Bring Your A Game

Chapter 18

Bring Your A Game Mr Chapter 18

Elise heard Danny‘s voice the second she woke up the next morning. “The Snyders all disappeared out of the blue last night, Alexander. They were even on the news today.”

Elise chimed in, “They probably ran away out of guilt.”

Danny was quite a dense fellow, so he didn‘t give it much further thought. “That sounds about right. There‘s nothing my brother can‘t do when he puts his heart to it, after all.”

Alexander didn‘t reply to Danny. He had tasked his assistant to look into Elise‘s background yesterday, but to no avail. Recalling that unsatisfying result, he decided to test the waters. “Looks like you already knew about this beforehand, Elise.”

Elise simply replied lightheartedly, “I just found out about it too. I wouldn‘t have spent all night tossing and turning if I had known that from the start.” Then, she rubbed her head to keep up the act.

Alexander glanced at her furtive expression; she seemed like she was hiding something. He became all the more suspicious, but he could only let it slide since he didn‘t have any evidence.

At school, everyone was astonished by the news of Nicole being expelled. As a result, no one dared to pick a bone with Elise anymore after the incident. Elise felt like she went back to the old days of being a boss–life was such a bliss when she could get everything she wanted.

Days passed and she eventually had the thought of moving to the school dormitory altogether; nothing much would happen as long as she made the least amount of contact with the Griffiths. Unfortunately, her suggestion was ruthlessly rejected by Jonah. “Jack and Brendan are coming back soon. You should make a trip back home; I‘ll arrange for you all to meet.”

Elise wasn‘t at all interested in this arranged marriage of hers, so she was about to leave without dressing up. However, she was stopped by Jonah. “I‘ve bought you many new clothes, Elise. Go ahead and dress up before you head over. I even hired a makeup artist for you.”

Elise immediately turned down his offer. “I’ll handle it myself, Grandpa Griffith. There‘s no need to trouble others.”

She‘d blow her cover as soon as someone touched her face. And so, she took off her disguise and put on a foundation that had a lighter shade to brighten up her complexion just a little.

Her skin condition was quite perfect by itself, but it wasn‘t noticeable since she‘d intentionally made her skin appear darker. Now that she had brightened it up a bit, a fraction or two of her beauty was able to shine through the makeup.

She looked slightly more pleasing to the eye than before. This should do it.

The driver brought Elise to Griffith Residence after she was done preparing herself. Property © of NôvelDrama.Org.

Both Alexander and Danny felt strange to see Elise all dressed up. Even though her complexion was still dark and patchy, her facial features appeared a lot more exquisite after her skin became a few shades lighter

Jonah was very pleased to see Elise dolled up beautifully.

On the other hand, Elise didn‘t like the feeling of attending a forced date, so she picked a corner seat and planned to stay quiet throughout the entire gathering. To her surprise, she was arranged by Jonah to sit next to Jack. “You two haven‘t met, right? Come and sit closer together so you can get to know

each other better.”

Jack took a glance at Elise. What a strange complexion–how ugly. She looked nothing like the female celebrities that he was used to filming movies with. A bitter smile appeared on his face, but he still greeted her politely out of courtesy, “Hello there.”

Elise said without even looking at him, “Hello.”

Jack was extremely unhappy with that. He was none other than a famous celebrity; his fans wouldn‘t be able to calm down for an entire day after exchanging a word with him, but this country bumpkin wouldn‘t even look him in the eye.

Jack tried to bring up a topic that would pique her interest. “Have you seen any of the dramas that I star in, Miss Sinclair?“.

Elise stared at the smug smile on his face and rolled her eyes. “No, I haven‘t.”

Jack wasn‘t about to relent. “Do you have a favorite actor then, Miss Sinclair? Perhaps I can introduce the two of you.”

Elise was about to get a seizure from the amount of times she rolled her eyes. Her aunt was an international award–winning actress; was there even a celebrity she hadn‘t met in person?

“Not interested,” Elise spat coldly.

Dissatisfaction filled Danny‘s chest when he saw Jack acting all interested in Elise. “Have you become immune to beautiful women from seeing all those gorgeous actresses every day, Jack? Since when have you become interested in ugly women? Your taste has become quite unique, I see!”

Jack wasn‘t planning to give up even though he was being ignored by Elise and continued talking to her. “I have a fan meeting going on later. Why don‘t you come along with me?”

His character had always been cold and he never liked talking much; just a word or two out of his mouth was enough to make his fans shriek and cheer in glee.

However, this woman was acting all high and mighty in front of him. He was eager to prove his worth as the Best Actor. He thought that his fans would definitely wow her into recognition.

Since Elise didn‘t have much going on these days, she took up his offer.

With the kidnapping incident in mind, Jonah told Alexander to follow along just in case. “Take good care of Elise. I don‘t want the same thing happening again.”

“Yes, Grandpa.”

“Jack! Jack! Jack!”

Amidst the ear–splitting screams and cheers of fans, a figure slowly entered their view.

The flashing lights of cameras started going off all at once as Jack stood onstage wearing a smart looking suit. Right now, he was the brightest star of all under the sunlight which illuminated him softly.

“Hey guys, it‘s Jack.” After going through the introductions, Jack put on a dazzling and charming smile.

He cleared his throat and leaned close to the mic as he said, “Today‘s my first time having a fan meeting event in Athesea, so let‘s have an interactive session to celebrate!”

The fans below the stage exploded in an instant, and their high–pitched cries filled Elise‘s eardrums.

“I believe everybody‘s seen my new drama, right? I‘d like to have a live reenactment of the most climactic scene of the series today. I‘m going to randomly pick a few people in the audience to be my co–stars.” Jack then gestured for his manager to come up the stage.

The manager held up a poster after being signaled. “There‘s a QR code on this poster and you can join the selection process by scanning it. After you’ve done that, the system will automatically select a few lucky winners to take part in the activity onstage.”

Upon hearing that, the fans whipped out their phones and scrambled forward to scan the QR code.

“Has everyone scanned the code?” The manager pointed at the QR code on the poster as the fans answered at once. He passed the poster to an assistant to put it away and started to announce the winners.

In truth, the so–called “winners” had all been handpicked beforehand, yet they had to put on a surprised act the moment their names were announced.

The manager proceeded to allocate the selected participants their identities, lines, and props. The remaining audience below the stage began to get fired up again. “What about the female lead?”

The fans‘ reaction was exactly as Jack anticipated it to be. He said slowly, “To prevent my fans from getting jealous, I‘m going to pick the female lead from one of our staff members.” Following that, he gestured toward Elise who was standing by the side and even raised his brow at her mockingly as he did so.

Sure enough, Elise knew that nothing good would come out of Jack inviting her to his own fan meeting. She stared at the triumphant look on his face as she cursed him out violently inside.

The manager was unsettled when she saw the strange makeup on Elise‘s face. After all, she wasn‘t in the list of candidates that were supposed to go onstage. More importantly, this was none other than the role of the female lead. Thus, he leaned into her ear and said, “You don‘t have many lines, Miss Sinclair. Just follow Jack‘s lead and you‘ll be fine.”

Elise was very unhappy to be forced to do something she didn‘t want to do, but she still tried her best to complete the performance with Jack.

During their final scene, Jack smiled with tears in his eyes and turned around. He shut his eyes slowly as he willingly welcomed death. This was the biggest highlight of his new drama, and his fans were totally brought into the moment–all of them were sobbing painfully below the stage.

At that moment, one of the extras approached Jack with a dagger in his hand, wearing a malicious smile on his face.

The dagger glowed dangerously under the sunlight. Elise felt that something was off and immediately rushed forward to push Jack away. She stealthily dodged the blade, but the dagger still managed to leave a cut on her delicate skin, and blood started oozing out rapidly.