Her Fake French My Real Revenge Chapter 1

Twelve executives. Twelve red lights. My three master’s degrees from one of France’s most prestigious universities meant nothing.

It all fell apart because the CEO, Victoria Davenport, asked me a question in French, and I didn’t understand a single word. Now, she was on a tirade, calling me a fraud, a liar, a fake.

The studio audience, smelling blood, joined in, a faceless mob chanting for me to get off the stage. They had no idea that Victoria’s mangled, butchered French was so atrocious that a native Parisian wouldn't have understood it.

She’s the fake.

I tried to explain, but the show's host, Ryan Shaw, cut me off, his voice dripping with condescending authority. He demanded I admit my degrees were forged.

I refused. The dozen CEOs on the panel grew bolder, a pack of wolves sensing weakness, threatening to have me blackballed from the entire industry.

Backed into a corner with nowhere to run, I had no choice but to pull out the very document they were defaming—my diploma from a French Grande École, one of the most elite institutions in the world—and demand that the French Embassy itself be called to verify it.

"When did your country's most renowned university become a diploma mill? Don't you care about your national reputation?"

* * *

A cold shock washed over me. Seated on the judges' panel, Victoria Davenport—the CEO who built her brand on having lived in Paris for a decade—was a complete fraud.

In one short, garbled sentence of French, she had made no less than sixteen grammatical and vocabulary errors.

I had politely asked her to repeat the question, hoping to give her a way out. I never imagined that, fearing exposure, she would turn on me with such venom.

“Don’t play dumb,” she sneered. “It’s clear you don’t understand a word. Some 'international' candidate you are.”

Putting on a show of righteous indignation, she picked up her coffee mug and flicked its contents at my face. "Let me help you wake up," she said as the cold liquid dripped down my chin. “This is The Boardroom. It's a stage for genuine talent, not a place for charlatans like you to sneak through!"

The audience erupted in applause for her "integrity." I could hear them muttering, “Serves her right!”

The other executives shook their heads in disappointment. "Young people today," one of them sighed, "all ambition and no substance. Always looking for the easy way out."

One by one, they slammed the red buttons on their consoles. The lights above my head went dark. Twelve buzzers, twelve nails in the coffin of my career.

I tried to defend myself, my voice cracking. "I'm not lying! I graduated from one of the top universities in France. You can verify the diploma number on the school’s official website!"

Without hesitation, I held my diploma up, turning it toward the camera operator. The truth is the truth, I told myself, a desperate mantra. It has to be.

But before the camera could focus, the host, Ryan Shaw, snatched the document from my hands and presented it to Victoria with a dismissive flourish.

"See, Ms. Davenport? You can tell it's a fake at a glance."

"How can you say that?" I shot back at Ryan, my voice trembling with rage. "You didn't even read it! Do you have any idea what you're doing? You're destroying my future!" Was that all it took? One accusation from a powerful CEO? Did being the boss mean you were always right, no matter what? And we, the job seekers, were we just supposed to stand here and take the abuse?

Victoria scoffed at my outburst. "A cornered rat always bites. When you expose a liar, they always claim you're the bully." She swore her judgment was impartial. "I've looked at it," she said, holding the paper as if it were contaminated. "It's a French certificate, I'll give you that. You really did study abroad. At a vocational-technical school!"

She was deliberately demeaning me. "No wonder your French is so poor. You probably couldn't handle a real university."

Fury burned in my chest. Victoria Davenport probably couldn't even read the diploma, yet here she was, the ultimate authority, condemning me to the academic gutter.

But no one believed me.

The crowd was chanting now. "Get off the stage! Get off!" They were embarrassed for me.

Humiliation coiled in my gut. I clenched my fists. "Give me back my diploma." I would post it online. I would let the entire world see it and judge for themselves.

Victoria’s lips curled into a smirk. "Be my guest. I have nothing to hide." As she spoke, her elbow "accidentally" knocked over a cup on the panel desk.

Hot coffee flooded my diploma.

The culmination of countless sleepless nights, of years of sacrifice, dissolved into a soggy, useless piece of paper. Victoria tossed it to the floor in disgust.

I dove for it, collapsing to my knees, frantically trying to wipe away the dark, spreading stain with my sleeves. Tears I hadn't realized I was holding back began to fall, mixing with the coffee.

Victoria's voice cut through my despair. "It's just a worthless piece of paper from a diploma mill. Who do you think you're fooling with this little performance?"

That was it. I couldn't take it anymore. I would expose her, right here, right now.

"You're the one performing!" I screamed, getting to my feet. "You can't speak French, and you were terrified I'd call you out, so you attacked me first! You made sure no one would ever believe a word I said!"

My voice raw, I issued a challenge. "Why don't you have the producers find a native French speaker? Right now! Let him talk to both of us, one-on-one. Let's see who the real fraud is!"

My outburst stunned the audience into silence. I heard whispers ripple through the crowd; people were saying I didn't seem like I was acting. They started calling for the show to bring in a French person to test me.

I stood my ground, my heart pounding with a desperate confidence. I waited. But it was Ryan Shaw's voice that boomed through the studio, not a producer's.

"That's enough! This show is not a stage for a liar's endless theatrics. The twelve executives have made their decision. You have been eliminated. You have no more chances!"

He pointed a finger at me, his face a mask of contempt.

"Now, I'm officially asking you… to get the hell off my stage!"