Lance stopped laughing after a while. He had a thin smile as he looked at Madeline with great interest.
"I didn't expect you to be so quick to call me back. I thought it'd take you at least a month to think about it," Lance said. "Are you that desperate for quick cash?"
"I have enough money in my savings, Mr. Grant," Madeline replied firmly. She was lying, of course. She had drained half of her income from all of her talk shows to pay all the bills and still had to pay the debts in installments.
But the rule of thumb is to always stand your ground and hide your desperation.
"Then why do you call me in less than a day? If you're not short on money, does that mean you can't wait to be my girlfriend?" Lance laughed at the idea to ridicule Madeline, but the latter didn't share a laugh with him.
"Don't think too highly of yourself, Sir. I'm neither short of money nor so eager to be your contractual girlfriend," Madeline said coldly. "I'm here because I want to keep my relevance. I know I can't maintain my popularity without any sponsors."
"So you think of me as your only way out? I see," Lance grinned. "You came to the right man, Madeline Rose."
Madeline gulped as she started to feel the pressure. Lance kept on pressuring her to admit that she was desperate, and she was afraid he'd take advantage of it and give her an unfair contract.
Thus, Madeline quickly shifted the topic. "Are we going to talk about the contract or not?"
"Of course, I'm just waiting for the staff to give me the contract I've prepared."
As he said, the door was knocked on from outside, and an old lady walked in with a contract. She walked past Madeline and put the contract on the CEO's desk before excusing herself.
Lance picked up the document and got up from the chair. He drew near Madeline and circled around her, inspecting her body like a statue worth musing over.
"Before I give you this contract, I need you to say yes to all of my requirements," Lance said. He stopped and stood in front of Madeline. He grabbed Madeline's chin and forced her to look up.
Again, Madeline's eyes, with his emerald-like eyes, peering at her as if he were einspecting his property, said, "You cannot show this face on TV."
"W—Why?" Madeline asked.
"Because you're not wearing your thick makeup. You look very fresh, serene, and… beautiful." Lance paused for a moment to mutter the last word. "You look like an innocent beauty without thick makeup, far different from that bombshell seductress you're portraying on TV. We can't ruin their imagination about you."
"Ah, I was wondering about that before I came here," Madeline said. "Give me ten minutes, and I will put on my doll makeup in the restroom."
"Why would you want to put your makeup on now?"
"Uh, because they told me I shouldn't show this face?" Madeline said. "I assume you also don't want to see my face like this."
"I will give myself an exception," Lance said. He rubbed Madeline's cheek with his thumb and added, "I happen to prefer you like this. So you can only show this bare face in front of me, right?"
"H—How about in front of your family?" Madeline asked. "We're going to be contractual lovers, right? Do I need to wear my doll-like makeup?"
"Yes," Lance confirmed. "Just like I told you, you can only show this face in front of me and nobody else. I will be quite pissed if you show this to someone else."
Madeline didn't understand why Lance would create a stupid rule and then exempt himself from it. Her appearance without her doll makeup was similar to hers from four years ago, as if she hadn't aged a bit.
So she found it quite funny when he didn't want her to show this face to the public, even though she had starred in box office movies before.
'He's weird, but I have to agree that I can't show this natural face in front of other people, at least not after I have changed my persona,' Madeline thought. 'I shouldn't kill people's bad fantasy of Madeline Rose.'
Thus, Madeline nodded in response, "Yes, I won't show my bare face on TV. I know that I have to maintain their fantasy."
"Good." Lance let go of her chin and then circled around her again. "Second, you cannot be in a relationship while you're with me. No dating and no romance with another man. I don't want to see you being intimate with another man, got it?"
Madeline remembered that she was still keeping up with the charade of an A-list celebrity boyfriend. Though she had no intention to date any man, she also wanted to test the extent of this rule. "But I have a boyfriend, Sir."
"Break up with him," Lance ordered. "I don't know who he is, but he's definitely not an A-list celebrity like what you said on the talk show yesterday."
"How do you know that he's not an A-list?"
"… I naturally have my ways to inspect this," Lance said. "I don't care who he is, but break up with him as soon as you sign the contract, got it?"
…
"Got it. I will break up with him after this," Madeline nodded. It didn't bother her because she had no boyfriend , anyway.
But what bothered her was how he could 'inspect' stuff about her. So she guessed that he was probably inspecting her home address as well.
Her gaze cooled off as she knew this man wasn't playing. He had all the capital in the world to control her movement and inspect her background, probably including her father's debt as well.
"Third and last requirement," Lance slowly wrapped his arms around Madeline's waist and gently hugged her from behind.
Madeline's body stiffened at first before she took a deep breath to calm herself down and followed through, as this would be part of acting as Lance Grant's contractual girlfriend.
Madeline could feel his warm breath tickling her nape. She shuddered, especially when Lance whispered in her ear;
"I can freely extend your contract as my lover, Madeline Rose."