Veruca kept posing for the photographer, changing her pose every once and awhile and frustrating the other banquet guests as they could not get their picture taken and enter the ballroom due to the backup. It had been years since the little brute had moved on from her professional modeling career, so she seldom had a photographer take pictures of her, meaning she treasured this moment even more. While everyone else could see just how ridiculous she was acting, The Bad Nut was in her own little world at the moment, a perfect world where everyone fawned over her every action, for she did not look silly whenever she turned her body away from the camera but turned her head back with her right eye closed to face said camera or when she contorted her body into an "S" shape by resting her hands on her hips which she pointed outwards. No, for whenever she posed for a photograph she was doing so because she was merely showing off her ideal, perfect body for the world to worship for she was truly the perfect little princess Daddy constantly told her she was, and anyone who dared to burst her bubble was not trying to bring her back down to reality, but, in reality, was just jealous that they would never be as flawless as she was. This was the delusion Veruca continued living in, even after all these years, and while many found this bizarre quirk of hers to be something worth condemning, the Good Boy was oddly enamored with it. To him, Veruca's ability to get sucked into a world where she was the star and come to life because of it instead of feeling bogged down intrigued him for he could never achieve such a feat, for in a way, Charlie was living out his deepest, darkest desires through Veruca and her brash confidence.

Charlie watched as the brat lost track of time at the photo station and focusing specifically on her expression of pure joy because someone was focusing all of their attention on her, but before he could summon the courage to go back to the station and tell her she had to move along, he heard a voice behind him call out, "We meet again, Bucket."

The heir turned around and saw that it was none other than Rolland Lavender, a 28-year-old blond-haired man who founded his own personal training services company that was beginning to expand from the UK to mainland Europe. He was the closest thing Charlie had to an enemy, although he saw him more like an over-zealous rival as Charlie never let himself get too riled up when he taunted him, a skill he perfected following years of taunts and bullying on the schoolyard. Nevertheless, Charlie acted as professional as possible whenever one of his rivals tried to mess with him, in this case simply turning around to greet him, and replying, "Hello there, Rolland."

This trimmed man stood in stark contrast to Charlie and his scrawny body, and so did his boastful personality compared to the heir's meek and reserved demeanor. Following years of interactions, Rolland knew he couldn't get Charlie to react by teasing him, he could only do so by talking about whomever the heir brought along with him, the only problem this time was that the guest the Good Boy brought actually appeared to be a catch. Veruca was physically beautiful, and she easily captivated many of the other guests with Rolland being no exception, who said to Charlie, "Now, what do we have here. That's not your mother, now is it. It seems you've finally switched things up."

"Yes, yes I have," the Good Boy shyly replied as he refused to make eye contact with his rival.

Seeing as how Charlie kept his responses short and simple, Rolland decided to prod him a bit harder about his date, stating, "Well, knowing your record with the ladies, I'd assume you found her somewhere online. So, tell me, what's her hourly rate, or is she a onetime fee?"

While Veruca had done some less than honorable things in her past, Charlie didn't think it was fair that his competition insinuated she was that kind of girl, not that the Good Boy would even judge her had her life taken her down that route, yet he still demanded that everyone treat his fellow Golden Ticket with a basic level of human decency, and so after getting a bit frustrated, he carefully sniped back at his rival, saying, "She's an old friend, Rolland, and I don't like you talking about her like that."

Despite the competition being displeased with his comments, Rolland had no reason to stop, there was no threat in Charlie's response as he barely raised his voice at him, which only gave him the green light to taunt the shy boy some more, and so he asked him, "An old friend, huh? So, are you going to get a dinner and a show afterwards?"

"She's just here as my guest, trust me," Charlie replied, taking deep breaths as he fiddled his body around awkwardly as he refused to make eye contact with Rolland because his comments were making the Good Boy feel extremely uncomfortable.

Seeing how uneasy he made the competition feel at the simple mention of anything going on between him and his friend, Rolland saw another opportunity to mess with the Good Boy as Veruca finally left the photo station and walked towards them, in which he turned over to Charlie, and said, "Well, if you're just friends, then you wouldn't mind if I swoop in."

Watching Rolland take those first few steps up to Veruca without any of the anxiety he felt when he did so for the first time made Charlie snap out of his borderline paralysis and unleashed this primal urge in him to protect what he felt was his, causing him to follow his cocky competitor, and replied, "Wait, what? No."

Rolland had a way with women, with people, really, that Charlie simply didn't have, he could talk and talk and both not bore the other person nor say or do anything that would cast him as a fool, and now he was on his way to unleash his charm on Veruca. The heir knew Rolland would take the little brute away from him if he gave him the opportunity, and just the thought of that was enough to rile up The Lucky Boy. He could never physically take on Rolland, but he knew that if he could thwart his plans for a bit, that would give him enough time to escape with Veruca into the busy waiting room, but with his guest only seconds away from converging with his rival, Charlie would have very little time to keep things from spiraling out of his control.

"Alright, Charlie, we can go in now. Oh, hello," Veruca announced before being caught off guard by the handsome man next to her fellow Golden Ticket winner.

Rolland turned on the charm Charlie so desperately wished he had and stuck out his right hand, which donned a gold signet ring with some sort of engrained image on it, in front of this elegant woman in red, and introduced himself, "Greetings, I'm Rolland Lavender, Charlie's competition this evening."

"I'm Veruca, Veruca Salt, nice to meet you," the little brute responded, putting on a polite front like when she first met Willy Wonka by displaying her teeth as she smiled back. The fact that she designated Rolland as someone worth pretending to be nice to made Charlie fear he might become the next person on a long list of those who had their guests taken away from them mid-event by Rolland and his charm.

Charlie was left to wallow in the literal shadow of Rolland, fiddling with his hands as he watched his competition sweep Veruca off her feet and now embarrass his in front of her, when the competition added, "The pleasure's all mine. It's so great you could be here for Charlie since it looks like his mummy couldn't be here for her little boy this evening. You know, I've never seen him at one of these events without her."

That cheap shot at one of Charlie's biggest insecurities, how the woman he'd shown the most affection towards in his entire life was his mother, made Veruca laugh while Charlie's cheeks got rosy from embarrassment. Fortunately, that's when he realized Rolland would not stop unless he was stopped, and that realization gave Charlie the courage to grab Veruca by the hand and pull her away from his tormentor, while pleading, "Come on, let's get out of here."

Rolland also laughed at Charlie's expense, but when the heir left the scene with his guest, the competition called him out for not taking the taunts standing up, asking, "What's the matter, can't the competition take the piss out of each other?"

The waiting area before everyone entered the conference room was starting to get packed with TABA members and their guests, this particular room had squared glass windows joined together to form a see-through ceiling, the same process was repeated for the walls, and in order to keep everything lively, the Millennium installed fake palm trees all about. The room was far from luxurious, well, at least by Veruca's standards, but pre-Wonka's Chocolate Factory winner Child Charlie would have given up his right hand to live in such a place. Because of the lack of privacy, the glass all around made it easy for people walking about on the other side of the walls to see what was going on inside, and the ceiling windows were the perfect peep holes for hotel guests staying on the upper floors to watch the event from the comfort of their room's window, but the event guests didn't really care because this was merely the social part of the event. For the next hour, the guests were expected to mingle with each other, discuss their upcoming products, their latest golf record, or even begin collaborating with each other on a new project, all things that seemed to be the antithesis of what Charlie was. He promised Wonka he would not speak about what lied inside their factory with the outside world, that included the candies in development they planned to roll out in the future, and when it came to leisurely activities, Charlie was far from an athletic person, his scrawny arms probably couldn't even swing a five-iron club. And, ever since the espionage scandals of the early 90s, Wonka made it company policy forbidding collaboration with third parties; the business had to be as cut off from the rest of the world as much as possible if the integrity of his products were to be kept intact. At least, that's what Charlie would tell other TABA members when they approached him hoping to strike a deal; and, it's not that he was lying, it's just that Charlie felt incredibly uncomfortable interacting with so many people he, at best, only knew in passing.