The Betrayal

Is she back?

As soon as everyone realized that it was Elena auditioning instead of Leah, Michael-Leah's manager ushered her off stage and tried to put back her mask. Unfortunately, many people had already recorded the performance and uploaded the videos on V-tube. Meanwhile, Nico showed Liam what was going on and informed him that Elena's audition had gone viral. As he watched the video, he was amazed by how much of a good actress his wife was. Liam then took out his phone to make a call.

The videos caught the attention of various media outlets and many reporters were waiting for her outside to give a statement.

Instead of following Micheal to the parking lot, Elena got off at the ground floor and was met by Lily. "Everyone I called is here, but other reporters came after seeing the videos online," Lily said as she gave Elena a wet wipe to remove the excessive makeup she had worn to look like Leah. It was easy to mistake them both since they had the same build and their complexion was also similar, but despite all their similarities their makeup preference was very different, Elena preferred to wear a natural no-makeup kind of look and Leah liked bold makeup.

A swarm of reporters approached her as soon as she stepped out of the building, blocking her from leaving. Reporter 1" Elena does this mean that you are coming back to be onscreen?", Reporter 2" Does this count as an announcement that you are back?", Reporter 3" Elena, what should your fans expect from you?" At the time multiple employees had come out and helped make way for her to reach her van. As soon as they entered the van, Lily received a call from Jack. "Should I answer him?" she asked Elena, "No, don't bother", with those words Lily sighed with relief which made Elena look at her puzzled. "Did you think I would go back to him if he called?" she said with a look of amusement, "Nooo" she said "But it's not easy to go from love to hate like you did. I guess I had some doubts, but after seeing this, I have no more." Elena smiled at her and said, "I am going to meet my in-laws this weekend, so if he keeps calling you just say you don't know where I am."

When she reached home, Elena found Liam sitting in the living room with what looked like work documents. She went to the stairway that led to the rooms when Liam called out to her "Not even gonna hi?" "You looked busy," she said as she smiled at herself, walked to the living room, and sat across from him. "Not very busy." He said, "Besides, what kind of husband is too busy to greet his wife?" he continued as he put the papers he was reading down to look at her. "Not you, I imagine." She replied with a sweet smile. "I was thinking...what if your family doesn't like me?" she said with a hint of worry, "You don't have to worry about them, as long as my grandfather likes you they can't do anything," he answered. "No pressure I guess," she said softly as she got up to leave.

Elena couldn't stop thinking about Liam's comment about his grandfather. She wondered if there was more to it since he had gone out of his way and married a stranger just to appease him. As any sensible person would, she looked up Liam and his entire family.

Father: Alex, 50 years old, suffers from Energetic Efficiency Syndrome (EES)*. This made it hard for him to do physically demanding work as he felt tired easily. He became his father's advisor instead of taking over the business.

Mother: Anna, 50 years old. Owns a law firm where she worked before the passing of her mother-in-law.

Brother: Sean, 26 years old. He works as Liam's vice.

Sister: Ava, 25 years old. Typical party girl and a wannabe actress.

She couldn't find out much about his grandparents except that his grandmother had recently passed.

Meanwhile, Jack was losing his mind as he couldn't get in touch with Elena. He continued to pace around in his office and make call after call to Elena but with no luck. The news was doing no good to him feel better as all anyone was talking about was Elena's possible comeback. "Would you look at this" Leah said in an aggravated tone, "these fans really have nothing to do." "What are you talking about " he said to her. "It's better if you see it," she said as she gave him her phone. Nothing would have prepared him for what he saw, on the screen was a fan page with a couple million posts about how Elena was forced to retire, how she was the best actress to ever debut under Starr Entertainment, and how the company was stupid to take her off-screen. At the bottom was a petition with over five million signatures for Elena to come out of retirement and take on the role that she had portrayed in the audition.

All of that made Leah very mad. "I knew she was jealous of me," she said in a cutesy tone, "you should fire her for causing this commotion." To Leah, having Jack to herself was the ultimate goal, he was the person who could give her any role she desired no matter what.

As they were talking, they heard a knock on the door. "Come in," he said. His secretary entered and walked up to him, "The board members have come and are asking for your presence in the conference room" she said. This shocked both Jack and Leah as it was the first time they all came without a meeting scheduled. He put on his suit jacket and followed her out, "Stay here" he said to Leah before he walked out the door.

The atmosphere in the conference room was tense. When Jack sat down, everyone was looking at him with either dissatisfaction or anger in their eyes. "It was our understanding that retiring Elena would not affect this company negatively" Oliver started "But how is it that less than two years later our stock has gone down by half at the public is unhappy with us." Other members looked at him expecting an answer from him, but he had none. It had been Leah's idea to take her off-screen at her prime, and at the time it seemed to have worked. When he took too long to answer a tablet was placed before him, on the screen was an article titled "Is she back?" with a picture of Elena underneath. "So, Jack" Sandra said "How do you answer that" Is she back?"