Love in the Limelight (Astrid and Elio)

Fans were frantically snapping screenshots, but Maddox quickly pulled on his mask. "Alright, alright, the mask's off, screenshots are taken, now scatter, will ya?"

Maddox wasn't one for the limelight, always feeling awkward in front of the camera. He returned to his computer, only to catch a comment from a viewer claiming he and Dale looked like a married couple. His lips twitched involuntarily, and he couldn't help but retort, "Cut it out. That mutt isn't in my league, and besides, he's a married man."

The chat exploded with excitement. Chat comments started rolling in.

[Are you implying Dale's got married secretly?]

[There goes another dream hubby.]

[Holy smokes, I always thought Dale would be a bachelor for life!]

Maddox hadn't meant to spill the beans on Dale, so he clammed up and stopped responding.

On the way back, Astrid was lost in thought.

Elio noticed her daydreaming and reached out to take her hand.

The warmth of his touch jolted her back to reality, and her instinct was to pull away, but Elio's grip tightened.

Astrid said, "Let go, stop fooling around."

Elio responded, "I'm not fooling around. I want to hold your hand, for eternity."

This unexpected display of affection left the viewers dazed, [Damn, I did not see that coming. A simple walk and here we are, fed with PDA.]

[Mom won't worry about me being bored!]

[If I'm depressed, blame it on these two and their lovey-dovey antics.]

[Life's tough for us singles, avoiding couple shows, reality dating, picking the least likely PDA adventure show, and still, BAM, face-slapped with affection! Where's the justice?] [Mr. Lampard's stepping up his game, from the first episode to now, bravo!]

[...And now he's gone and muted the mics?]

[They wanna whisper sweet nothings and don't wanna rub it in our faces.]

[I'm not afraid of a little PDA, so bring it on!]

Elio wanted to discuss something with Astrid without the audience eavesdropping, so he muted the mics, hers included. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FindNʘᴠᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The camera zoomed out, giving them space.

Elio whispered, "Astrid, the ghost prank is just the start. Jay will definitely make more moves."

"I know, don't worry. I'll be fine," Astrid assured him, then turned back with a playful smile. "And I won't let anything happen to you either."

Elio felt a warmth in his heart, which was quickly doused with her next quip, "I don't want the hassle of finding a new stepdad for Roman if something happened to you." Elio was speechless. Life was never easy for him.

Because of the incident, Jay was blasted by fans online, and the image of Morgenster Corporation took a hit.

But Jay never responded publicly. Although everyone knew he was behind the Serenity Peaks ghost prank, since it caused no real harm, the online outrage eventually subsided. Since the incident, Chad was on edge, plagued by nightmares of Astrid coming back from the show to haunt him.

One night, as he drifted off, a distinctive notification from his computer stirred him awake.

He sat up, clicked open the message, and there it was, an email. "We'd like to hire Aster to investigate something. The fee is 1.5 million dollars."