Ch. 2126..2130
Chapter 2126
Chapter 2126 Amanda sighed in frustration. "That's a pity."
She thought that if she could get Flint into the entertainment industry, it would not be difficult at all for her to help him burst into mainstream popularity.
After all, from what she had seen of Flint, he had an extremely rare combination of the perfect looks and physique to go with it. He was the definition of male eye candy.
They arrived on the set by this point of their conversation.
The director, film crew, and the other guests on the show had arrived as well. Amanda dropped the subject and went to greet the director.
Isabel went to greet the other guest stars on the show as well.
Carla tailed after her silently.
Meanwhile, Isabella's assistant had arrived at the set as well, and she entered from the same corridor that Isabel and the others entered from.
She glanced at Isabel, then quickly walked past the other guest stars and stopped right behind Isabella. Isabella asked her curiously, “What did they talk about?"
She had purposefully instructed her assistant to hide at the entrance when they entered just now so that her assistant could eavesdrop on the conversation between Isabel and the handsome young man who drove here in the BUD. She figured this would be a good way to find out about the identity of that mysterious young man, so she would know what to expect going forward.
The assistant flashed a strange look filled with condescension as she whispered into Isabella's ear, "That man back there is her younger brother. It turns out that he borrowed the car from a friend..."
Upon hearing this, Isabella could barely stifle a mocking laugh. She heaved a sigh of relief and revealed a sinister smile.
She was worried about Isabel managing to land yet another powerful man, but it turned out it was just her brother who had to resort to borrowing a sports car for the sake of appearances.
She wondered if this was Isabel's pathetic attempt at saving face after her episode with Clarice. Perhaps she was the one who instructed her brother to borrow the sports car to drive her here to boost her image.
"It doesn't look like Isabel has anyone backing her anymore. Maybe we can ..." Isabella's assistant immediately began scheming. Isabella narrowed her eyes and listened with interest. She wanted to see Isabel ruined more than anyone else. She would give anything to see Isabel fall out of grace with the public.
With that said, she was still traumatized with flashes of Decker viciously choking her and threatening her on that fateful night. Even if Isabel no longer had any major financial benefactors, she still had her television deal to fall back on. She also had to factor in Amanda who was a well-known figure in the industry, thus she would have to be very careful in her approach.
She took a deep breath and stated reluctantly, "No, not yet." She made a mental note of speaking to Clarice in a few days. She would borrow Clarice's hand in crushing Isabel. The filming progressed without any hiccups.
The show producers had deliberately assigned Isabel and Isabella to the same group during their game sessions. During these sessions, there had been occasions when Isabella wanted to take advantage of the chaotic sequences to shove Isabel into the swimming pool as well as the mud pit another time.
Both times, Isabel was on guard the entire time and managed to duck out of the way the moment she sensed Isabella launching herself at her. She made sure to subtly shove Isabella in the back as well for good measure. After throwing herself into the swimming pool the first time and plunging headfirst into the mud pit the second time, Isabella
wisened up at last.
She resorted to hurling petty insults at Isabel when she knew the camera was pointed away from them, but that was the extent of her ploys from there on.
With that, the filming of the new episode was a wrap. Isabel walked out of the set and saw a row of cars parked outside, and one of them was Flint's car.
The other guest stars who came out of the building with her immediately noticed Flint's sports car as well and could not take their eyes off it.
Someone asked curiously, "Who drove that BUD here? Who is that man picking up?" "No clue.”
Isabel paid no mind to the gossip. She had Ben drive Carla home before approaching Flint's car herself. That was when she heard Isabella asking in a queer tone, "Isabel, is that your brother coming to pick you up?"
She frowned. She remembered how Isabella ran away with her tail tucked between her legs after Flint confronted her yesterday.
How did she manage to figure out that Flint was her brother?
Chapter 2127
Before Isabel could respond, Isabella asked with a sly smirk, "That BJD sure looks nice. From who did your brother borrow it? Do you happen to know?"
As soon as she spat these words out, everyone who was gawking at the car made a face, and the envy in their eyes soon faded.
The ones who were closer friends with Isabel opted for silence while some of the others did not attempt to conceal the mocking look in their eyes.
‘If you could not afford it, then so be it. Why borrow something so expensive to prove a point? How embarrassing.’ Isabel grimaced.
She figured that someone must have overheard her dialogue with Amanda and Carla yesterday after Flint left.
Isabella must be intentionally bringing this up when she knew the others were listening so that she could humiliate her. Isabel barely acknowledged Isabella. She took her luggage and continued heading towards the car.
Flint had stepped out of the car as well and was approaching her. As soon as he revealed himself, everyone became so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
The other guest stars standing in a row opened their eyes wide, transfixed in shock.
Due to their stark surprise at how handsome Flint was, they completely brushed past the fact that he had borrowed the BUD. Trying to shame him was the last thing on their minds.
"Isabel’s brother sure is handsome," one of them expressed without any subtlety, completely wowed by Flint.
Isabella scoffed disinterestedly, "| suppose so, but he's just an ordinary lab researcher by the looks of it. | wonder where he borrowed such an expensive car from.”
As soon as she said this, the guest star's expression dropped, and nobody made any further comments.
"Still, | don't think it's easy to borrow a carthat expensive," Liz blurted out. She was one of the guest stars who was on relatively good terms with Isabel. She was a frequent guest on variety shows, and since she was not considered very popular in mainstream media, she was careful not to upset Isabella.
Despite that, she could no longer stomach Isabella's blatant attempt at undermining Isabel, which was why she blurted out her opinion.
Isabella sneered. "Not easy for you. If | wanted to, | could just spend a bit of money and get someone to lend me a BJD easily." After noticing Liz’s scowl, Isabella smiled contentedly and strode off with her assistant. Soon, the others dispersed from the scene as well.
Liz heaved a sigh of relief before sending a text to Isabel to tell her to not worry about what Isabella said. She assured her that the others did not badmouth her in any way.
Meanwhile, Isabel had already gotten into Flint's car and was already on the way home.
When she noticed the text from Liz, she felt comforted and replied, "| see, thanks for telling me this, Liz."
It was no big deal since she had made up the part about Flint borrowing the car.
She barely paid attention to what Isabella said about her. Still, she had to admit she felt very warm and fuzzy inside that Liz took the initiative to approach her and offer support.
Apart from the occasional shooting on the set of "The Wonder", Isabel spent the majority of her time lazing around at home.
After wasting away in this manner for half a month, she was getting ready to pull herself together and join the film crew on an upcoming new show. That was when she received a call from Amanda.
Amanda called to notify her that the mentioned upcoming show had to be postponed due to the conflicting schedule of a certain male lead. The male lead of said show was also very famous in the industry and had a lot of other obligations to attend to.
Isabel frowned and mumbled, "Okay, then."
Amanda expressed her displeasure as well, "| don't know how long they will have to postpone it. It's ridiculous. We had an agreement! They must have seen what happened with you lately and decided that it would be easy to push us around now. That's why they changed the date without bothering to consult us.”
The entertainment industry was certainly very tooth and nail. If you had any sort of leverage, you could be untouchable. If not, you were at the mercy of others.
Isabel grimaced and tried to shrug it off. "It's fine. | have more time to rest in this case.” Amanda sighed, then suddenly mentioned, "One more thing: | received an invitation to a certain event." Isabel asked, "What is it about? Where is it held?"
Amanda told her, "It's a jewelry exhibition at Southboro.”
Chapter 2128
Isabel made a face, and her enthusiasm immediately drooped.
Southboro.
That was where she had her first adult relationship, which ended rather disastrously. Her second partner Roland, who ended up dumping her, was now in Southboro as well. The sheer mention of the city jogged sour memories for her.
She was silent.
Amanda noticed how she had suddenly turned quiet as well. After a momentary pause, she said in a low voice, "The jewelry exhibition is scheduled for half a month later. It's organized by one of the largest jewelry manufacturers in Southboro. They seemed very interested in having you attend and offered pretty good compensation for your time. Why don't you think about it?”
This jewelry exhibition was the first endorsement offer she had received since what had happened with Clarice.
Then again, the Southboro was the base camp of the Houstons and the Rockwells, so what was the likelihood that this organization hadn't heard about her involvement with Clarice? Why would they approach her?
She was in no mood to trouble herself over these matters right now and told Amanda, "Let me think about it." She was hesitant to go at all. She would much rather not step foot in Southboro again for the rest of her life.
Still, she still had to consider things from Amanda's perspective, then there was also her team who had been faithfully working for her all this time.
Amanda was very understanding. "Alright, you can think about it. It's fine if you don't want to go." "Yeah, I'll let you know after | think about it."
"Sure."
With that, Amanda hung up and Isabel collapsed in her bed again.
Avery famous TV show was projected on the screen.
There were also piles of snacks and drinks set on the table in front of her.
As lavish as it seemed, she was beginning to feel like she was getting sick and tired of living like this. She was burned out and was in no mood to eat anything or watch the show at all.
After laying on the bed motionlessly for a while, staring at the ceiling with blankness in her eyes, she reached for her phone and opened her feed.
She was swarmed by a flux of media and news. She read updates about a certain streamer whose views had recently tanked significantly, then there were some articles about the recent trending TV shows.
She had also received countless direct messages from her fans who were concerned about her because she had not made any new posts recently.
It was only then did she realize that she had not posted anything at all since her break up with Roland.
Since she had no active brand endorsements or any other contractual obligations to speak of, she had no incentive to make any posts at all.
To ease the concerns of her restless fans, she picked out a collage of nine pictures taken a while ago and posted them.
She attached a short caption with the post: "I'm doing fine, my loves. Don’t worry about me."
Her fans immediately swarmed to the post to leave comments because they knew that Isabel had posted the update forthem.
The messages they left were all very heartwarming. There were too many messages for Isabel to sift through them all, thus she had no choice but to reply to them selectively.
Without realizing it, she interacted with her fans until it was already nighttime.
"Uuu..." She heard the soft gurgle of a toddler outside her room.
That could only be Flint carrying their nephew in his arms. He was probably here to tell her to join them for dinner.
The toddler's voice was so cute that she immediately dropped everything on hand and launched out of bed to join them.
Over the next few days, Isabel spent her time in between a handful of activities such as sleeping, playing with her nephew, or lying in bed and interacting with her fans on the phone.
At first, her fans were delighted to get to spend so much time with her.
After a few days, even they had had enough of it, and they began asking Isabel if she did not have anything else going on. They were curious why she had so much time on the phone to chat with them instead of having to work.
Isabel did not know how to respond to this. After deliberating over it for a while, she came up with a vague explanation. "I’ve just been a little overworked lately, so | decided to rest at home for several days."
Her fans seemed very understanding and told her to make sure to get ample rest.
Chapter 2129
Acertain fan was very sharp-witted and left behind a comment: "If I'm not mistaken, hasn’t the shooting for" Legend of the Goddess" wrapped around a month ago? You couldn't have been resting at home for more than a month, have you?"
Isabel tensed up. The other fans had gone quiet as well. They were all staring at their screens waiting for her to respond to this.
The only saving grace was that they were having a digital conversation instead of face-to-face dialogue, so this gave her some time to consider her response. She typed out her response with some resemblance of guilt. "Of course not. | just happened to have time to text these past few days."
The same fan continued interrogating her, "How long are you going to be on break for?"
Isabel told the fan, "Till next week. I'll have to get back to it next week."
“Alright then, hope to see you again next week."
The other fans chimed in.
"Yeah, we haven't seen you on the big screen for a while and were wondering if something happened to you."
"It's great if you have something lined up. Make sure you leave some time aside to rest and don't overwork yourself
"| think so." Liam continued after a brief hesitation, "The problem is that most of the people in Rockwell Corporation are supporting Decker. Even though old Master Rockwell has retired, he still has a certain amount of influence in the corporation. With him and the Houstons backing Decker, | don't think Roland has any chance against them, especially when he doesn’t have any support to speak of."
Caprice sighed weakly, then soon her temper got the best of her and she said snappily, "You know what? Serves him right! He deserves this for breaking Isabel's heart!"
Inside the room, Liam was gently caressing Caprice, but his face was wrought with concern. He seemed worried about Roland. Isabel overheard their conversation. Just as Caprice said, it was Roland's fault for dumping her! He deserved to be ostracized by Rockwell Corporation!
Then again, the thought of him being surrounded by enemies everywhere in Southboro, being ganged up by his cunning relatives and grandfather, sent a bitter feeling down her stomach.
She sighed irritably and decided to look for Flint in the game room instead to take her mind off things by playing video games.
They played for several rounds and managed to clear several levels, even killing one of the hardest bosses in the game. And yet, it did not deliver her any satisfaction.
Flint, on the other hand, seemed content. He motioned with the controller. "Sis, another round?"
Isabel dropped the controller sullenly. "I'm done. You can play by yourself."
With that, she returned to her room.
She grabbed her phone and looked up information about Rockwell Corporation on the internet.
There was sparse information about Rockwell Corporation and hardly any news or rumors about what they had been up to lately. She sighed.
Then, she sent a text to Amanda, "Hey, Amanda, is the offer for the jewelry exhibition at Southboro still up?"
Amanda replied within minutes, "Yeah, they just called and asked if you were interested."
Isabel bit the bullet. "I'll go."
Chapter 2130
Chapter 2130 Amanda was delighted. "Great, I'll call them right now.’ After a moment, she sent another text to Isabel. "What made you decide to go anyway?”
Isabel's answer was convincing. "It's the only offer we've got recently. If | turn it down, even my fans are going to start complaining.”
Amanda replied, "Heh, alright then.” Isabel smiled wryly and set aside her phone.
Her fans were a part of it, but there was another reason-she wanted to witness Roland getting booted out of Rockwell Corporation with her own eyes!
It would be ideal if she could be there to see it the very moment it happened. She wanted to see him scrambling out of Rockwell Corporation in a state of disgrace, and she would be the first one to run up to him and laugh in his face!
This was the precise reason she chose to go to Southboro! Southboro was right along the coastline, which meant that the city was known for its wonderful weather and scenery.
During her half-year stay in Coastrock five years ago, she was always busy, and so was Decker. Therefore, she very rarely got a chance to see the city and enjoy the leisurely
activities the city had to offer. It was a four-hour flight from Westchester to Southboro. She landed in Southboro with Carla tagging along two days before the jewelry exhibition.
She did not want to trouble the organizers and booked a suite for herself and Carla in a hotel by the coastline out of her own pocket instead.
As night fell, the road lining the coastline was lit up with the radiant glow of streetlights. The sand on the beach basked in the spillover orange glow as well.
The people frequenting the beach were dressed leisurely for a relaxing walk by the beach, ready to enjoy the evening breeze. Isabel sat by a window and watched the sea for a while.
She noticed countless restaurants and stalls lining the beach. After a while, she changed into a nice casual dress, then she brought Carla to the beach with her.
They were going to go for a quick stroll and find something delicious to eat. The elevator brought them to the first floor.
Just as she was leading Carla out of the elevator with her and was about to step out of the hotel, she noticed a familiar figure coming from the opposite direction.
It was a man dressed in a tailored suit and polished leather shoes. His build was tall and lean. His entirely cold and distant demeanor only added to his suave, and his features were chiseled like that of a model's.
Isabel found herself holding her breath without realizing it, and she ground to a halt. It had been more than a month since they broke up.
Suddenly, she felt as if an electric shock had run through her body and sent a revitalizing pulse to her heart that had been cold and dormant this entire time.
It seemed like Roland did not notice her. He walked straight into the elevator with two of his entourages tailing him. He cast his eyes fixedly forward the entire time without glancing to the side.
It was only when he was nearing Isabel that he noticed her staring at him and glanced in her direction. There was some doubt in his eyes.
Isabel suddenly remembered that she had taken care to conceal her appearance before stepping out of the hotel since she was a notable public figure. She was wrapped in a thick scarf with masks and sunglasses to boot.
With her face tightly covered, there was not a chance that Roland could have recognized her.
Upon realizing this, she no longer felt so nervous. Instead, she replaced it with a burning anger.
She waited until Roland was just stepping past her. Right at that opportune moment, she raised her feet and jabbed down at his leather shoe with a deep grunt.
Roland did not even yelp. He cringed from the pain and stopped in his tracks.
Isabel noticed him wince and took delight in seeing it.
Immediately after that, she pulled her feet away and ran outside the hotel before Roland’s colleagues could catch up to her. Carla ran with her, wheezing by the time they were out of the woods.
They had made it out of the hotel before Roland's men could catch up to them at all.
Both the men were very upset, and one of them was even debating on chasing after Isabel and Carla.
Roland stopped them. "Don't bother."
They would not relent. "Sir, that woman covered from head to toe looks very suspicious. We need to catch her right now before she tries something again."
Roland glanced in the direction where Isabel ran off to with Carla and said while jerking his lips to the side, "She only wanted to send a message by jabbing at my foot. That's all.”
One of them noticed the faint, knowing smile hanging by the corner of his lips and asked puzzledly, "How do you know that? Do you know her?"
"Yeah." They were taken aback by this.
“Anyway, we need to hurry upstairs. The meeting is about to start.” With that, he turned around and continued heading into the hotel with his usual formality and stoutness.