Her Corporate Takedown: Entangled with a Billionaire

*CHAPTER 98: EXES*

Andrei left the next afternoon to prepare for the next mission and I waited for Shelli to respond to the message I sent while half asleep. I unbundled myself from the blankets when I heard another ping from my phone. She asked me to come to the location specified by the map coordinates that she sent along with her message.

A quick shower and face wash got rid of the grogginess I had left after waking up, then I headed for the location Shelli sent me. Sure enough, she had asked me to come to her house, or the place she was currently staying. Since I was invited here so easily, I doubt it was owned by the Albertha family, whose main house I expected was in Maryland. She probably rented this place while working at Bolster for the time being.

"Hi Leiya! Come inside!"

"Great house! I'm surprised you rented a whole house when you're only spending a short time here."

"We were looking into buying a house in California for the Albertha family. Initially, we had settled on this, but we found a nicer place. So, don't worry, there are no longer any secrets in this house."

"Thanks for not getting my hopes up."

"I'm sure Andrei would like you to at least try to find something," I heard a voice say from behind the door.

"Hi Roshni!" I waved to Roshni who appeared at the entrance while Shelli and I walked up the driveway.

"Hey. Welcome to our home."

It was a normal two-story single family home in the suburbs which was neatly tucked away in a cul-de-sac. The houses in this area looked relatively new and vibrant. The inside boasted brand new appliances and had the smell of a new or recently renovated home. Shelli liked the two-tone red and beige colour scheme with traces of orange here and there. She immediately pulled me upstairs to her room before I could tell Roshni thanks for showing me around.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" Shelli asked as we plopped onto the oversized bean bags on the floor.

"Do you remember when you set up that visual display in the park last Friday?"

"Yep."

"The thing is, the sister of the bride from that wedding reception is a wedding planner and a lot of people mistakenly thought she set it up for her sister's reception. I ran into the bride yesterday who asked if I could get her in touch with the person who did those displays. I kind of told her that I was working with a new company who made those visuals and if she was willing to set up a partnership with her sister's company to offer the service at the weddings she plans. It's highly requested and growing in popularity right now and I don't want to pass up this opportunity. Can you work with me to land this deal or at least show Andrei how you made it?"

"Leiya," I looked up when she called my name. "I would love to work with your company from now on," she said as she eagerly grasped and shook my hand as if the deal was done. Well, it technically was.

"That's great! I'm so excited about this. This will definitely take things to the next level."

"I bet it will," she replied confidently.

"Thanks a lot, Shelli."

"Of course!"

"No, I meant, thanks for everything that you've done. There was no significant merit in helping me, but you went through the trouble of getting everyone's contact info from the barbecue even before I set up my business then leveraging that to spread the word through social media. I'm amazed you realized I was eventually going to do an event planning business."

"Tha-that was just a coincidence," she replied softly as her voice faded away into the cushion of the bean bag.

"Then, I appreciate those coincidences too," I said, while laughing. "Even while helping Andrei, you happened to set things up so that I would run into that bride, whose sister just happened to be a wedding event planner and you just happened to do something extravagant to catch everyone's attention, that is something no one could replicate without the technology of an Undercode user. Thanks for setting up those wonderful coincidences too, Shelli."

She was so cute without her deceptive demeanour as she hid her face. Regardless of the reason, I was grateful for Shelli's actions, which have only helped the business to grow so far. The best part was that I didn’t have to be present to set up events, but that might change if I partnered with Flourish in White for the wedding.

"I just wanted to help you and become closer friends, that's all."

"Speaking of which, are you close with Ari?"

"Of course. We all grew up together so we're friends, but I didn't become that close with her. Besides, we don't have our partners interact with other heirs too much just in case someone tries to take advantage of them."

"Is that how it is? But, aren't I supposed to be something like a partner?"

"When you came into our lives, it felt like the status quo broke apart. There was so much you needed to learn and needed help with, so it was quite refreshing. Also, by this point, we had all grown up and were fed up with the ridiculous rules."

"There's also the fact that no one would bother to waste time picking a fight with Andrei at this point in our lives," Roshni added as he walked into the room and sat on Shelli's oversized bean bag.

As usual, it all turned out just like Andrei planned.

"But more importantly," Shelli said, "I've loved you from the moment we met, so I really want you to marry Andre so that we can remain best friends."

"Oh, so you've really been collaborating with Andrei then," I jovially called her out on her confession. Roshni turned his face to the wall and laughed while Shelli stared back starstruck that I had figured out (hopefully) all of her secrets so far.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied under her breath with a pouting face.

"Then, what are those over there?" I pointed to the closet that was partially open, where I saw several bags on the ground and a few suspicious items sticking out.

"Ah!" she screamed when she realized she had left the door open. She then regained her composure and cleared her throat. "Well, it can't be helped if you saw it. We'll go through those later, okay?" she sprang up and went downstairs when the doorbell rang.

"Can you play chess?" Roshni asked after Shelli left.

"Just a little."

"Shall we play for a bit?"

"Sure."

"I'm surprised Andrei hasn’t played with you."

"How do you know that?"

"You just told me. You would have refused to play me if you had a game with Andrei already."

"Is it that traumatic?"

"He demolishes everyone he plays in ten moves or less."

"Then, I hope he never asks."

Shelli called us to have dinner after Roshni destroyed me in a few games. I was surprised to see Jayelle when I went downstairs. She must've come earlier when the doorbell rang. I complained about Roshni's unfair games and everyone laughed the whole time at dinner. It was nice to spend time with everyone like this, but I couldn't impose much longer.

"I called Jaye here so we could have a sleepover tonight. You'll stay, right Leiya?"

There goes my plan to escape this house.

"Ah, well, you know, I should really get going."

"Oh, do you have plans?" both girls asked at the same time while coming up close and personal.

"Yes, I should prepare for a mission I have on Monday."

"Don't worry, we have everything you need to prepare right here."

I knew it. I had a bad feeling when I saw those bags earlier.

"Am I invited to your preparation session?" Roshni asked while he leaned back in the chair at the dining table.

We stopped in our tracks on the way to the stairs. Shelli looked back at him first with a blank expression as she questioned his intentions, then with a bright-idea look as she thought his opinions could be valuable, then finally with a look of scorn as she thought of him drooling over her best friends.

"No! Stay out of our room!" she shouted as she settled for hating the sight of him drooling at her best friends. It looked like he still found her debacle as a result of his teasing amusing enough to continue laughing out loud to himself while I was reluctantly pushed upstairs. I would have rather he used his spare time to help me escape instead of turning on the television.

When was the last time I had a girls' sleepover night? I might have been reluctant at first, but deep down I felt happy about it.

"How long does it take to wash off that spray tan?" I asked when I realized Shelli was removing her regular disguise.

"Why do you assume it's a spray tan?" Jayelle asked.

"What else could it be?" I asked cluelessly and the girls laughed.

"That's so old-fashioned, Lei."

"And time-consuming."

"Then, what is it?"

Shelli came up to me while she lifted something off of her hand. She held it between her fingers but it was so thin and transparent that I could not see what she was holding.

"This is a nanoprogrammed polymerized skin coat. When you wear it, you can easily change the appearance of your complexion. This one is programmed so that you need the Albertha Undercode trait to see it properly."

Shelli peeled off the entire skin coat to reveal her unchanged light brown complexion underneath. It must be similar to the coating on the wall at Bolster that Andrei talked about last night.

After a long bath, the girls ambushed me with bags of what had to be almost one hundred swimsuits and forced me to try them on. The citrus scented bath was so refreshing that I forgot this was the reason I tried to run away in the first place.

"We picked out a wide array of choices for you," Jayelle said while shoving dozens of them in my face.

"This is the most important part of the mission, Leiya," Shelli said with the most serious expression I'd seen since I met her. "Why do you think we've been doing more core workouts lately?"

I held up the different pairs of scanty pieces of cloth that they wanted me to try on, and even worse, thought I should wear in public. I ignored Shelli's tantrums while I tossed pair after pair to the side as I looked for something that was worth trying on.

"You actually thought I was going to wear those."

I looked up at her, then pointed to the massive stack of skimpy clothes on the ground. After tossing about forty pairs, I found something that looked both charming and wearable. Then, I found a few more suitable pieces when I went through the rest of the bags.

Shelli continued pouting over the fact that I ignored the clothes she bought without trying them on. As a compromise, I tried on a few of the outrageous pieces of swimwear but I told her there was no way I would carry them home.

"Do you understand how important this is? Ari is definitely going to do whatever it takes to entice him. We can't let that woman weasel her way into his mind with her seductive prowess."

Jayelle allowed Roshni to enter the room after asking if we were done with our swimsuit runway show. He placed a tray of sweets and warm milk on the table, then sat on the bed to join the conversation.

"Are you implying I have no seductive prowess unless I wear those scrawny pieces of cloth?"

Roshni raised an eyebrow then covered his mouth as he smiled at the pile of swimsuits scattered across the floor.

"No, but we have extremely strong and dangerous competition this time."

"Very dangerous competition, trust me." Roshni's comment begot a slap from Shelli on the back of his head.

"And the man practically begged you to come," Jayelle added.

"He said that he simply needed my presence there; that it would be enough to ward off the temptress."

"Oh, you can't really believe that," Jayelle immediately snapped back with a snarly tone.

"You would know all about that, wouldn't you?" Roshni said, inciting drama at the beginning of our sleepover.

"Maybe we should kick you out now," Jayelle whispered while she dragged him off the bed.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, but wasn’t actually expecting an answer. However, I felt like if I didn't ask, I was missing out on the chance to learn a secret.

"Yea, what are you talking about?" Shelli didn't seem to know either, but she propped up on the pillows prepared to hear some juicy gossip.

"It's been a long time since the experiments, so I think we can talk about it now."

"Uh, that experiment?" Shelli finally registered where this conversation was headed. "Nevermind, we don't really have to talk about that at all." And it seemed she felt very uncomfortable with it. That only made me all the more curious.

"Why don't you want to talk about it? Roshni, what is this experiment?" I kept pressing for more information.

"It’s something you would be glad you weren't around to witness, but I think this a great chance to clear the air…

…since you were both Andrei's ex-girlfriends."