released by novel⟡fire.net
Her fan base turned militant in under thirty seconds.