His Naughty Lessons-Chapter 278: Elite Circle

** Eli **

Eli spent the next few days reexamining the undesirable situation he had found himself in. But the more he pondered it, the less certain he felt about what Vanessa could possibly want from this.

As much as he despised his father, he didn’t think the old man would be capable of carrying out a stunt such as promising a marriage arrangement to the Voyager president. That would just backfire in too many ways, and judging from Vanessa’s attitude at the baseball game, it wasn’t likely that she would merrily agree to such an outrageous proposal either.

So that shouldn’t be the type of "regret" waiting for them at the gala. But then what could it be? Was it some kind of plan to retaliate against the embarrassing scene at the baseball game ... by making Harper feel uncomfortable at the event?

The thought of such a possibility didn’t sit well with Eli at all.

It was quite a likely possibility, though. Harper wasn’t part of the finance circle, nor did she come from a rich business family. This was her first time at an event like this, and it wasn’t hard to imagine that a number of "elite" members born into this society would see her as an unwelcome outsider. If anyone wanted to make a scene to let her feel awkward, this could very reasonably be a good crowd to do it at.

But then again, if Vanessa thought Harper could be bullied so easily, she was delusional. Eli trusted his ability to protect his girl. More than that, he trusted the girl herself. She was smart, and she knew her own self worth. A few words from a shallow rich heiress wasn’t going to daunt her.

Having reassured himself of such, he decided against mentioning to Harper the troubling news from their annoying adversary — with the deadline right within reach, the poor girl had enough to deal with on her plate already, and he really couldn’t bear to bother her with any more distracting news.

So instead, he bothered her with an extra large bundle of flowers to add to their bedroom. Not really for the romantic vibe this time, but for the natural oils to help with their sleep and remind them of the relaxing weekend. He felt accomplished when Harper slept so well the very first night of its arrival that she actually snored.

In the middle of the week, they took an hour out of their precious short evening and paid a final visit to the designer salon, where Harper picked up her dress. Even after multiple fitting trips, Eli still couldn’t stop feeling overwhelmed by how stunningly gorgeous she looked in that personalized gown. Despite the slight unpleasantry coming from Vanessa, he was looking forward more and more to the evening of the gala, when he could finally see her fully dressed up to take his breath away for the entire night.

Then, on Friday afternoon, when the week was drawing to an end at last, his phone rang just before he was ready to step out of the office.

"Eli! Are you still at work? Look out the window!" Harper’s excited voice came through the speaker. There was a chaos of noises behind her as if she was in the middle of a party. "Guess what’s on the harborside billboard right now?"

A huge grin spread across Eli’s lips as he heard the question. He already knew the answer, of course. Taking three large strides to his window, he pulled the blinds fully open and looked toward the harbor.

The sun was at the perfect angle now, tossing sparkling glitters all over the ocean waves yet at the same time, not blurring the billboard with its bright golden light. And there, on the enormous display that was one of the biggest landmarks of the city, a trailer was playing, currently right in the middle of a dramatic scene where two starfighters engaged in a dazzling exchange of stunt maneuvers and crossfires.

"I see it. The civil war scene?" Eli couldn’t hide the pride in his voice. "That’s the special effect you were chatting with Future Vision about last time, isn’t it?"

"Yes! It’s one of my favorite missions!" Harper all but screamed into the phone, as the noise behind her was growing louder and louder. "I can’t believe how good it looks on a big screen. This is just our trial run, we get fifteen minutes today to see how it all works out before it officially goes live tomorrow night. But that’s pretty nice, isn’t it? I think it captured the battle feel quite well!"

"Of course it did." For a huge billboard, it was hard to get technical details such as zoom and perspective right, and it was impressive how their team had done it so well right at the first try. "Too bad I can’t hear the music from here, I bet that would be even more dramatic."

"Oh, the music is actually not on today for the preview." Harper sounded a bit disappointed as well. "But tomorrow it will be, and the day after tomorrow. We should go watch it then!"

As they spoke, the scene on the big screen changed to an explorer trekking across an unknown planet. The overhead camera followed the figure, closer and closer until it swooped past above it, and the visual opened up to a panoramic view of the alien world, wild with dunes and strange rock formations, molten lava and impassable icecaps extending to the end of the same horizon.

The crowd on the other side of the phone cheered, and Harper cheered with them as a large slogan appeared on top of the scene: Join us. On a bold adventure none has ever envisioned before.

For the second time, Eli couldn’t help the smile growing wider and wider across his lips. Yes, that was Harper, with her brilliant and daring mind to have forged this new path where no one had gone before.

Whoever dared to think that she didn’t belong in an "elite circle" should bury themselves in shame.