Chapter 801: Chapter 801: Her Cooking Skills (3)

Brooke Mitchell failed to sicken Vera Xavier; instead, she choked on her own frustration. Tossing her spatula into the pan, she snapped, "He works incredibly hard on his missions! Can’t I give him the best food possible when he’s resting at home?"

Seeing Brooke on the verge of blowing her top, Vera decided to stop provoking her. "You make perfect sense, Mrs. Mitchell!" she said with a bright smile. "I can see you’ve been working hard today, too. How about I take over the kitchen and cook a few dishes in your honor?"

"Don’t!" Brooke’s expression turned cold and distant. "What does a young girl like you know about cooking? You’ll burn the kitchen down!"

Vera simply smiled. She was just about to leave when Brooke raised an eyebrow and pulled out the pastries Susan Caldwell had brought over yesterday. "If you can’t cook to this standard, it’s best you don’t cook at all."

Vera looked at the older woman with genuine curiosity. A faint, reminiscent smile touched Brooke’s eyes. "Susan made these herself. She is gentle and considerate. She never talks back to her elders and has a wonderful temperament. She exudes the grace and elegance of a true high-born lady—nothing like those girls raised out in the country."

Brooke glanced at Vera. "I don’t mean you, of course. You’re actually quite nice. It’s just that your family’s living environment was a bit lacking, so you’re a little short on refinement. I’m just being straightforward, so please don’t take offense."

Vera despised this kind of rhetoric. The woman was clearly throwing passive-aggressive jabs, yet still trying to play the innocent party. That kind of behavior was absolutely sickening!

She debated internally whether to snap back. Then, she recalled what Nathaniel Nathan had said last night: Brooke was the type of person who would take a mile if given an inch. Yielding this time meant Brooke would just walk all over her the next. While Vera had always strived to build a good relationship with her future mother-in-law, the woman was clearly a drama queen. Should she endure it? Vera decided that since she had been given a second chance at life, she wasn’t going to live it in suffocating frustration anymore.

With a faint smile, she grabbed a handful of salt and sprinkled it directly over the pastries Susan had gifted yesterday. Brooke gasped in shock, her eyes widening.

Before the older woman could scold her, Vera asked, "Don’t you think the patterns on these pastries look much more artistic with this sprinkle of salt, Mrs. Mitchell?"

Brooke glanced down. The composition did, in fact, gain a subtle, elegant beauty from the scattered salt. "But your salt just ruined the whole box!" she said coldly.

Vera smiled. "Pastries are meant to be eaten. While looking pretty might make them more appetizing, I’ve always believed that since they are food, flavor is what matters most. Drawing pictures on pastries looks nice, but it makes people reluctant to eat them. If you can’t bear to eat them, why bother making them so flashy? At the end of the day, it’s just pandering."

Brooke glared at her. "You’re just jealous of Susan!"

"What do I have to be jealous of?" Vera replied breezily. "She isn’t as pretty as I am, her grades aren’t as good as mine, and her abilities fall short of mine. If you strip away the Caldwell Family backing her, she has absolutely nothing."

Brooke froze.

"I have a question for you, Mrs. Mitchell," Vera continued. "If you set aside our family backgrounds and looked at me without prejudice, who would you like more: me or Susan?"

With a calm smile, she turned around and went back to peeling potatoes.

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