so I recently heard of this cool new thing called actually updating and I've decided to give it a try seeing as I have slightly more time during the holidays
enjoy! :)
Chapter Ten: Spotlight
"Shh, don't expose our crown prince, we still need him to rule the country."
Reese twirled in front of her floor-length mirror, admiring the way the light shimmered on her dark green dress. "This is gorgeous," she breathed out, turning this-way and that-way in order to fully view the dress's beauty. Tonight was the first Report, the first time Illea would be getting to know the Selected, so she had to make sure everything was perfect.
Nobody would ever hear her say it out loud, but the undeniable truth was that she was nervous. There were no butterflies; it was more like a parade of elephants, stomping around in her stomach and giving her the jitters. But she shouldn't have been so nervous. She was far more used to the spotlight than most of the Selected, and she could only imagine how badly some of her new 'friends' would mess up.
As she sat down, allowing one of her maids to brush out her golden locks, she stared at herself in the mirror. She couldn't help but notice the tired bags under her own eyes, barely visible beneath the concealer. She tried to smile, but it was obvious to her that it wasn't real, though she supposed to an outsider everything would appear perfect.
A few months ago, her life was about as picturesque as it could get. But this would be her first real media appearance since the Carvers' fall from grace. This was her chance to get everything back… or lose it all again.
Reese locked eyes with the mirror again and this time she appeared somewhat happier. It was far from perfect, but it would have to do.
"There. You're all set, Lady Reese." Her head maid stepped back, as if admiring her own work. Reese often thought about how lucky her maids were to have somebody naturally photogenic to work with. She was grateful for them too. Thanks to their handiwork, she shone compared to the rest of the Selected.
"Thank you, hon'." Reese stood up, inspecting herself in the mirror one last time. She looked beautiful, she really did. Illea — and Prince Alistair — wouldn't know what had hit them.
Reese left the room, waving to Halynn as she passed her. "You ready?" she asked her friend.
Halynn grinned. "This can't be worse than my oral exams. Give a fake answer that people will like. No problem."
"I don't think that's how oral exams are supposed to work," Reese joked back. "Is Hell-iard failing that badly?"
"Wow, you actually know what an oral exam is? I'm so impressed. Never would've expected that from Croy-dumb."
This was how a typical conversation went for Reese and Halynn. Although Reese hated talking about her history at Croyden Prep, her old school, Halynn had never pried for any information, and the two found it fun to argue about the rival schools. They had bonded quickly and Reese knew it was a good idea to get on Halynn's good side.
It was no secret to the Selected that Halynn and Alistair were close. Many times when Halynn or her friends had been missing, Reese had heard the discussions in the Women's Room (and maybe joined in, too). Brownie points with Halynn meant brownie points with Alistair, and Reese needed those if she was going to make it far in this competition. She was just grateful that he didn't seem to remember what had happened to him years ago, otherwise she would be screwed.
Apparently, Reese wasn't as early as she'd hoped. When she and Halynn arrived there were only four spots left, none of which were next to each other. Without hesitating, Reese headed straight towards the only available seat in the front row, in between Victoria and Aeri.
The Report set was much more chaotic than she'd been expecting. Alistair was talking to the king and queen in hushed tones at the side, and kept on looking at a chair at the side of the stage, which she guessed had been prepared for him. Aaden Althuis, the Report host, was pacing back and forth next to two sofas in the middle of the stage. From where she was sitting, at the opposite side, she couldn't even see all the cameras, but she knew there were at least 10 that were ready to film their every movement.
In the five minutes that remained before their airtime, the last two Selected — Raisa and Mona — came in, and everybody took their positions on the stage. Reese felt a thrill as she realized that she was about to appear on the Illea Capital Report. She'd been on television before, obviously, but the Report was another level.
The countdown started, and she put on her most charming smile as Aaden began talking to the camera.
"Welcome to this week's Illea Capital Report!" Reese took a deep breath. She could do this. She could win the hearts of all of Illea, no problem. "Today is very special, as we have the Selected here for the very first time! We will be hearing from all of them individually today. They will be speaking in a completely random order, and you will have the chance to listen to them and figure out who our next queen of Illea may be."
Aaden picked up an upturned fedora from the ground, walked over to Alistair, and held it out to him. "Your Highness, please take this hat and pull a name from it."
As Alistair reached into the hat, Reese silently prayed that it was her, so she could make the strongest impression on the audience. But she could only be disappointed, then jealous, as Alistair read out the name. "Halynn Aster."
Of course. Halynn just had to be the luckiest person in the world, didn't she?
Reese's eyes were trained on Halynn as she smoothly stepped forward, settling into the chair comfortably. "So, Lady Halynn, how do you feel about our dear prince? We've all heard the rumors about you two at Hilliard."
"Alistair is definitely one of my best friends," Halynn said confidently. Reese didn't miss that she'd left out his title — on purpose, probably. "He's an amazing person and I'm honored to have met him at Hilliard."
"Best friends, huh?" Aaden wiggled his eyebrows un-subtly, and Reese nearly rolled her eyes at how over-the-top it was before remembering she was on live television. "Are you sure it wasn't anything more?"
"I'm sure there was nothing more on my side, but I can't say the same for him. I bet Alistair was feeling like a lost puppy without me. He can't survive a day without me, you know? So in order to save him from the pain, I entered," Halynn joked, her tone light. The live audience laughed, and Reese gritted her teeth.
"Shh, don't expose our crown prince, we still need him to rule the country," Aaden jested, and the audience laughed even harder. The rest of Halynn's interview went just as well, and at the end, the audience was practically in tears, and many of the Selected were giggling as well. Reese could feel those elephants from earlier coming back to her stomach. She desperately hoped it wasn't her turn after Halynn.
It turned out she wasn't — in fact, she didn't get to speak until 10 girls later. During that time, nobody had made an impression as strong as Halynn, but there were definitely standouts.
Lyndon Aubry had talked happily about the date she shared with Alistair, and along with the fact that she'd been the first date, her whole country vibe was kind of charming.
Jasmine Halcyon's interview had gone a similar path to Halynn's, and the crowd was enraptured by her exciting and funny stories about her travels.
Sweet and kind Cassiopeia Gonzales melted hearts during her spotlight time with her optimistic attitude, but Reese knew she didn't need to worry about her because she was a former Seven, and that would drag down her popularity.
Soonja Choi was the perfect example of a proper queen, and her interview was as smooth as the velvet that Reese's dress was made out of. The words flowed out of her mouth so easily as she regretfully noted that she hadn't had a date yet. Reese was sure that many people would favor her, since she seemed completely ready to take the throne.
There were also some people that stood out in a bad way. Olivia West stammered multiple times while trying to explain her date, and while Mona was honestly quite funny, the audience barely seemed to have a reaction to her, not to mention that she'd had a hard time finding the chair. Bandit's interview had mostly consisted of her getting grilled by Aaden, and so all her time had been spent on explaining how she was apparently the long-lost daughter of a sea captain, and she'd only gotten a word in about her date with Alistair.
As Reese walked up to the sofa, she passed Calypso, who had unfortunately done quite well in her interview. Reese was not a fan of Calypso at all, who had been rude to her several times for no apparent reason, and she knew she wasn't the only one. She still couldn't understand how Calypso had gotten a date already and she hadn't.
"Lady Reese," Aaden greeted. "You look stunning tonight."
"Thank you," Reese said, smiling directly at the audience.
"Now, you're one of the ladies in the Selection who was quite well-known before. I'm sure many people have heard of your family." Reese instantly felt herself panic, but forced her face to stay neutral, though inside she was freezing up. Anything but that. Please. Anything but that.
"Ah, yes. That's right, sweetie," she said nonchalantly, trying desperately to send mental messages to Aaden to tell him to avoid that topic. She wanted to distance herself far, far away from it.
"The scandal with your father's company was in the news for weeks," Aaden remarked. "It must've been very hard times for you and your family. How did it feel? How did you cope with it?"
In that moment, Reese decided that she hated Aaden. Why was he putting her in such an uncomfortable position? Why did none of the other girls get these kinds of questions? "Times were hard," she admitted, letting a little bit of her sadness show through in order to make her speech more convincing. "A lot of things changed and those changes affected us drastically. But I did my best to stay strong, for myself and for my family." Her wistful smile became replaced by a strong, determined expression. "I entered the Selection so I could make things better and allow people to see who I am, past the scandal and rumors. I'm a girl who doesn't easily get pushed down, and I'll always pick myself up again."
She was spouting pure bullshit at that point, so she was taken aback when the audience cheered loudly. Aaden nodded. "Understood. So on a much lighter note, tell us, Lady Reese, have you been on a date with the prince yet?"
"No, I haven't," Reese admitted, sneaking a glance over at Alistair — she was pleased to see that he was almost ashamed. "But I have confidence that problem will be solved soon." She smiled sweetly at him, almost taking pride in the way his face flushed, before turning back to Aaden. You better ask me out soon, Alistair Raynott.
After the hard questions, she answered the easy ones that Aaden tossed her way so charmingly that she hoped everybody would forget about her answer to the first question.
"Let's hear another round of applause for Lady Reese!" Aaden announced, and the applause and cheers were almost deafening. Had they been this loud for the other girls, or had she really managed to make an impression? Whatever it was, Reese couldn't stop her genuine smile this time as she took her seat again.
The ones who stood out the most in the rest of the interviews were undoubtedly Raisa and Myra. Raisa had a mysterious and intriguing aura, answering Aaden's questions naturally but not revealing too much about herself. Myra spoke passionately, taking Reese by complete surprise (Myra didn't seem like a very talkative person at all), and also had a small, heart-warming message for her fans.
During the Report she also got to hear about some of the dates from girls who had been less willing to share in the Women's Room. By the end of it, Reese was starting to get sick of hearing what a marvelous time they had with Alistair. What did Lyndon, Aeri, Olivia, Estelle, Hilda, Bandit, Sage and Calypso have that she didn't?
Eventually, Aaden wrapped up the Report and disappeared to the side of the stage to find somebody. "Come on, Reese," Sage called. "Let's go. We don't want to be late for dinner."
"You go without me, babe," Reese said, walking the opposite direction. "I have to do something really quickly."
Where was that stupid Report host? Gritting her teeth, she walked past several people packing away equipment until she finally caught sight of Aaden. "Can I talk to you for a moment?" she asked.
Aaden grinned, clearly not sensing the tension. "Yeah. What is it?"
Reese looked around her, noticing that she'd attracted the attention of basically everybody still on set. "Not here. Alone."
Aaden's smile slipped away, replaced by confusion. "Um, sure?" He led her to a room at the side, which she assumed was his office, because there was a desk filled with papers and numerous pictures of the Report hung up on the wall.
She decided to get straight to the point. "You had no right to ask questions about my family," she said hotly, crossing her arms.
"Uh, why not?" Aaden retorted, looking taken back but offended. "It's my job to make the show more interesting, and everybody who heard about you would've wanted to know the answer to that."
"You were setting me up for failure!" Reese exclaimed.
"It's not even personal," Aaden said impatiently, rolling his eyes. "Plus, you couldn't have handled that better, and it definitely worked out in your favor. Why are you even mad about it?"
"Because I need to make sure that it doesn't happen ever again," Reese warned him. "My reputation is on the line, you know. So please, don't ever ask me questions like that ever again."
Aaden's eyes narrowed, and she got the feeling that she'd truly pissed him off, but he deserved it! "And why should I listen to you, Princess?"
She hated the amount of sarcasm contained in that nickname. Who did he think he was? "That's Lady Reese to you, Mr. Althuis. Just don't do that again."
"Not like I'll have the chance to, since you'll probably be gone tomorrow with that attitude," Aaden snapped.
"Attitude?" Reese spun around, glaring straight at him. "Attitude?! I'm only asking you to change your behavior because what you did on the show was unacceptable!"
Aaden scowled. "What's your definition of 'asking'? This seems more like 'yelling' to me."
"You know what? I'm not going to waste half of my dinnertime on worthless people like you," Reese decided, inspecting her nails and giving Aaden a sweet smile. "I hope you never try to mess with me ever again. Goodbye." She flounced out of the doorway, waves of rage rolling off her.
"Mess with you? How was I even messing with you?" Aaden called after her.
Reese ignored him, though she was furious on the inside. She walked away, wanting to get as far away from the Report set as possible.
It had only been a week, and Alistair was already sick of the Selection. He'd dated girls like crazy in the past few days, but still had 20 left, and all his energy was gone.
The process was quickly becoming tedious to him. Sure, all the girls were unique and special, but he was getting tired of constantly going on dates. At this point, he didn't even know who to ask out and had virtually no ideas about what to do with them.
He grabbed the latest copy of the Angeles Times off his shelf and flipped through the pages. Unsurprisingly, over half of the articles were dedicated towards his Selection, but he would save those for another time.
Finally, he found it. On the second-last page, there was a list of the girls with the most public votes after last night's Report.
Those girls would be the ones he tried to date in the upcoming weeks, in order to make the public happier and end his own indecisiveness.
The top ten started off with Sage, Aeri, and Lyndon, three girls who he had dated already and quite liked, so it was no use to him, although he was curious to see what the rest of Illea thought about them.
But he was relieved to find that the rest of the girls on the list were ones that he hadn't dated. Jasmine had placed seventh, and only slightly ahead of her were Soonja and Victoria at sixth and fifth respectively.
For all her fame, he was surprised to find that Myra was only fourth place, but then remembered that his Selected were no ordinary people, and many of them had connections already, such as Reese, who was at third place, and Raisa, who only lost to first by the smallest margin. After all, being an Olympic medalist, a famous socialite, or the daughter of a Governor had its perks.
When he was who first place was, he couldn't help but burst into laughter, causing Owen to glance over at him concernedly. "Everything all right?" he asked.
Alistair nodded, trying to fight his snorts. "Yep," he replied, unable to believe his eyes.
"Halynn Aster is almost everyone's favorite daughter of Illea. Not only is she extremely close with our crown prince, she's also proven herself to be witty and charming. We suspect that there may have been something between them at Hilliard, so we believe she has a strong chance of becoming our next queen!"
Did Halynn have a twin sister that he wasn't aware of? This paragraph was pure gold; he was going to go make fun of Halynn later for this. How ironic, really, that she'd signed up to save him from his crazy girlfriends but was now the public's favorite.
But he still hadn't gone on a date with her yet, and it would be nice to have some proper time together, just the two of them, without any of the other girls around.
That wasn't the only thing he was looking forward to. His birthday was coming up soon — in fact, there were less than two weeks until he would be celebrating with a gigantic ball. Mimi had promised him that preparations were running smoothly, and he couldn't wait to party.
For now, though, he had other things to worry about. After all, those human development reports weren't going to read themselves — although if they could, life would be a whole lot easier.
SOOO I'll try to update a few times during these few days, but just in case I disappear again, happy holidays everybody! Hope y'all are having a lovely winter, and enjoying whatever holiday you celebrate :)
Don't forget to review and let me know how you feel about this chapter ;)
Have a great day, and until next time (hopefully soon)!
~Rysa