Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 98: Awkward

Anne was woken up that morning by the sound of relentless knocking on her door.

Dragging herself out of bed despite the fact that her eyes weren’t fully opened yet, she somehow made her way to the door, grumbling something like,

"I’m coming, I’m coming..."

As she pulled the door open, Jasmine’s bright and radiant face was the first thing she saw.

"You were still sleeping?" Jasmine exclaimed as if it were a terrible crime.

Rubbing her eyes Anne fully woke herself up,

"What’s wrong, you were knocking as if an earthquake was at my doorstep."

Clicking her tongue, Jasmine entered the apartment hastily.

"Forget about that, come sit and tell me where you were yesterday."

Anne came to sit next to her friend.

"Why are you asking?"

Struggling to hold back a wide smile, Jasmine announced.

"You blew up, silly!"

With a bewildered look she asked, "Blew up with what?"

Jasmine facepalmed and showed Anne her phone, whatever Anne saw made her eyes widen.

"Who are they talking about?"

"You, who else? Your pictures are over there."

Disbelief was the only thing reflecting on Anne’s face.

.....

A butler at the Sterling estate carried a huge package that just arrived for master Andrew up the stairs.

When he came to the man’s doorstep, he stopped to knock first and when he was permitted to enter, he did and dropped the package.

"This just arrived for you master."

The man nodded indifferently, "You may go."

The butler quickly retreated from the luxurious bedroom.

A curious voice suddenly sounded, "What’s that?"

Shawn poked his head out of the walk-in closet where he’d been picking out clothes for tonight’s event.

"Nothing you’d be interested in." Andrew replied nonchalantly flicking his wrist as he put on his watch.

Shawn however could never resist his curiosity, he hovered around the package.

"I’ll know that once I take a look."

Andrew sent him a bored glance before walking over to the package, tearing it open.

A large photograph was revealed. A framed photograph of a female whose first glance would leave the viewer stunned.

Shawn stared at the picture for a while with his eyes wide in astonishment.

"I know that face but..."

He instantly seemed to realize, then whipped his head towards Andrew, "Is that...?"

"SE’s newest model." Andrew completed in a fact like tone. If one looked closely, they’d see the hidden look of pride swirling within his dark eyes.

A small laugh of amusement escaped Shawn’s lips.

The woman in the picture was wearing a white flowing attire with the abundant fabric of the dress flowing all around in the air like a waterfall.

It was a soft and innocent expression, her brown sunset like eyes seemed to capture the camera and not the other way around. They seemed to lock the camera in, with the smallest hint of a smile on her face.

Models were known to have sensuality, they flirted with the camera making them irresistible, this picture he was looking at was different from every other model he’d come across.

Undoubtedly a natural beauty, a little naive, soft and sweet.

"It suits her." Shawn remarked, "It truly suits her. But...why did you make this into a huge frame, don’t tell me you plan to keep this in your room so you can stare at it all day." There was a teasing glint in Shawn’s tone as he queried.

Andrew didn’t say a word, instead he quietly stood next to Shawn and stared at the picture in front of him. Leaving the latter waiting for an answer he knew he wouldn’t get.

The previous day, the moment Andrew had seen whatever Valeria had put online about Anne, he’d already decided this would happen.

Many cursed Anne for being an epic plastic surgery fail.

He knew the world was just waiting for someone to hate, rotten as their hearts were, but he’d hated seeing her at the receiving end of public hate.

How dare they call that little rebel a fake?

She was a lot of things...but fake wasn’t one of them.

She was unique in a way that no one else could match, she was fragile and cute and rebellious at the same time.

And what best way to shut the world up than to stun then silent with her beauty.

They’d called her ugly, he’d showed them she was anything but that.

She was in a word enchantment, a silently enchanting little creature.

Making her shoot the ad was of course an excuse, he’d gotten someone to put it all online for all the people dragging her in the mud to see.

With a look of satisfaction in his eyes, he walked away towards the balcony to make a call.

"I want it up on the billboard in High square."

Putting it online alone wasn’t enough, they should all see the very face they’d bashed as ugly up in an unreachable place so it would fully register in their minds.

...

[What am I looking at, is this the same woman shooting this very scene a while ago? Why does she look so different?]

[It’s her! I think she was wearing makeup on that previous video. What kind of fucked up makeup artist would make someone so beautiful look so terrible?]

[It was all Valeria’s doing, I’ve worked with her before, she does things like these to models she doesn’t like, she pays off the makeup artists so they make the models look ugly and she releases their videos online.]

[I used to be a big fan of Valeria, I never knew she was such a terrible person! This model has such a sweet and refreshing beauty, I’ve never seen a face this pure in the modelling industry, guys let’s support her and make sure she gets to rise in this industry.]

[I agree, she looks so warm and sweet I want to keep looking at her face. I’m definitely supporting her.]

[She has my support too.]

[Mine too!!!]

Anne read through hundreds of comments on Jasmine’s phone, not knowing just how she’d gotten here.

She didn’t even know the first video of her with Valeria had been released online, but before that went anywhere this second video of her had instantly countered the first. Now her inst***** account where she posted nothing but cute sunset images had gained hundreds of thousands of followers.

"A billboard Anne, your picture is up on a billboard!!!" Jasmine exclaimed excitedly.

Anne was still lost in a daze of disbelief.

"We have to go there and see it for ourselves, what are you waiting for? Hurry, go get dressed!"

Anne got ready in a daze, no thoughts registered in her mind because she just couldn’t believe it.

What was she supposed to do with this? She didn’t want fame, nor had she ever thought of herself up in a place like that being supported by many just because they liked how she looked.

Jasmine didn’t give her a second to waste and dragged her out of the apartment, what she didn’t expect was to find Donald outside her apartment pacing as he mumbled some inaudible words to himself.

"Who’s that, you know him?" Jasmine asked seeing Anne’s shocked expression.

"Don, what are you doing here?"

Hearing her voice, Donald instantly whirled around. He’d been standing out here for the past twenty minutes thinking about how to ask Anne to the event, seeing her in front of him he was suddenly tongue-tied.

Knowing that if he continued to delay he might just not say it to her at all just like how he’d continuously put off talking to her. He decided to just let it out.

"Be my date to the anniversary party tonight." He blurted without thinking about it.

Biting her lips awkwardly, Anne said, "I’m sorry Don, I won’t be going to the event tonight."

Donald was taken aback.

Was this a rejection?

No, it didn’t seem like it. She wouldn’t go with him was different from she wouldn’t be going at all.

Anne had a crazy week and quite frankly she was exhausted, it wasn’t mandatory for every staff to be there if they couldn’t attend. She’d done everything required of her in the preparations, she was allowed to give some excuse just to escape going right?

Besides, she wasn’t an elite event kind of person. It would be packed with the wealthiest and important people in Verizon, she would have to pull up a lot of energy to go and she wasn’t sure she still had any in her reserve to whip out.

The air suddenly became strangely awkward.