On the eve of their engagement party—which also happened to be her fiancé Julian’s birthday—Scarlett intended to give herself to him as a gift, only to fall victim to a cruel scheme he had orchestrated. Eager to call off their engagement legitimately so he could marry Scarlett’s sister, Tiffany, Julian drugged Scarlett’s drink and conspired with a friend to rape her, hoping to film the assault and manufacture a scandal. Scarlett fought desperately to escape the room; however, under the influence of the drug, she stumbled into a car and ended up in an intimate encounter with Eleanor—Julian’s stepmother and the true power behind the Astor family empire.
Eleanor, who suffered from severe tactile defensiveness (an extreme aversion to physical touch), found that she had no adverse reaction to Scarlett. She became increasingly drawn to Scarlett’s talent and her indomitable spirit in the face of adversity, repeatedly offering secret assistance. At the engagement party, Scarlett publicly exposed a video revealing Julian and Tiffany’s illicit affair and decisively broke off the engagement. She then returned to the Astor Group as Chief Design Consultant, vowing to revitalize her late mother’s fashion brand. During an international competition for emerging designers, Scarlett revealed her true identity as the genius designer "Rouge"; she won the championship with a stunning collection and publicly exposed Tiffany’s plagiarism and sabotage, leading to Tiffany’s imprisonment.
