My Whirlwind Marriage To A Big shot

Chapter 5: The Invisible Hand Scarlett’s POV

I woke up very tired the next morning. I couldn’t sleep properly because all that was on my mind was the identity of the person who sent that message, “It had to be him” I thought. But why did he reach out to me? What does he want? I had tried calling the number but it wasn’t going through.

I had an audition for 9am and it was already 8am, so I could only push these thoughts aside and get ready.

I got to the company shortly and rushed up to Lola’s office. “Lola, I’m so so sorry about last night.” I said as I pushed the door open.

“What happened? When I didn’t see you after a while, I wanted to look for you in your room but someone told me they saw you leaving the hotel.” She said with a look of sincere worry in her eyes.

“Oh yeah, I decided to just go home since I wasn’t feeling well, instead of staying at the hotel.” I lied, I didn’t want to tell Lola what happened because I didn’t want her to get more worried about me.

“Oh, you should have at least informed me or replied to your texts, I was so worried something had happened to you” she chided.

“That aside, it’s 08:30 now and we need to rush over to the audition venue.” she said checking the time on her watch. “This production is a major production, you know? The director is an award winning director and this is going to be one of his biggest projects. If you can get just a supporting role I’m sure with your beauty, you’ll shoot to fame, so you have to give it your all this time around.” she said in one breath.

She said some more words of encouragement before we set out. When we got to the venue, there weren’t many people there. Apparently it was a closed audition, and I only got this opportunity because the producer owed Lola a favor. I was determined to try my best to secure this role.

I was soon called upon and I gave it my best. But I felt it wasn’t enough to get me the role because my mind kept drifting to last night, and I kept getting distracted.

I was going to go home immediately after the audition but I knew Helena wasn’t going to give me the luxury of peace, so I just stayed back in Lola’s office.

Lola noticed I kept getting distracted when she was talking to me about the audition and she asked, “Scarlett, are you okay? You’ve been acting very strange today.”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me. I’m probably just tired from last night.” I said, not wanting her to worry.

“Are you-“ She was interrupted by her phone ringing. “It’s the producer.” she said, “Why is he calling so early”

She picked up the call and after a few seconds she had a strange look on her face. “The producer just called to tell me that you got a role.” she said when she dropped the phone.

I was very surprised because I know I had underperformed earlier but what did she mean by a role. “A role?” I asked

“You got the female lead role” she said with excitement written all over her face. “They must have been so impressed by your acting”

I still couldn’t believe it, something was weird. I knew I had underperformed for the supporting role I auditioned for, so a lead role was just impossible to me. But I kept these thoughts to myself because I didn’t want to spoil the mood.

The next day, I woke up to a call from Lola. She sounded frantic, “Have you seen the news? You’re trending and it’s not in a good way.” She said, clearly agitated.

I quickly checked the new posts on famous blogs.

“NEW STARLET SLEEPS HER WAY TO THE TOP”

“SCARLETT TAYLOR GOES THROUGH THE BACK DOOR TO OBTAIN FEMALE LEAD ROLE”

My face was everywhere, netizens kept cursing me out.

“Lola, I don’t understand what’s going on” I said to Lola who was still on the call.

“You need to make your way to the office right now, we need to sort this out before it gets out of control” She said and hung up.

I quickly got dressed and went downstairs, as I was about to step out of the door I heard Alison’s annoying voice behind me, “Sister, what is this I hear about you sleeping around for roles? You know if you needed some help you could have just begged me, after all we’re family. You really don’t have to sell your body for roles.”

I looked back and glared at her, I just knew she was behind everything. I decided to just ignore her and rush to the company.

“Lola, I really don’t understand what is going on.” I said as I pushed the door open.

“It’s all gone” she said

“Huh, what is gone?” I was confused.

“All the negative news about you. Disappeared, like it wasn't on the headlines less than an hour ago.

“How is that possible?” I said with surprise written on my face.

“You tell me. Do you have some powerful big shot backing you that I don’t know about?” she asked with suspicion in her eyes.

“Of course not, Lola. You think if some big shot took a liking to me, you wouldn’t know about it? Maybe it’s the production team of the new project that helped me.” I said

“Oh, that’s possible too. They obviously won’t want anything causing a backlash for their project." She said, “Speaking of the project, we have to sign the contracts today.”

“Oh” I said absent mindedly. My mind was still on the entire scandal thing and the role that was given to me. It all looked suspicious, like someone was behind it. First I was given the lead role for a major project, when I knew my performance at the audition was only so-so. Then this scandal of me disappearing without a trace, it was all too good to be true.

“Lola I’m going to get some coffee, what should I get for you?” I said, I wanted to just go out and get some fresh air.

“The usual.” she said

“Okay then, I’ll be back in a bit” I said and hurried off

As I stood in front of the company wanting to cross the street, a black maybach stopped in front of me and rolled the back windows down.

When I saw who was seated at the back seat, I gasped in shock.