Chapter 115: The Number
Chapter 115: The Number
It was a secluded alleyway. About ten meters to the left was the main street. Just as Eric led the young woman out of the alley, a thin figure suddenly darted over.
After being thrown out of the theater lobby by security, Witt realized Eric had not come out through the front entrance and decisively rushed over to the back exit instead. Both Eric and Jennifer were complete amateurs when it came to dealing with paparazzi. They had only thought of using the back door strategy and completely underestimated how crafty paparazzi could be.
Witt did not care that Eric had come out through the rear exit. This time, he did not take photos, because the camera already contained plenty of intimate pictures of the two together. That was more than enough.
Holding a tape recorder toward Eric, Witt asked, “Eric, is Miss Jennifer Connelly your new girlfriend?”
Eric did not answer. He simply grabbed Jennifer Connelly’s hand and quickened his pace toward the parking lot. Unfortunately, the young woman was wearing high heels, which meant she could not move very fast.
Witt followed closely beside Eric, persistently continuing his questions.
“Eric, why did you come watch Road House? Are you worried it’ll threaten the box office performance of Pretty Woman?”
“Eric, when will Running Out of Time begin filming? Are Cruise and Hanks also facing strong resistance from CAA just like Richard Gere did back then?”
Although Eric was inexperienced with paparazzi, he firmly remembered the most useful rule: no matter what sudden paparazzi asked, or how provocatively they behaved, the best response was to say absolutely nothing.
Because no matter what you said, paparazzi would twist it according to their own intentions anyway.
Seeing that Eric was giving him nothing, Witt decisively shifted his target.
“Jennifer, when did you start dating Eric? Don’t you mind that Eric already has another girlfriend named Jennifer?”
“Jennifer, are you going to play the female lead in Running Out of Time?”
“Jennifer, are you moving into Eric’s Beverly Hills mansion?”
“……”
Faced with Witt’s increasingly pressing questions, irritation gradually appeared on Jennifer’s face. Just as she was about to snap back at him, Eric had already pulled her over to the Lamborghini, opened the car door, and quickly stuffed her inside.
“Hey, Eric, treating Miss Jennifer this roughly, does that mean the two of you actually aren’t dating? Then what exactly is your relationship? Some kind of transaction? Eric? Eric—”
The Lamborghini’s scissor door slammed shut. Witt could only pound on the sports car window while shouting his questions louder and louder. Unfortunately, he was destined to receive no answers.
The sports car slowly started up and quickly disappeared into traffic.
Throughout the drive, Jennifer Connelly kept her head lowered in silence.
Eric was neither a gentleman nor a particularly patient man. Originally, he had planned to take the young woman completely tonight in one go.
Unfortunately, after what had just happened, many of the paparazzo’s questions had heavily implied some sort of transaction between a female actress and a male director. Considering Jennifer’s feelings, Eric could only temporarily give up.
It was not as though Eric had not considered paying Witt off to buy the negatives and shut him up. After all, Witt was only a single paparazzo.
But setting aside the fact that the man had kept his recorder running the entire time, leaving Eric no chance to negotiate, there were also considerable risks involved. If the price negotiations failed and the bribery attempt backfired, what had originally been nothing more than a small matter of watching a movie together could instead become an even bigger scandal.
The Lamborghini stopped in front of Jennifer’s hotel. The young woman remained quietly seated there without rushing to open the door and get out, as though hesitating over something.
Eric did not urge her. His fingers danced lightly over the steering wheel like he was playing piano keys. He assumed the young woman had been frightened by what happened earlier and simply needed time to calm down.
“Mr. Williams…”
After a while, Jennifer Connelly finally raised her head and, for the first time, gathered the courage to meet Eric’s eyes directly. However, there was now a hint of distance in her tone.
“You haven’t broken up with that girl named Jennifer Aniston, have you?”
Eric’s fingers suddenly stopped moving across the steering wheel.
After hesitating for a moment, he still nodded.
“That’s right.”
Although she had not held much hope to begin with, disappointment still surfaced across Jennifer Connelly’s face.
“Then, Mr. Williams, I think… perhaps I’m not very suitable for the role in Running Out of Time. You should consider someone else.”
“If it’s because of what that paparazzo said earlier, Jennifer, I won’t bother you anymore in the future.”
Eric casually made the promise, having already decided to stabilize the young woman first and think about everything else later.
As expected, a conflicted expression appeared on Jennifer Connelly’s face. But in the end, her pride still overcame her desire for fame and fortune.
“I’m sorry, Eric. Even if nothing happens between us in the future, those newspapers will still gossip and speculate. I don’t want people seeing me as… that kind of woman.”
Eric stared at the young woman for quite a while before finally saying:
“All right. As you wish.”
Although he was domineering, he was not a tyrant. Since Jennifer Connelly was this determined, Eric no longer insisted.
Yet upon hearing those words, Jennifer Connelly showed no happiness whatsoever. She knew exactly what giving up this role meant. Most likely, her career would remain stuck in a slump for a long time afterward.
Just as the young woman was about to push open the door and leave, Eric suddenly stopped her.
“Jennifer, wait a moment.”
Jennifer reluctantly sat back down and looked at him in confusion.
Eric searched through all his pockets for quite a while but could not find a business card or anything similar. In the end, he simply grabbed the young woman’s handbag, pulled out a lipstick, forcibly took her somewhat resistant hand, and quickly wrote down a string of numbers on it.
“This is my home number. If you ever need any help in the future, you can call me anytime.”
Jennifer stared at the line of Arabic numerals on her hand. In the end, she still nodded and quietly thanked him before opening the car door and leaving.
Only after walking all the way into the hotel lobby did Jennifer Connelly dare glance back once. The Lamborghini was still parked there.
The young woman quickly turned away again.
After returning to her hotel room, she felt a faint sense of exhaustion. Setting her handbag onto the coffee table, she pulled down the zipper behind her dress and slipped out of it before walking into the bathroom wearing only her underwear.
Turning on the faucet, the young woman lowered her head and blankly stared at the string of numbers on her hand. Several times, she reached toward the water, yet each time she could not bear to wash them away.
In the end, she softly sighed, returned to the living room, found her address book, copied the number down, and only then went back into the bathroom to continue bathing.
More than twenty minutes later, wearing a bathrobe and drying her damp hair with a towel, the young woman returned to the living room just in time to hear knocking at the door.
“Janie, I just heard from one of the staff that you came back. Why are you back already?”
Agent Lester carried an uneasy premonition in his heart, and his tone sounded nervous.
“Sorry, Jim. I just turned down that role.”
“Y-You…”
The bad feeling in Lester’s heart became reality. His lips trembled several times before finally collapsing into a defeated sigh.
“Janie, you were too impulsive. Do you know how many girls submitted applications to Firefly hoping to get that role? More than 2,800. But only a little over 200 even received audition opportunities. I heard Eric Williams even rejected several Hollywood A-list actresses. Just listen to those numbers and you’ll understand how lucky you were.”