His Naughty Lessons-Chapter 288: His Girl

** Eli **

Eli stopped, an arm’s length away from Harper. She stopped as well. Then they both turned to where the sound had come from.

Emory was dusting off her palm, rubbing it on her dress with a sickened face as if she had just touched something dirty and revolting. Vanessa was clutching her cheek with one hand, eyes wide as she stared at the younger woman standing across from her.

The entire hall fell into stunned silence.

"... You bitch!!" Finally, Vanessa recovered enough from her shock to remember to shriek. "How dare you!"

"You just stole my line there. I mean, lines, both of them." The black-dressed girl stabbed her fellow heiress with a dark look, and a surprising dose of lethal anger shone through her eyes. "How dare you wiggle into the spotlight and utter all that nonsense, when my father’s announcement has absolutely nothing to do with you? How dare you slander my brother with such absurd innuendos and then call me names when I defend him? Who the hell do you think you are?"

Vanessa stared at the younger woman, still steaming in fury, and it apparently took a few moments for those words to fully register. She blinked a few times in confusion before turning her gaze to a man standing behind the podium — her father, the president of Voyage Bank — as if unsure whether she had just heard everything right.

Obviously, she had no idea who Emory was, and it was only the awkward look on her father’s face that confirmed the fact she needed to know.

"I have no idea where you got those baseless rumors from," Emory continued. "They are not even that creative, you know. Kind of cliché and boring. Maybe you’re simply assuming based on your own experiences — self projections are common when it comes to speculating other people’s motives. But anyway, no thanks to that, the rest of us can see things for ourselves just fine. All it takes is to look out the window," — she waved at the high glass panels lining the upper walls beside them — "that’s the project sponsored by Sterling’s latest partnership deal right there, if anyone wants to judge its ’professional quality’!"

The crowd’s attention turned to the direction she was pointing at. Eli was about to follow suit, when he suddenly remembered that the windows beside them ... were facing east, opening right up to an unobstructed view of the harbor centering on the city billboard.

The billboard that was playing the full trailer for the Miracles project right now, attracting countless passersby to stop in the middle of their waterfront strolls and look up at the screen. Even from a window on the fiftieth floor, it was easy to see the curious audience gathered in clusters all along the harborwalk, watching the dramatic advertisement with clear interest.

And the same cinematic effect had also succeeded in immediately catching the attention of the gala guests, even earning a few amazed gasps from the younger attendees.

At that moment, Eli’s favorability toward his unwanted half-sister instantly reached ninety-nine percent, and it threatened to inch up to a hundred when he saw her smile at the ending credits on the screen displayed in bold fonts — Chief Architect: Harper McKenzie.

It was a smile that shared the same type of pride he had always felt himself toward that name. A smile that reminded him it was now time to make his own speech and let the feeling be known.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce you." Eli finished the last two strides toward his girl just as the trailer cycle ended, lifting her hands in his and brushing a formal kiss over her knuckles. "This beautiful lady you asked of is Harper McKenzie, chief architect at Miracles Gaming, who I also happen to have the honor to call my girlfriend. Since I’ve only recently returned to Davenshire, most of you might not know this, but Harper and I grew up together. We’ve met each other’s parents long ago, and as you can see, she is a close friend of my sister as well."

Emory had earned that title. For now. He didn’t bother to see what his father’s reaction might be to that, though, and he didn’t care to honor Vanessa’s slandering with so much as a comment.

A sea of murmurs rose from the crowd again. This time, Eli knew that there would be sincere congratulations from his loyal partners, as well as questioning speculations from the elite businessmen that had no eyes for true beauty or talent. But he didn’t care. Gossips were bound to exist in a social circle like this. As long as they knew who his girl was, as long as they knew what she meant to him, the rest of their opinions didn’t matter.

Harper, on the other hand, looked a little ... surprised, as he proudly finished his declaration. "Did you really just say that?" she asked, darting a confused look at the other two women who had just put up a huge drama show. "Is this ... really a good time to be announcing this?"

"Hmm? Why, that was the whole point of the gala tonight, remember?" Eli smoothed out a stray flyaway on her forehead, wondering what had gotten into her during the short time she was gone. Well, at least the troubled look on her face was fading quickly by the minute now, which he was thankful for. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

"Oh," Harper mumbled quietly. "I thought ... wasn’t the announcement just now about you and—"

"So what, if you’ve got a little show going on the billboard?" Vanessa’s shriek tore through the crowd again, interrupting the couple’s private conversation. "Don’t start dreaming so soon yet! For a mass consumption product like this, how far do you think you can get without the cooperation of every advertisement channel? And remember who runs the largest funding in the city for media, even including the convention center!" She glared haughtily at Harper, then Emory. "Just you wait — it’s too early for anyone to celebrate!"