The moment Dorothea ordered the dishes to be thrown out, the maids froze, unsure what to do.
"For heaven's sake, is this ever going to end?" Donovan slammed his glass down. "Are you here to celebrate my birthday today, or just to pick a fight?"
"Stop protecting that woman all the time!" Dorothea snapped back, her temper flaring. "I told you to come eat at our place tonight—I had everything prepared.
"But she insisted on hosting here. I thought that maybe for once, she'd changed. Maybe she actually planned a surprise.
"Turns out she just ordered food from some restaurant. What a joke!"
Seeing things spiral again, Ethan quickly tried to smooth things over. "Mom, just let it go. It's Don's birthday, after all.
"And honestly, the food doesn't look bad. As long as the two of them are happy, that's what matters. We don't usually eat that much for dinner anyway."
"What do you know? Stop meddling!" barked Grace, who was already giving her husband the cold shoulder.
Her voice rose an octave. "Do you really think this is about what we're eating? It's about that tramp and her utter lack of decency! She married into our family, yet couldn't even host a proper dinner for her elders.
"Instead, she took the easy way out and ordered takeout. That's an insult to all of us!"
As the tension mounted, Giselle finally stepped in.
"Guys, I'm really sorry," she said. "Today's dinner was a last-minute arrangement, so I couldn't prepare the ingredients in time. That's why I ordered from a five-star restaurant.
"I thought it'd be enough, since it was more about the gesture. I didn't think that much about it."

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