Chapter 13

A dozen different newspapers were spreading out in front of Ronaim, and the headlines were almost the same: Nathan Shaw and Karen are to engage soon; Ronaim is confirmed to be the other woman. Ronaim is banned from the entertainment circle; a career of ten years is destroyed overnight. Ronaim canceled all contracts unilaterally; the penalty might be up to 10 million! and a lot more... "So you and Nathan got divorced?" Jonah closed the paper in his hands and asked. "So you just walked away dejected? Look at what the press says. If you go now, you're are helping Karen." Ronaim gently stroked her not yet bulging belly. "As long as I can keep the baby, I don't care if I am notorious." Jonah added, "It is the director who asked me to come to you. You can go to shoot the last scene of the movie. I've booked you the flight of twelve o'clock tonight. You could be in Washington by tomorrow." "The last scene?" Ronaim was stunned. "I've heard the Shaw family wants to change the leading actress." "Karen doesn't have the acting skills, and her image is not good enough. She can't play the heroine. The director went to see Nathan and finally convinced him to let you finish the movie." Jonah tried to persuade her. "Play it, as a gesture to say goodbye to the entertainment industry." The last scene, the heroine jumped off the cliff and hero killed himself. A real tragedy. When Ronaim appeared at the shooting site, everyone stopped what they were doing and started talking about her, pointing their fingers at her. Those hurtful words came out from the mouths of even the lower-level staff. Some of them had fetched water for her; some of them had ordered food for her; they called her Ronaim with caring voices. But at the moment, they gossiped, called her the mistress, said she was foxy and vicious...Ronaim dropped her eyes and she knew she had a clear conscience. Even the one she loved was abusive to her, not to mention these average colleagues. She smiled it off and pretended she didn't hear them, allowing Sean to put makeup on her face. Feeling Sean being depressed around her, she smiled and said, "Don't worry, Sean. I will arrange your job for the future." Sean shook his head. "I just want to follow you, Ronaim. I'll go wherever you go." Her frozen heart felt some warmth. Ronaim said, "No, you are very young. You have a long way to go." She patted his arm, called her agent and asked him to look after Sean. Out of her expectation, her agent rejected on the phone directly. "Mr. Shaw arranged for me to be Karen's agent. Now two TV dramas have assigned Karen as the heroine. I got tons of work waiting for me. Sean is a newbie just graduated from college. I guess nobody in this circle would like to ask him to be an assistant. That's it. I'm very busy. I have to go now." Her agent changed too fast and Ronaim didn't know how to react at all. When she looked up, she saw Karen standing in front of her. She stood up and scoffed, "Karen, didn't you say you could replace me as the heroine just by having a word with Nathan? It's a shame to you, isn't it? I came back to shoot the ending. the director begged me to come back. Because you don't deserve to be the heroine of this movie!" Karen's face twisted with anger. "It's because I took pity on you, you wretch!" Ronaim sneered, "You want to play the heroine? Take a close look at yourself in the mirror. You can try to make a scene here, but the director won't even give you a look." At this moment, the director called everyone to stand by for shooting. Ronaim stood on the edge of a fake cliff in the studio, looking down at the staff moving back and forth below the cliff. Pictures of her past acting experience played inside her mind. She closed her eyes and said, "Goodbye!" Goodbye, to everything here, forever. She jumped down and that made the end of both the movie and her acting career. Jonah jumped down too, following her. They both fell down the cliff and the movie ended.