Unwittingly, she had expressed her thoughts aloud, causing Matthew to chuckle with amusement.
It’s no wonder this woman writes novels. She has such an active imagination.
And this isn’t a fetish.
Before meeting Clarissa, he did not have such a fetish at all.
He simply liked her and wanted to be close to her at all times. Even hugging like this brought him happiness and contentment.
In the past, Matthew never understood why men and women often indulged in sex and intimacy. He just couldn’t see the point in it.
To him, women were nothing special other than the fact that they had some advantages over men. Hence, he was often called the master of abstinence as he remained unmoved by the allure of the opposite sex.
However, when he fell for the woman in his arms, his eyes were finally opened to the appeal of the female sex.
Of course, that only applied to the love of his life.
Besides Clarissa, no other woman could captivate him.
Matthew hugged Clarissa tightly and whispered his answer into her ear.
“Clare, I don’t have a fetish for hugging things, and hugging you isn’t a fetish either. It’s because I like you, so I constantly want to be by your side.”
I think we’re soulmates.
When two people are truly in love, they’d constantly want to be by each other’s sides.
I didn’t think that Matthew would feel the same way.
“Hehe…”
Tickled pink, Clarissa giggled uncontrollably and wrapped both arms around Matthew, acting coy as she hugged him tightly.
“Uncle Matthew, my thoughts exactly. Our hearts are connected!”
“Really? Then you should stay by my side at all times. After all, you can work anywhere as long as you have a laptop, right?”
He’s just pushing it now!
I should’ve known that he’d use my words to his advantage.
“I don’t wanna.”
Matthew snorted with discontent. “What happened to ‘our hearts are connected’?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we should be with each other every second of the day! We possibly have a whole lifetime to be together, so there’s no need to follow each other around day and night, don’t you think so?”
“Since you’ve put it like that, what else is there for me to say?”
Clarissa broke into a triumphant smile. “Absence makes the heart fonder! We should keep an appropriate distance from each other to maintain the romance in our relationship. For example, let’s meet once a week? Or twice? Or we could sleep in separate rooms. Hey, I remember you promised me that we’d sleep in separate rooms-”
That was the end of their one-sided discussion as Matthew shut her up the usual way.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder? Maintain the romance? This is all utter b*llsh*t!
…
Clarissa was trending on the internet again. Although she was not the first nor second on the list, she was still trending nonetheless.
It was because a buyer had posted a screenshot saying that she was mesmerized by this beautiful young lady and bought a bunch of clothes as a result. Later on, she posted a comparison review which turned out to be an appalling sight to behold.
Even so, she expressed that she would continue to stan this live broadcast host and buy whatever clothes she wore.
And the beautiful young lady in question only went by the name Clare and was known to be a personal model for a clothing business. The buyer also stated that one could go to the store’s official website to save more of Clare’s high-definition photos as a private collection.
When Clarissa saw this hot topic, she couldn’t help but wonder if this was a bad year for her. Otherwise, why would she keep trending on the internet for no apparent reason?
Following this hot topic were many discussions among some insiders, Clarissa’s ex-classmates, and friends.
This is the campus belle of D University from back then. Her yearbook photo is proof that she’s both beautiful and smart!
Wow! Clare is so awesome! She graduated from a prestigious university!
So what if she graduated from a prestigious university? Nowadays, people like them only prostitute themselves after joining the society.
To the commenter above, you’re just jealous. It’s obvious you don’t have the looks or the brains, so get outta here!
After a detailed examination, I found no traces of plastic surgery. She’s an all-natural beauty. I’m officially a fan! Can I have Clare’s Twitter and phone number? Please notice me, Clare!
Clarissa felt relieved that none of them knew her full name and hence, would not be able to link her to her Twitter account that had the username @clarissa.quigley.
You’re all idiots. Men always fall head over heels for beautiful women like her. I was in the same school as she and I witnessed her toying with countless boys. She enjoyed having them eat out of her hand, basking in all the attention they gave her. She even turned on one of her classmates by stealing her boyfriend. A few days ago, we met again at an ex-classmate’s wedding. She has a sugar daddy and was even so smug about it.
That makes sense. Women like her are only nice to look at but are actually revolting on the inside.
B*llsh*t. Do you have evidence to back that?
I don’t believe that. Clare is always so shy. During the live broadcast, she was blushing the whole time and it didn’t look like she was faking it.
You fell for that? Please, she’s just good at pretending.
Nah, I don’t care whether she was pretending. I’m Clare’s fan because of that perfect face of hers anyway.
…
There were all kinds of comments, both positive and negative. Reading those nasty baseless remarks, Clarissa couldn’t help but feel uneasy.
Later on, she gave up reading the comments altogether to save herself the stress.
Inevitably, she became more and more disappointed in the people who surfed the internet.
Ellie called her right then because of that trending topic.
“Do you want me to get someone to take it down? It started because of me anyway.”
Clarissa pondered for a moment. “Can this help bring in sales for you? Does it benefit you?”
“Yeah, it does, but I won’t do anything you don’t like.”
“I know, but since it’s already out, don’t bother about it. I’m just a small fry anyway, so the hype would probably die down very soon. Might as well make full use of it to gain some fame and sales for your business, so let’s just leave it.”
Ellie giggled. “Then I’ll give you a big ass commission!”
“Obviously, or I won’t help you anymore in the future,” Clarissa joked, thinking that this topic was over.
To her shock, Ellie brought up Helen all of a sudden.
“By the way, I saw one of the comments talking about an ex-classmate’s wedding, so I suddenly remembered that Helen’s wedding was a few days ago, right? So you attended?”
Clarissa hesitated for a while before replying, “Yeah, but I left very early.”
Panic-stricken, she answered warily, afraid that she might slip up and Ellie would sense something amiss.
“Oh, she invited me too but I didn’t bother to go. I mean, she has such poor judgment. She held a grudge against you because of that scumbag, right? But you actually went to her wedding? Are you stupid or what? Look, they’re spreading false rumors about you, saying that you have a sugar daddy and all those. That b*tch who wrote it better not let me find out who she is or I’ll kill her myself.”
“Okay, okay. This matter is in the past, so let’s not dwell on it. What about you? Have you found the person who set you up?” Clarissa changed the topic.
“No, and from what I can see, it’s that pretentious Shawn Hayes who thinks he’s some kind of great detective. What the hell? He’s just a measly Captain of the Criminal Investigation Unit, but he always acts so cockily. Who does he think he is?”
As Ellie grumbled non-stop, Clarissa was bewildered. Didn’t they only meet once? Why does she have such a strong opinion against him?
Little did she know, Ellie and Shawn had met more than once, not to mention they had conflicts with each other.
What was more, they would even get more involved later on.
Of course, this would only happen further into the future.
Sure enough, the trending topic about Clarissa did not last long.
But of course, some would still come across it from time to time.
When Shermaine found out that Clarissa made it to the trending list just from selling clothes on a live broadcast, her heart swelled with displeasure.
Seeing her assistant so engrossed with watching Clarissa, Shermaine snatched her phone out of her hands and threw it harshly onto the ground.
“Why are you watching her? Is she prettier than me? Huh? Get out! Get out right now! As my assistant, how dare you watch someone else besides me? You’re not qualified for this job. You can forget about setting foot in this industry from now on! Get lost!”
Her assistant started crying and scurried off.
Before long, Lizzie came over with a helpless look on her face. Why is she so riled up over a pretty girl? Besides, there are many girls who are much prettier than her anyway, so why does she hate Clarissa so much? Why does she keep targeting Clarissa?
“Shermaine, I heard about what happened from Chloe. It’s just a trending topic, and it’s not even among the top ones. Why do you even care?”
“I just do. I hate her and I want to destroy her!”
Shermaine did not know why she hated Clarissa with a passion; she just did. She did not tell anyone that her hatred for Clarissa was in fact a gut feeling. Clarissa gave her a sense of familiarity the first time she saw her, but for some reason, she felt threatened by Clarissa’s existence and was antagonized by her beauty.
Hence, she wanted to stomp on Clarissa at every chance she got.
The last time when Clarissa had a dispute with Twilight Company about her contract termination, Shermaine had hired someone to slander her. Upon seeing how badly the latter was cursed at, Shermaine was in high spirits for the next few days and was easy to work with during filming.
However, all the slanderous information was deleted after that. Shermaine surmised that Clarissa had gone to Ellie for help, so she did not continue attacking.
She never expected that Clarissa would be so difficult to deal with. She had emerged once again and Shermaine couldn’t stand the sight of it.
“Lizzie, I hate her. I really, really hate her. I can’t stand the sight of her face. It’s too perfect, really. There’s no way she can be so perfect…”
Lizzie could somewhat guess what Shermaine when thinking when she heard this. She shuddered involuntarily.
Lizzie did not dare to say anything nor advise her against whatever was going through her mind.
Fortunately, Shermaine did not continue talking about it. “Get me a new assistant.”
“Sure.”
“Today’s the last day of filming, right?”
Shermaine fluffed up her hair and plastered a smile onto her face.
“Great. Finally, it’s over. I’m dead tired. I won’t accept any TV series roles from now on. They don’t meet my standards, especially the ridiculous script Clarissa wrote. It’s childish and substandard. Those investors must be a bunch of fools.”
Lizzie pursed her lips. They are no fools. They know that this series can sell. Besides, it’s a good script.
It’s a shame Shermaine can’t see that.
In fact, isn’t the Justin Yates film she’s planning to star in also written by Clarissa?
