“Emma, I’m the president of Global Pictures Entertainment. I make the decisions, not you,” Nathan was furious. “Why are you insisting on taking Amber’s deal? I think this was my idea. Bellamy asked for me and said they would take their business elsewhere unless I stepped up. I took the deal for your sake so Global wouldn’t be left with nothing.”
“You know, I hadn’t believed the rumors about you and Amber, but if you’d rather take a loss like that than have me be the spokesperson, then maybe the two of you do have something going on after all,” Nathan added.
“Of course not!” he denied hastily. “I can’t believe you’d say such a thing. If it’s just that, since we’re going to get married and start a family soon, I figured you’d rather not take on any extra professional responsibilities.”
But Emma wasn’t done. “Oh, so would you like to try explaining that to Julius Taylor? And what do you mean by saying that I took the deal from Amber? As far as I can tell, she’s done all the taking. She’s been doing it for years.”
Amber was getting angry now as well, resenting the accusations and the suggestions that she hadn’t earned her own success. “Emma, you’re the one who stepped out of the limelight, I didn’t. I didn’t take anything from you. What did you think was gonna happen? That we just let it go to another company?”
“Fine,” Emma said. “You’re right. If you could persuade Mr. Taylor to change his mind, I’ll step down.” Could Emma really be giving in?
Nathan was now stuck in a difficult position. Emma was obviously still angry, or else she wouldn’t have had the nerve to defy him like she never had before. And he promised Amber that Emma would give her back the deal. But ultimately, it was clear that Bellamy would take their contract somewhere else if they didn’t get Emma. In the end, he had to protect the bottom line.
“Enough! Since Bellamy has requested Emma, and Emma has already agreed, we’re going with her,” Nathan declared.
But Amber wasn’t satisfied. “I made my decision,” he snapped. “It’s time for both of you to accept it and leave. Emma, ask Lisa to come in when you go.”
It was clear that even though he was left with no choice, he resented being pushed into the decision. Emma had a pretty good idea what Nathan was thinking, but if he expected her to feel bad about hurting his feelings, he was dreaming.
Amber followed Emma out of the office, her anger continuing to boil up inside her. But she comforted herself that even if Emma appeared to be making a comeback right now, she wasn’t that popular yet. Amber planned to do everything she could to crush her.
As soon as she saw her assistant Gary, who was waiting in the lobby, she said, “I want you to take a few photos of me working hard to recover and post them online. Let’s stir up my fans’ sympathy and get them to complain that Emma has stolen my deal. If I can’t have it, I’m not going to let her take it.”
“Don’t you worry,” Gary said. “I know exactly what to do.”
Emma found Lisa waiting in her office and said, “Nathan wants to talk to you.”
“Don’t be too nervous. Nervous? Are you kidding me? Who do you think I am?” Lisa rolled her eyes. “It’s not my first day on the job, you know. If he thinks I’m just some pushover he can tear down, he’s in for a shock.”
She headed into Nathan’s office, a fierce expression on her face. She was not going to hold back.
Nathan thrust a pile of papers in front of Lisa. “I’m terminating your agreement with Global. You need to leave the premises, and you should make preparations to compensate us for breach of contract.”
Lisa laughed. “Nathan, you must have a bad memory. When I first signed my contract, my salary was clearly stated alongside Eva’s appearance fees. With all the work you’ve let Amber steal from her, I haven’t once gotten paid as much as my contract stipulates. And the posts I made were all in Emma’s best interests, ultimately benefiting the company. I did nothing wrong. If anyone should be worrying about breach of contract, it’s you.”
Nathan couldn’t believe his ears. “If you weren’t afraid of making Global’s situation worse, we could always take this to court. I’m fine with that. But you might want to think about the rest of the industry losing trust in your brand,” Lisa said, pausing to let her words sink in.
“Look, Nathan, I obviously won’t be staying, but I don’t want to leave on bad terms. Let’s make a deal,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “I’ll agree to leave Global without a fuss, and you’ll let all of this drop. You won’t come after me for any kind of compensation, and from now on, we don’t owe each other anything.”
He glared at her angrily but recognized that this was the only option he had left. “Fine, just leave. I don’t want to see you again.”
“Nathan, let me give you a warning. There is no wall thick enough to block out what you’ve got coming to you. You’ll be paying for the way you treated Emma for a very long time,” Lisa said.
Nathan glared at her as she walked out of the door with the now worthless paperwork he based his whole plan on. He grabbed his desk and flipped it over, the floor instead of leaving the building.
Lisa went back to Emma’s office where the two of them celebrated the success of this part of the plan and set to work plotting their next steps. When Nathan left his office to take a break, they ran straight into each other.
“Why are you still here?” he asked.
Emma froze for a moment, then she replied, “I just hired Lisa.”
“Emma, what are you talking about? It’s Global’s call who will be managing you, not yours,” he said, driving him crazy.
“Oh, I didn’t hire Lisa to be my manager. I hired her to be my assistant. It’s in my contract that I could hire my own assistant,” Emma smiled sweetly. “Lisa has looked after me so well for so long. She’s the only person I trust to understand what I need to do a good job.”
Nathan pulled her aside, out of Lisa’s earshot. “Emma, what’s wrong with you? Are you doing this just to spite me?”
“Not everything is about you, Nathan. But for your information, Lisa is a lot more thoughtful than you and has never accused me of stealing anything from anybody,” she said, looking at him coldly.
“Emma, you’ve always supported my career before. I don’t understand what’s going on,” he said, confused.
“I told you that whole mess with the Crown Star was the last time I’ll ever take the blame for you or Amber,” she remained calm, her voice steady and firm, her eyes completely emotionless.
Nathan took a deep breath. “If you’re really going to be this childish, maybe we should call off our wedding,” he hissed, sure that this tactic would make Emma apologize and regret ever trying to go up against him.
She remained silent for a few moments, allowing him to believe that his threat was sinking in and she would cave. He could never have anticipated the response she was about to give.
