Chapter 36

Eliza finally got the starfruits Braint wanted when she got to the tenth market On the taxi ride back home, she was just about to give Braint a call when she received a call from Graciana instead. “Eliza, that was amazing!” “I just finished watching the battle of the trending list Madeleine lost so badly!” Graciana sighed with mixed feelings. “Mr. Valentine is just too cool!” Eliza had no idea what Graciana was going on about, “What’s that? Battle of the trending list?” “You don’t know what happened?”

Graciana was so shocked that her voice raised an octave. “As one of the protagonists, you had no idea about the intense battle that took place just now?” Confusion was evident on Eliza’s face. “I’ve just gone to ten markets to buy starfruits for my son…” Graciana was at a loss for words. “Are your son’s starfruits more important than your career?” She roared on the other end of the line. “Madeleine almost used you as a stepping stone to get to the top of the trending list!” “Fortunately for you, Mr. Valentine helped you out! Otherwise. you would have become Madeleine’s stepping stone!”

Eliza’s ear hurt from Graciana’s shouting. She held the phone a distance away from her ear. “What exactly happened?” “Go see for yourself!” “I heard that Madeleine spent 1.3 million dollars just to put herself at the top of the trending list.” “Well, she did end up achieving what she started out for, that is, she did come out top of the trending list and had sitewide publicity, but not exactly for the news she had hoped for.” Eliza frowned and quickly logged onto her online account. The first trending post was an article by an account that named “Moon Among the Stars”. She played the video attached with the article and found that it contained the voice recording of her phone call with Madeleine today. She pursed her lips. She had saved a copy of the recording on her computer. Her initial plan was to use it when confronting Madeleine in the future. But now this recording has been published online with her voice masked over? Eliza had no doubt that “Moon Among the Stars” was a stunt by her two naughty sons, Braint and Demarion. Thus, she had the driver make a U-turn and go back to the market again. She was going to reward them with a good meal tonight. When she walked past the fishmonger, she inexplicably thought of Beau.

She was reminded that she owed him a meal. While waiting for the fishmonger to clean the fish, she took her phone out and continued to read the articles online. There had been a complete reversal of the comments online. While the online community had once denounced her, they now showered her with sympathy. Someone had even made a compilation of her videos when she used to work as a stunt double. “This young lady is Eliza Lawson. She is beautiful, dedicated, and most importantly, she isn’t scheming!” Everyone sang praises of Eliza in the comments of that post. Some even said that they hoped to see Eliza becoming an actress. An actress? Eliza smiled faintly and reached over to receive the fish handed to her by the fishmonger. She then strode out of the market. Ever since she decided to be a surrogate mother five years ago, she had given up on all hopes of becoming an actress. She was contented with just being a stunt double. “Mommy!” Back at the villa, Eliza had just opened the door when Demarion rushed out. He stretched his arms out and hugged Eliza, reaching only her thighs. He looked at her with a pair of big, shining eyes. “I heard that your wound had been torn open. I was worried!” Eliza smiled. She crouched down and ruffled his hair gently. “I’m fine now. Don’t worry.”

Demarion nodded with his eyes fixed to the bag of shrimps Eliza held in her hand. “I’ve been worried about you for the entire afternoon. You need to compensate me for it.” Noticing Demarion’s gaze, Eliza couldn’t help but smile. “Shall we have boiled shrimps?” “No!”

Demarion huffed. “I want braised shrimps!”

Eliza ruffled his hair again. “Okay, I’ll prepare it for you right now.” With that, Eliza brought a big bag of ingredients into the kitchen and began to cook. Demarion placed a small stool in front of the kitchen and sat down there in order to be able to taste the shrimps the moment they were ready. Upstairs, Braint had already compiled a video of all relevant information of Eliza working as a stunt double and posted it online while discussion about her was still raging. I Roseane shared the post at once. “She is no less than some actress who has to rely on her boyfriend to land a role.”

That evoked another round of discussion. The online criticism against Madeleine reached its pinnacle.

Madeleine’s agency was spammed by netizens, and they had no choice but to close down the comments section.

That left the netizens with nowhere to vent their anger, so they started to attack Jay’s account instead.

Just before Braint turned off the computer to head downstairs to have a taste of the shrimps, a piece of breaking news appeared: Jay Carr breaks up with Madeleine Robinson and draws a clear line between them. Over with Eliza, as soon as she served the dishes, Graciana’s call came through.

“Eliza, it’s true that evil deeds bring retribution!”

“Madeleine and Jay’s relationship has only been brought to light recently, but they’re now forced to break up! Isn’t that amazing?” Eliza went to check out the news. The information was posted by Jay’s management team. The gist of it was that everything was single-handedly concocted by Madeleine and that she was an immoral and contemptible person. Jay was portrayed as being deceived, and after he got to know about the news, he too was in great agony. As a result, he saw no other option but to break up with Madeleine and was ready to apologize to Eliza. That was a great way of handling the issue. All the blame was put on Madeleine, and Jay came out of it all scot-free. O Upon seeing the news, Eliza scoffed. “They deserve it!” “Madeleine wanted to make you her stepping stone, but who knew that it would lead to her own demise!” Graciana sighed. “Mr. Valentine sure is powerful!” “He is handsome, rich, and most importantly, he holds you dear to his heart.” “Esme would have kicked herself for refusing to marry Mr. Valentine if she learned the truth about him!” “By the way, Mr. Valentine has done so much for you. How are you going to repay him?” Eliza glanced at the dishes laid out on the table. “… made him a fish.” Graciana was stumped. “Eliza, are you kidding me?” “Jay nearly spent 2 million dollars in order to put up against Mr. Valentine. For Mr. Valentine to be able to put Jay in his place so easily, he must have paid much more than that!”

“He has spent so much money for you, and all you made him was… fish?” Eliza’s hand trembled ever so slightly. “He… he spent so much money?” Eliza hadn’t followed the proceedings of Graciana’s so-called “Battle of the trending list”, so she had no inkling that Beau had done so much for her. “Of course! Do you think that it’s easy to control what happens online? That data can be so easily tampered with?

You’ve got to spend big bucks on it!” Eliza bit her lip. “Well…” Indeed, it seems that the fish she made was far from enough to repay his deeds. However, she didn’t have that much money… “Think it over!”

Graciana let out a deep sigh. She had the urge to rush over and give Eliza’s head a good sharp rap.

“Has Mr. Valentine ever asked of anything from you after marriage?” “People like him have no lack of money. What he’s after is your heart!” Eliza thought about it long and hard while making her way upstairs. In the end, she frowned. “He wanted me to take good care of Braint and Demarion.” “Is that all?” “There’s another thing…” “He had Braint sign an agreement with me. To conceive his child within a year.” I Graciana was dumbfounded. “Well, why aren’t you getting ready yet? Show him your sincerity!

Get to work this very night!” .