Chapter 267: Chapter 264: Harbouring Evil Intentions
He changed into sportswear and came downstairs, only to find Bruce wearing a peculiar expression.
"What\'s up?" he asked, putting on his sports watch and heading out.
Bruce followed: "Jessica just called me. Steve from CAA went to the set and submitted Aniston\'s information—she\'s interested in playing the lead in \'Limitless\'."
This news was so unexpected that Martin stopped in his tracks, surprised, "What\'s going on? Is there a mistake?"
Bruce replied, "You might get people confused, but the production team wouldn\'t mess up such important information."
Martin couldn\'t understand it at all: "Is \'Endless\' that attractive, or have my consecutive successes drawn the interest of a star like Aniston to boost her own profile?"
He shook his head, "No, that doesn\'t make sense."
Bruce, that rotten guy, pointed out a fact: "Aniston\'s success today can\'t be separated from you. How many ideas did you give Jolie? \'Endless\' is lacking a buzz for promotion, and when it\'s revealed that you\'ve been involved with Jolie and Aniston... wow, this movie could become the next \'Mr. & Mrs. Smith\'."
Martin turned around and walked away.
Bruce kept talking: "From a professional point of view, it\'s highly likely to succeed."
Martin raised a middle finger behind him and said, "I still feel there\'s more to it than meets the eye."
Bruce followed, "No matter how complex the situation, no matter how messy the disputes, haven\'t you always been able to solve them with sheer ability?"
Martin opened the door.
Bruce added, "I\'ve contacted Jody. She might be around to sneak some shots, so be careful."
As the heat of the Wanted Order receded, so did Martin\'s public attention. He needed to maintain a certain amount of media exposure.
Celebrities usually have long-term collaborations with entertainment reporters or paparazzi, and even so-called candid street shots are often staged for the media.
On Martin\'s side, Bruce had been maintaining a long-term relationship with the freelance reporter Jody.
He walked toward the community committee, and several paparazzi indeed followed him.
After tailing him for a while and realizing that Martin was just taking an ordinary stroll, two of them left.
Only Jody, one of the paparazzi, continued to follow behind.
A few hundred meters further on, Jody quickly raised her camera. As a paparazzo with a keen nose for news, she sensed that something newsworthy was about to happen.
On the same sidewalk, Jennifer Aniston was walking a white mixed-breed dog.
Jody remembered clearly; after her divorce from Pitt, Aniston had moved out of her Beverly Hills mansion and retreated to Sherman Oaks to heal her childhood wounds.
To her surprise, she was living in the same community as Martin Davis.
Even if the two didn\'t know each other, they surely knew of each other.
Jody chose a good spot and started snapping photos non-stop.
As Martin and Aniston approached each other, getting within a dozen meters or so, they almost simultaneously stopped and waved at each other.
Clearly, they knew each other!
The two quickly came together, with Martin even squatting down to pet Aniston\'s dog\'s head.
Aniston was chatting and laughing with him, looking very familiar.
Jody kept pressing the camera shutter, capturing the images of their conversation, while simultaneously thinking at high speed about how to write the article.
Martin\'s chance encounter with Aniston? Not impactful enough to attract much attention.
Aniston walking her dog to heal her broken heart, and then meeting the handsome Martin Davis? The two having an intimate conversation? This angle seemed good.
Creating a story from the photos and pairing it with such an article would certainly work.
Jody deliberately changed the angle, getting shots of the two talking as if there was almost no distance between them.
Across the road, Martin and Aniston walked together toward the community committee.
Martin said, "Jen, I just heard that you\'re interested in the female lead for my new project?"
Aniston acted very natural, as if telling the truth: "I\'ve read Alan Green\'s novel and am particularly interested. I wanted Plan B Entertainment to secure the adaptation rights, but when I inquired, I found out they\'d already been sold."
Martin didn\'t believe a word she said but played along: "So, you\'re saying I stole your project?"
With ulterior motives, Aniston glanced at Martin and said with a smile, "As long as you cast me as the lead, I\'ll have achieved my goal."
Martin always felt there was something off, and he couldn\'t figure it out at the moment, so he vaguely replied, "Who could resist Rachel?"
Aniston sighed softly, "Rachel is a thing of the past."
She had a feeling that if \'Friends\' were still popular, maybe Pitt wouldn\'t have ended up with Jolie.
The name Jolie floated through her mind, and Aniston felt a flare of annoyance and bluntly asked Martin, "What do you think? Am I suited for the role?"
"Of course, you\'re entirely suitable!" Martin was still cautious, "But it\'s not just up to me. I\'m only one of the promoters and investors. I have to respect the opinions of others as well."
Aniston nodded, "I\'ll go for the audition."
Martin conveyed the proper importance, "You can join directly in the third audition; no one will object to that."
The sky gradually darkened, and the streetlights came on.
Aniston said again, "When you\'re free one day, give me a chance to express my gratitude."
Martin asked, "Are you going to treat me?"
Aniston nodded, "If I hadn\'t run into you today, things wouldn\'t have gone as smoothly."
"No, it would have been just as smooth," Martin emphasized once more. "Whether it\'s me or someone else from the crew, nobody would refuse Jennifer Aniston."
Aniston chuckled, "You really know what to say. Are you like this with everyone?"
Martin shook his head hastily, "Of course not, you\'re different from the rest." He spoke earnestly and with passion, "In \'94, when I was only thirteen, I saw Friends on the screen for the first time and I fell in love with Rachel Green. My admiration and adoration for Rachel lasted throughout my teenage years."
Aniston suddenly had an unsettling thought—what do teenagers do with the posters of their goddess? There must have been quite a few posters that suffered his mischiefs!
Martin added, "I never dreamed that one day I\'d be acting with you."
Aniston said, "I\'m just an ordinary person, a regular actor."
Yet Martin countered, "There\'s only one Rachel in the whole world, and only one Jennifer."
Aniston felt that getting involved with Limitless might not be a bad idea after all.
The two passed by the entrance of the community committee just as Harold, who was working late, came out.
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Seeing them together, Harold didn\'t approach to greet them but simply smiled, waved, and then got in his car and left.
After walking for another five minutes, Aniston stopped in front of a villa, holding back her dog Norman, who was eager to run to the side of the gate.
Martin pointed to the villa\'s courtyard that sprawled nearly a thousand square meters and asked, "Do you live here?"
Aniston nodded, "This is my house. I moved here after leaving Beverly."
She was afraid to act too hastily and scare him off, so she glanced at her wristwatch and said, "It\'s getting late, I won\'t invite you in today. We\'ll get in touch another time."
Martin, who always adhered to his three major principles, said, "You better go back early, good night."
"Good night," Aniston waved her hand and led the dog to the door.
She opened the door but did not enter, and Martin stood still.
Both of them couldn\'t help but laugh at the same time.
"I\'ll go first," Martin said as he turned and walked away.
Only after he had walked some distance did Aniston enter her home.
Inside the villa, after giving her beloved dog some water, she sat on the sofa and sighed lightly: Martin had the looks and the charm, he was eloquent and knew when to advance or retreat, no wonder Jolie had dumped Pitt for him.
Outside the villa, Jody captured the back of Martin leaving and the tightly closed gate of Aniston\'s home, feeling a bit disappointed.
If Martin had entered that door tonight, the exclusive news would have sold for tens of thousands of dollars!
The notion of America\'s sweetheart and America\'s hero being involved in a scandal was thrilling to think about.
"Such a pity..." Jody could only walk back.
However, the harvest wasn\'t bad—the photos of Martin and Aniston strolling together were still immensely valuable.
Jody hurried back to where she had parked her car. Just as she was about to get in, she noticed Bruce waving from across the street.
She first stored her camera properly, then crossed the street and, as usual, got into his car.
"Thanks for the big scoop," Jody said, having come over after being notified by Bruce.
Bruce hadn\'t expected that Martin would bump into Aniston and talk for so long. He nodded lightly and said, "There\'s another exclusive about Martin and Aniston."
Jody\'s first reaction was, "They got together? No, that can\'t be right, Martin\'s openly dating Blake Lively."
Bruce commented, "You have quite an imagination."
Eager but mindful of being rejected by Bruce in the past, Jody bluntly asked, "What do you want?"
As a dedicated paparazzo willing to pay the price for news, she offered, "You can take your pick of any part of me."
Bruce looked at her, noting that perhaps because of her job\'s demands of being outdoors, Jody was thinner than a monkey and darker than an orangutan.
Not wanting to tease her further, he got straight to the point, "Aniston\'s agent has contacted the crew of Martin\'s new project, based on The Dark Domain novel, \'Endless.\' Aniston is interested in the lead female role."
The news of the new project wasn\'t public yet, and grasping the importance of this information—novel, movie, lead actress—Jody realized that a movie pairing Martin and Aniston was indeed big news!
"Thanks," Jody said while rummaging through her belongings.
Bruce, not interested in her, cautioned, "Don\'t mess around, I\'m not that kind of person."
Jody pulled out all the cash from her wallet and pockets and shoved it at Bruce, "That\'s all I have, take it all, don\'t you find it too little."
Bruce pointed outside the car, "Go on then, hurry back and start writing. It must make the papers by tomorrow."
Jody didn\'t waste any more time, quickly got out of the car, ran across the street, hopped into her vehicle, and began making calls immediately. Today\'s news could fetch a good price.
A few minutes later, she drove off from the Cody Community, carefully keeping her speed within limits to avoid trouble. Once outside the community, she suddenly accelerated and sped towards the meeting point for the trade.