“What will Emma be doing tomorrow night?” Amber asked Gary after she tried on her dress.
“I think she’ll be shooting the cover for Secrets’ October issue,” he replied, adjusting his glasses as he spoke. He was certain he knew Emma’s every move.
“I refuse to believe she won’t react at all,” she said skeptically. Just thinking about the humiliation Emma had put her through made Amber want to tear her into a million pieces. “Find out the location of her shoot,” she continued, “and just to be safe, arrange for someone to keep her busy that day. Only then will I be able to relax a little.”
“Don’t worry, I know what to do,” he said. His words seemed to hold a deeper meaning when it came to bullying Emma. He was quite experienced. Back when Emma had been Amber’s substitute, he’d secretly caused a lot of trouble for her.
“While you’re at it, I need you to contact the hospital discreetly,” Amber said. “After the award ceremony is over, I’m gonna get rid of this child.”
Gary sighed. He knew that chasing fame was her main goal in life, but he still felt like she was taking things too far by wanting to give up her own child. He also worried what Nathan would do if he found out about her plan. Although Gary would never say it, he knew that if Amber betrayed Nathan like this, there was no way she’d be able to follow in Emma’s footsteps. Emma was miles ahead of Amber in every way, from professionalism to people skills, and she put in a lot of effort to get where she was in her career. Amber, on the other hand, was always trying to take shortcuts.
The next morning, Mia and Nathan were in Nathan’s office with three young models standing before them. The previous day, they had discussed finding a new model, and Mia, being the woman of action that she was, had already considered the possible candidates and brought the three best in to meet with them. They were all roughly 16 years old, tall with long legs, and vibrantly beautiful.
Mia looked at the three girls as she sat next to Nathan. She lifted her eyebrows at him and asked, “What do you think?”
“I happened to come across a model search competition and found these girls. The one in the middle is Ariel. She looks a lot like Emma, don’t you think?” Nathan looked at the girls and took notice of the tallest one in the middle. From the outside, she did look a lot like Emma, especially in her nose, which was tall and straight. But he could tell her temperament was much different.
Mia continued, “I know she’s still a long way off compared to Emma, but she’s young, while Emma’s already 26 years old. How much success do you think Emma can achieve at her age? Look at her right now, how much energy is she wasted just to get this far?”
Nathan wasn’t quite convinced yet. “Have you already done a background check?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “Ariel’s family isn’t very rich, but her parents are well-educated. They aren’t too bad.” She placed Ariel’s information in front of him, adding, “I’m confident we can make her appear on the biggest runways in the world.”
As the siblings continued talking in the office, Emma stood outside the door, listening to their conversation. She had dropped by the office to pick up some gifts that her fans had sent her, but when she showed up, she saw that the gifts had been ripped open and strewn about by the office staff.
A moment later, the door to Nathan’s office opened, and three beautiful young girls walked out. They all sized Emma up as they walked past, especially the tallest one. Emma saw that as she stepped into the office. “There’s truly no limit to how sinister these two can be,” she thought.
“Oh, it’s you,” Mia said, a look of disgust on her face. Emma threw one of her torn-up boxes onto the desk in front of Mia. “After paying your penalty, you were so poor that you had to steal my gifts!” she fumed.
“Watch your attitude, Mia!” yelled Amber. “You may have a bit of fame now, but you’re still a company’s artist, and I’m the artist director. Besides, you haven’t even been invited to the Bright Night Gala, so clearly the rest of the industry hasn’t noticed you. So what gives you the right to talk to your superiors like this?” Her eyes were filled with ridicule and disdain as she looked at Emma.
“Did I really not get invited?” Emma asked. Nathan’s heart skipped a beat. He was becoming more and more certain that Emma knew what was going on but was too good at controlling her emotions to let it show. Almost no one could tell what she was thinking.
“Of course not,” Mia replied confidently. “What, you can’t accept the truth? Were you hoping to go? Too bad, you won’t have a chance.” Nathan gripped his pen tightly in his hand and said, “Emma, just focus on your magazine shoot for tonight. Stop thinking about the Bright Night Gala. You don’t want to distract yourself. You definitely didn’t get invited, so don’t waste any more time worrying about it.”
Emma laughed gently. She was unfazed by Mia at all. In fact, she was quite amused at the thought of what was about to happen to Mia. “I’ll play my part as a model,” she said. “But next time someone opens my mail, they should expect a call from my lawyer.” Mia smirked. “I never thought the daughter of a perfume empire would get so upset over a few little gifts.”
“The gifts aren’t the main issue, Emma,” shot back. “The main issue is that I don’t want you taking anything I’ve earned just because you’re my manager.” With that, she turned to leave, but Nathan stopped her. “Have you already finalized the contract with TTQ?” he asked.
“Of course,” she responded. “I’ve heard that TGQ is difficult to deal with,” he said. “Had you managed to do it?” “You don’t need to worry about that,” she said calmly. She felt a sense of pride as she spoke. After all, Eric had already done more for her than Nathan could achieve in a lifetime.
Nathan nodded for her to leave. He was done questioning her for now. But as he watched her walk out the door and down the hall, he still couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. He turned to his sister Mia. “I suspect Emma already knows the truth about the Bright Night Gala.”
Mia thought for a moment, then she said, “It doesn’t matter if she knows or not, Nathan. I won’t allow her to just appear at the event. I don’t care if you make her shoot for a magazine or anything else you can think of. Just keep her busy. We need to watch her carefully. We can’t allow anything to go wrong. Otherwise, we’ll just have to watch as her threat to us grows stronger and stronger.”
“Understood,” Nathan said sincerely. “I won’t repeat the same mistakes.” He knew they couldn’t give Emma the opportunity to scheme against Global Pictures again.
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