Chapter 8: Planning

Lily’s appearance merely got a raised eyebrow from the doctor when she came for the housecall. When Bella asked why she didn’t seem affected by the outfit, Dr. Silva stated that house calls to the rich tend to be interesting. A provocative maid was mild compared to some of the things she’d seen.

World view shaken a bit, Bella got through her health assessment and cajole Lily to get one as well. Bella needed some minor adjustments to her neck, shoulders and back. Remnants mostly from a time in her life when she was overly conscientious about her height. Lily on the other hand only had some slightly irregular foot bone structure and leg musculature due to her years of ballet and wearing of heels.

Lily is at the tall end of the average woman’s height at five-five and Bella is taller than an average man. She had measured in at an even six feet. No doubt her mother’s supermodel genes at work.

Besides her good genes, Bella’s mother had also left her some tasteful jewelry, even by Lily’s standards. Mostly consisting of some high end limited production models, exclusive one of a kind promotional designs and works of art that she had modeled. Lily thankfully didn’t see any need to throw these out. Even when she was sick, Bella’s mother had insisted on not selling them.

After the doctor packed up and left to take their blood samples to the lab, Bella and Lily spent the rest of the day revising a study plan for Bella. Even a university and her major was decided.

On Lily’s recommendation and because she was somewhat interested herself, Bella chose to go the route of stardom. Bella was a member of her school’s drama club and had always enjoyed it. There was also a sort of serendipity of her continuing her mother’s legacy. Though she would take it a bit further than just modeling and break into the acting field of the entertainment industry.

Bella’s degree goal would be a bachelor of fine arts, officially. Unofficially, she would take as many electives and intersecting courses for a business degree as possible. The goal being to quietly build up her face value while stealthily gaining the needed skills to take over a family business.

She needed to be cautious due to her numerous older siblings already having firm positions in some of the businesses under the family name. Lily had found, in online articles, some suspicious falls from grace for some of Bella’s other siblings. All while they had been trying to establish themselves in business and most likely orchestrated by the already established eldest siblings.

The Edele family did have an entertainment business she could use to jump start her career and it isn’t even considered a contested property. It did well enough but was far from being a key asset. As such there were currently zero of her siblings vying for it.

She’d first make a name for herself by becoming a celebrity. All the while she would finish a business degree via distance learning courses.

Lily had intended to just sign up as an observer for Bella’s courses, but was swiftly denied and told to enroll for the degree program as well. This got some surprising resistance from Lily and the two finally agreed on a compromise.

She had to enroll for a degree program and could only observe in Bella’s classes when they didn’t interfere with her own. Ultimately, she chose a degree in arts and entertainment management. This was her best choice as Bella’s assistant if she wanted to serve as her celebrity manager as well.

Lily was already secretly contriving excuses and scheming ways to have the professors agree to as much self study distance learning as possible. Many professors would be brought low by her methods in the future.

When asked why she was so against an acting degree, Lily said that she didn’t want to be an actress. Bella was a bit confused by this since Lily already had many different persona’s that she used. This ended up devolving into a discussion on the differences between Lily’s personas and character acting.

In Lily’s words, “My personas are just different ways to express myself. Each behaves in a different manner, but they are all my own thoughts, feelings and actions. Character acting requires you to understand their life history and become someone else entirely. Another person’s thoughts, feelings and actions.”

This discussion further derailed their true purpose and they ended up discussing more in depth about Lily’s conditioning. By the time they had to stop for dinner, Lily had successfully resolved Bella’s last remaining worries.

The most convincing argument made was the fact that Lily, if she could reasonably justify doing so, retained the ability to quit her job if she felt it necessary. But as a consequence for the breach of contract, she would lose any interest gained from the investment account where her pay is held. And she would only be entitled to a percentage of the initial sum based on how much of the contracted time was fulfilled.

Once dinner was settled, they went back to their original objective and managed to finalize the learning plan in the hour before bath time.