Nicolas stared at his phone, completely floored. 10 vouchers ‘Seriously? Did Alicia just block me? How did I end up making her this mad?‘ Nicolas thought, completely confused. Even during their worst fights or the longest cold wars, she’d never blocked him before. The constant busy signal just meant he’d been blocked. Nicolas couldn’t help himself. He immediately started borrowing phones from other crew members, trying to call Alicia. ***** Meanwhile, Alicia was at home, reviewing the new contract Jason had just sent her. Her phone rang. She saw an unfamiliar number on the screen. She answered, “Hello?” On the other end, Nicolas’s voice came through, a little hesitant. “Hey.” Alicia wasn’t surprised to get Nicolas’s call. He’d probably already heard she was leaving the company. She didn’t want to deal with him right now, so she just hung up. Nicolas was about to ask her why she was quitting, but before he could say anything, she’d already ended the call. He blinked, thinking maybe the crappy signal had dropped the call. He dialed again, but he noticed that she’d blocked him. He couldn’t help but feel a little panicked. He grabbed two more phones from the crew and tried calling her again, but Alicia ignored every call. That was when Nicolas finally got it. This was way bigger than he’d imagined. It wasn’t just a simple misunderstanding. After a while, Liam called Nicolas. He said he’d found out that Alicia was going to the company the next day to sign the papers and officially end her contract. When Nicolas heard that, he couldn’t stay put for another second, He rushed to the director, asked for some time off, and immediately headed down the mountain, telling his driver to take him straight back to Solmare. Once his phone finally got a decent signal, he checked X and the trending topics from before. He even listened to the call recording between Alicia and Haley. Then he checked the comments and saw a ton of people dragging Alicia, accusing her of faking ties to the Hammond family heiress. He also found out from the comments that Alicia had actually gotten hurt during her performance and had to go to the 1/3 2:14 pm pp Chapter 13

hospital. 𝔀ŴŴ.𝘯𝔬𝕍é𝕃𝓌ℴ𝓻𝑚.𝕔𝔬⒨10 vouchers The worst part was that he had no idea she was in the hospital, so he never even reached out to check on her or go see her. And the next day, he went to Nicole’s gala instead. 𝓦w𝔀.𝓃ⓞ𝓿𝔢ⓛ𝚠𝕆𝗿𝓂.c𝔬𝗠‘No wonder she’s so pissed that she blocked me and hung up on me,‘ Nicolas thought. And the reason Alicia blew up online was that Nicole posted that photo of them together. 𝕨𝘄𝓦.𝕟𝕆𝓥ℯⓛ𝓦𝑜r𝘮.⒞𝕠𝚖Nicolas’s grip on his phone tightened, his expression turning grim. He’d been stuck filming in the mountains for over half a year, with barely any signal, so he barely knew what was going on in the outside world, let alone any online drama. He honestly had no idea Alicia was getting roasted online for allegedly pretending to be the Hammond family heiress. Now, he just had one question. ‘Are the people in the company’s PR department even alive?‘ Normally, when something like this happened, the PR team was supposed to do damage control and clear things up for their artists. But when it came to Alicia, the PR team didn’t even bother to do any damage control. They just let things spiral out of control and watched her get trashed online. And that whole conversation between Alicia and Haley was seriously messed up. Alicia even said Haley made her take the fall for the rest of the girls in LUMIA. He’d always known Alicia didn’t really get along with the other four girls in the group, But according to Haley, it was mostly because Alicia was just too blunt and stubborn, so they never really clicked. 𝘸𝘄𝓌.𝓃ôⓥ𝓮𝚕𝘄ô𝓻m.⒞𝔬𝚖Nicolas never really thought much of it. After all, Alicia only got into showbiz because she was following him. She never took it that seriously. If she couldn’t fit in or things got too tough, she could just walk away. Honestly, both Nicolas and her family always felt that showbiz wasn’t the right place for her. In Nicolas’s mind, once Alicia and he got married, she could live the high–society life as a socialite, or go out and pursue something else if she wanted. But he never expected there was so much more going on beneath the surface. He hit play on the recording again, He heard Alicia’s voice, icy and indifferent. “As for Nicolas, it’s not like we’re close. Why should I care if he’s happy?” Nicolas’s heart tightened, and he shut his eyes, feeling restless and annoyed. No matter what, he was determined to rush back and stop Alicia from quitting the company. This time, he’d personally reach out to the higher–ups and the PR team, making sure they kept an eye on Alicia and had her back.