Throughout the dinner, Roman carefully watched the interaction between his brother and Valentina. Many people thought that because he was cheerful and outgoing, he was to be taken lightly. But the Grayson family was strict in their way of raising their children and he had gotten the exact training that Kaiser had gotten.
His brother who was usually indifferent to the charms of women was attentively grilling short ribs for a woman. The same woman who he had moved into the house that hadn’t had any woman in there since ‘she’ died.
Watching both Luca and Kaiser pay attention to her during the meal, Roman wondered what it was about her. Sure, she was beautiful and made people want to protect her with her frailness but that was common to them. As someone who was part of the upper class and even owned an entertainment company, beautiful faces were a dime a dozen. He and his brother had seen every type of beauty, from cute soft-spoken types to fiercely beautiful ones.
It couldn’t be her beauty alone that would cause Kaiser to warn their parents away.
“Uncle do you want some ribs?” a soft voice asked him. Roman looked down and saw Luca looking at him while holding out a piece of meat. His large green eyes were sparkling as he happily looked at Valentina every few seconds.
"Of course my baby Luca. Uncle will take whatever you give me." Roman smiled while excitedly holding out his plate.
Seeing Luca smile happily while placing some meat on his plate, Roman felt his heart warm. Maybe this was the reason Kaiser wanted to tie her down. His nephew was a child of few smiles once he turned two. Seeing his cute smile as he looked at Valentina, he couldn’t help but think they looked like mother and son with their matching bear sweaters. And then there was the grumpy father bear in the background.
Pulling out his phone, Roman was about to take a couple of photos but paused when he saw the simultaneous glare from Kaiser and Valentina.
“I'm just sending a picture of Luca to mom and dad. Can't I even do that?” Roman protested.
“Leave me out of it.”
“Leave her out of it.”
The two commanded him simultaneously.
Roman: “……..”
Brother. Sister-in-law. Do you two have to be so in sync?
“Brother, who do you think I am? Of course, I know that much!” Roman protested. He wasn’t the type to go against his brother when he was fighting with their parents.
“Send it when you get home,” Kaiser ordered.
“Brother...?” Roman whineed but Kaiser simply stared at him.
“Don’t think I don’t know why you want to post it now. It seems you don’t want to take a vacation this year, right? And you plan on working triple overtime for free with no bonus? How kind of you to save the company some money. Shall I announce your altruistic deeds to our shareholders?” Kaiser threated with a large smile.
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Seeing that Kaiser had seen through his ruse of sending the photo to their parents, so they ‘accidentally’ showed up, Roman gave a sheepish grin.
“Sorry Brother.”
“No apologies needed, cook your own meat and then find your own way home.”
Seeing Kaiser place a perfectly grilled piece of wagyu beef on Valentina's plate, Roman felt like he could cry.
Forgetting that he had tried to plot against her, he quickly turned to Valentina with tears in his eyes, “Sister-in-lawwwwww. You have to help me! You have to save me!"
Valentina gently placed a piece of beef in her mouth and closed her eyes to savor it as it melted. Mmmm, how delicious. Done eating it, she glanced at Roman through the side of her eyes. She had perfectly understood what Kaiser was insinuating. Roman was setting her up to see their parents, something she absolutely did not want.
Seeing Kaiser scold him, she totally agreed. It was time to correct his behavior. She grabbed another cooked piece of beef piece, blew on it, and handed it to Luca before responding,
“I’ve told you repeatedly to stop calling me sister-in-law, my name is Valentina. Since you tried to plot me, directly collect your punishment. If you want to beg somebody beg your brother. There’s no need to be shouting at me all the time.”
Ignoring him, she gently placed another piece of beef on Kaiser's plate, “Don’t just feed Luca and me. Make sure you eat some too. This one is particularly tasty.”
“If you like it so much, I’ll definitely order some more for you. Look forward to it.” Kaiser replied with a soft smile.
“Mmmm.”
Seeing the happy family unit in front of him, Roman wanted to cry. It seemed that the saying ‘when you gain a stepmother you also gain a stepfather’ was true. He conveniently decided to forget that Kaiser was his brother and not his father. And that he had tried to plot against him.
'Mother, it seems your son will have some difficulty performing the task you asked me' Roman could feel a phantom pain in his ears as he remembered his mother's nagging voice.
After some time as he struggled to cook for himself, a slender hand placed some meat on his plate and he saw Valentina looking away. Feeling touched by her care, Roman felt his eyes water. It seemed somebody still loved him
"Don't feed him. He's like a stray animal that will keep coming back if you do." Kaiser's cold voice quickly brought him down to earth.
"Look at how he's burning the meat. He can't eat that."
"He can and will."
Looking at the deadly expression hidden behind a smile on Kaiser's face, Roman gulped before turning to Valentina with a suck-up smile. She was the only one full of friendliness and warmth among his sharklike family members. She was the one he had to follow.
***
----------------------------------------
Valentina decided to do some work housekeeping when she got back from dinner.
First, she checked her post and saw that although a lot of the comments were bashing her, she had secured over 5,000 likes. Additionally, her followers had increased by a couple of thousand people.
“Yo system, where’s my reward?”
[Ding!]
[Hidden Task Completed!]
[Hidden Task – Gain the acknowledgment of at least 5 reporters on the red carpet and gain over two thousand likes on a post!]
[Reward: Gain the skill to gracefully walk or run in heels with no discomfort or pain.]
[Skill drawn! Expert While Wearing Heels]
[Effect: Host becomes able to comfortably wear heels of any height as if they were the most comfortable flats. Adverse effects such as foot swelling, chaffing, pinching, and blisters will all be avoided only while heels are on.]
[The effect will be automatically applied]
“Score!” Valentina wanted to cheer. Now the embarrassing moment when she had fallen, and Rio had to help her would not happen again. Look out world of heels, here I come!
Thinking about the Fallen Angels, she decided to look through her email to see if any updates had been sent. She figured the editing should have been completed but she hadn’t seen anything posted on any of the official pages.
Surprisingly, the first thing she saw was an audition request. One of the producers Director Cranston had introduced her to at the Spring Love screening had auditions coming up for an artistic historical period piece called His Fair Lady. It was based on a famous historical romance novel by the same name, but the director wanted to add some twists.
The role was for the second female lead, a fiercely beautiful tomboy-like character who was a juxtaposition to the female lead. Where the female lead was innocent, she was explicitly sexual. Where the female lead was elegant and soft-spoken, she was fierce and tomboyish. She snuck around, wore pants, drank alcohol, ran around with the men, and generally caused trouble for the male and female leads due to her personality and jealousy.
The male lead originally liked her character since they grew up together. But when he meets his fiancée, he falls in love with his fiancée's womanly charm and starts to think that the second female lead is crude and distances himself from her. Conflict arose as she bullied the female lead relentlessly and made her life miserable since she saw evidence of the female lead plotting to betray the male lead. After a big fight with the female lead, the second female lead asked the male lead to choose between the two. He didn’t choose her, so she left.
The email said that was part 1 of the drama and depending on the success, it would be renewed for another season that would focus on a deeper backstory of the female lead and why she was targeting the male lead. Ideally, the drama would be a lovers to enemies back to lovers situation with the male and female lead choosing each other at the end. Of course, the villainous second female lead was supposed to die off as part of the plot.
As Valentina read through the script, she couldn’t help but think that this was a more violent version of her role in Spring Love. Was she destined to be a villain forever?