King of Hollywood
Chapter 644 - 52 Matters Worth Attention

Chapter 644: Chapter 52 Matters Worth Attention

Time progressed into September, and there were only two points of interest throughout the entire month. The first was that Jessie was about to give birth. Like Kate, Monica, and Sophie, she had conceived in December. Adrian still couldn’t figure out why it had been a bull’s-eye on the first try, so naturally, her due date was around the same as theirs—although there were differences. Maybe due to excessive worry or something else, her due date was somewhat earlier, in the first half of September.

"It’s okay, the doctor said the baby’s position is very normal, extremely suitable for natural childbirth." In the maternity ward alone, Adrian caressed Jessie’s hair and comforted her. Perhaps it was an issue of age. Even though her cheeks had become plump from the pregnancy, they didn’t appear swollen; instead, they lent her a certain cuteness.

"Really?" Jessie snuggled into his embrace and responded softly.

Despite her comfortable family background, the feeling of insecurity was no less than it had been for Kate or Sarah at the beginning. With her childhood ailments and insecurities about her own appearance, plus a strict father and a deep yearning in her heart, it’s no wonder that Adrian was able to step in during her moment of vulnerability. Therefore, even though Adrian bluntly proposed three options after her unexpected pregnancy, even though he hadn’t spent much time by her side during the pregnancy, even though her reaction to the family was always very worrisome, still, at this moment, she obediently nestled in Adrian’s arms without another thought.

"I will always be by your side as the days go by," Adrian gently patted her back. This was his fourth time accompanying a woman through childbirth; he knew exactly what to say and do from experience.

But even though these things had been repeated four times, he showed no signs of impatience; he was always fully engaged. In fact, it was for this reason that even though he hadn’t spent much time with Jessie these past few months, she still unconsciously saw him as her support, whether it was an act or sincere. Not just anyone could achieve this level of dedication.

There’s no need to describe what came next in detail. The process of natural childbirth is much more painful than cesarean section, otherwise it wouldn’t rank at the top in terms of pain levels. Therefore, many women would rather have a cut than go through natural birth. However, children born through natural childbirth tend to be healthier, so as long as an examination confirms the baby’s position is correct and won’t hinder childbirth, Adrian generally persuades his women to opt for this method.

After all, he would always be standing by their side, accompanying them throughout the entire process. Just think about it: a man standing by a woman screaming in the throes of childbirth, holding her hand from beginning to end, cheering her on...

Jessie’s childbirth was very successful. Though it took several hours, it was relatively smooth overall, much better than some women who took a whole day. The child was also quite healthy. Although the due date was more than a week ahead of Kate and the others, the baby weighed nearly 7 pounds and, of course, just like the prior checkup had indicated, was a girl.

"She’s really cute." An exhausted Jessie held her newly born daughter in her arms and displayed a joyous smile.

"I bet she’ll be as beautiful as you when she grows up," Adrian said with a smile; unfortunately, the little one with closed eyes had wrinkled features, which made it impossible to tell the direction of her brows or to judge if she too would have a "囧" shaped face in the future.

"Have you thought of a name for her?" Jessie suddenly asked.

"Oh, of course. What do you think of the name Ouno?" Adrian replied, his penchant for mischief clearly on display.

Who knew that upon hearing this, Jessie frowned, "Ouno? I don’t like that name."

"You don’t like it?" Adrian looked surprised.

"It sounds strange. I don’t want our child to have that name," Jessie said earnestly.

Adrian didn’t know what to say for the moment. Although Sophie had also been unenthusiastic about the name Juliet, she hadn’t insisted, so his overinflated confidence hadn’t considered a backup option. Now he found himself in this situation.

"Then what do you think?" Adrian could only ask in return.

"I think..." Jessie tilted her head in thought, "I think the name Mary is very nice."

"Mary? Isn’t that a bit too common?" Adrian shook his head inwardly, of course without showing it, and just asked in a tentative tone.

"I think Mary is great," Jessica said with some dissatisfaction, "You were supposed to come up with a nice name, and you couldn’t think of one."

"Okay, Mary might be common, but there are advantages to being common," Adrian hurriedly agreed with her point, "If you feel it’s suitable, then that’s the little one’s name settled."

Hearing him say this, Jessica hesitated, but then quickly kissed the wrinkled little face: "Then we’ll call her Mary."

The name of the fourth child was thus decided on. They stayed in the hospital for two more days, waiting until mother and daughter were completely healthy before leaving. Then came another round of busy arrangements. Unlike Monica and Sophie, who had to be wary of the paparazzi, Jessica hadn’t let even a hint of news slip to her parents and brother from pregnancy to childbirth. Now was not the best time to let them know either.

However, Joshua, that restless guy, had already mentioned several times over the phone that he wanted to come to visit her, and her parents also asked why she couldn’t visit home during these few months. So, everything had to be handled with care. Nevertheless, Adrian was always bustling about, fully demonstrating his role as a "Good Father," and managed not to miss the birthdays of the other three daughters.

All born in September, and with Deva, Juliet, and Lily’s birthdays very close to each other, and since the three little ones got along exceptionally well, they simply combined the birthday parties.

Deva and Juliet were already a year old, and the words "daddy" and "mummy" could almost be pronounced clearly. And unlike the wild child Lily, they were relatively quieter and not as noisy as their sister. The two children still shared a room, sleeping in separate cribs, but they got along very well. One morning, he even saw them sitting behind the crib bars, facing each other, sometimes calling out in unintelligible voices and sometimes tapping on the bars with toys, exchanging information only they understood and having a grand time.

The trouble was when they started crying. Children’s emotions are so easily influenced, and the younger they are, the more this is true. If one child starts crying, it won’t be long before the other follows, and then it’s all hands on deck.

Lily had officially turned five, which meant she was about to become even more mischievous before starting school, though she certainly didn’t see it that way.

"Mommy and my aunts all say I’m adorable, only daddy calls me naughty, because sister Emma says daddy doesn’t like lively children." Lily stood with her hands clasped behind her back, puffing up her chest and speaking seriously, unfazed even when her father glared at her for a long while. Well, it looked like Emma had taught her quite a bit, thank heavens she wasn’t here now.

These past two months, Little Emma had been having a wild time, especially having Small Emma and Lily for company, so much so that Adrian was easily forgiven for his busy comings and goings without her. Nevertheless, despite Little Emma not wanting to return to United Kingdom, summer vacation wouldn’t extend due to one’s wishes, and besides, some voiceover work for "Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone" needed her, so in the end, she obediently set off on her return journey.

"I’ll definitely come visit you after Christmas," she said fiercely holding onto Adrian’s collar as she left, yet her eyes full of unwillingness made Adrian unable to resist peppering her forehead with several kisses.

The birthday party was quite lively, although they didn’t invite many people, there were still a good number of attendees. Besides the three children’s mothers, the current and former assistants were there as they lived in the house, Yukie who had the role of a half-maid was also present, and the only ones from the outside were Sarah who was already inseparable from Kate and Charlize, and Small Emma.

Adrian rarely brought the women together like this, as Dennis’s wedding had already shown it wasn’t a great idea. However, when it was just six or seven people and there were no outsiders, it was fine, especially with Mrs. Galen there to mediate—she definitely wasn’t considered an outsider. After all, Mrs. Galen had served the Cowells for quite some time and was quite popular with the kids; it goes without saying for Lily, but even Deva and Juliet welcomed Mrs. Galen with smiling faces the first time they saw her.

Still, the favorite of the three daughters wasn’t Mrs. Galen, who ranked third; the one in second place was Adrian—yes, the busy "Good Father" was only second; their favorite was the former assistant Charlize Theron. There was no reason or logic; the daughters just liked her, whether it was five-year-old Lily or one-year-olds Deva and Juliet, they all enjoyed playing with Charlize. Especially the two little ones, if they weren’t crying because they were hungry or needed a change, they would always smile when she held them, making the three mothers and Adrian a bit jealous.

"I don’t like Aunt Charli the best, but Aunt Charli is very elegant," said Lily.

"Ah, ah, yah, yiyo," said Deva and Juliet.

Well, regardless, the birthday party was quite lively after all, though the women couldn’t help but keep to themselves. But Adrian was happy to see this; it allowed him to take time to talk about some things with the women individually, such as—

"Frankly speaking, the costume test shots are more beautiful than I imagined, and I even pictured in my mind...how you might seduce me in that outfit." On one side of the garden, Adrian was whispering into Kate’s ear.

"Oh? Should I call the crew right now and have them send over the clothes?" Kate hummed in response.

"That won’t be necessary, I was just complimenting you. Can’t even take a compliment now?" Adrian chuckled with a mischievous grin.

After wrapping up "The Cider House Rules," the next step was naturally preparing for "Tomb Raider." Although filming was still a while away, they could start working on props, sets, and costume test shots now. Adrian had personally sketched out the costume for the movie version of Laura, which had to be more detailed than the game’s depiction due to hardware limitations. For the film, especially with Kate in the lead role, such simplifications were not acceptable.

The original movie costumes were basically unusable; they would’ve sufficed if there were no better options, but with better available, they held no comparative value. Adrian’s costume design took cues from the seventh and eighth installments of "Tomb Raider" from his past world, featuring the iconic earthy brown top with hot pants, a white tank top underneath, back-pack, gloves, boots—everything was detailed, even more so than the current game CG posters.

Once the costume was made and Kate tried it on, the pictures they took were quite appealing. It must be said, she really was suited for an action movie, and Adrian’s foresight in turning a certain series into novels for publication was justified. As for the literary aspect, there was no need to worry; he had a full set of plans, and, as he had previously stated, he intended to help Kate legitimately claim the throne of Best Actress.

While flirting here, he couldn’t neglect opportunities on the other side.

"My dear Sophie, do you know what I thought after seeing part of the dailies for ’What Women Want’? Your OL outfit with the white shirt and black jacket looked very sexy," Adrian teased Sophie and Monica on the other side of the garden.

"Can’t you think of something else besides these things, Ed?" Sophie rolled her eyes at him blatantly.

"It’s mainly because I suddenly remembered the cover Monica shot for ’People’ magazine. She was also in an OL outfit and very sexy too," Adrian laughed with a sly grin.

This time Monica also joined in the eye-rolling.

"Alright, let’s change the subject," Adrian laughed and waved his hand, "speaking of which—next year they’ll start shooting the remaining two parts of ’The Matrix.’ Interested in playing a role, Sophie?"

"’The Matrix’?" Sophie blinked in confusion.

"The Frenchman’s wife?" Monica, who had read the script and original novel, responded immediately.

"BINGO!" Adrian snapped his fingers, "Monica’s always quick on the uptake."

He grinned at Sophie, "What do you think? Not too many scenes, almost a cameo. Plus, it’s been a while since we last worked together."

"That’s true, but..." Sophie pondered with her chin in hand, "I always feel like your ideas are not that simple, Ed."

"His ideas aren’t hard to guess, Sophie, just use a little brainpower and you’ll know," Monica chimed in quickly as always.

"Got it." Sophie smiled, then in perfect unison with Monica, they both gave Adrian another eye-roll.

Adrian burst into laughter right away. What else could it be if not uniform and role-playing? Sadly, it seemed that Monica had never played the role of a white-collar beauty, which was a bit of a pity. They had only tried role-playing in "The Matrix"; "Malena" could work too, but Monica was slightly too sentimental about that character, so he didn’t press her.

As the banter continued, Adrian made his way over to Sarah.

"A new movie, the kind that really tests acting skills, but it’s not a somber type like ’American Beauty’. It’s a comedy, similar to ’Legally Blonde’, though the plot’s a bit cliché. It needs the lead actress’s spot-on performance to hold it up—sounds like your kind of film, right?" Adrian asked Sarah, looking at the three children playing in the distance.

"Perhaps, I haven’t even seen the script yet," Sarah replied, still somewhat listless.

"The script’s already finished, you can read it anytime you like," Adrian said, watching her. "Come on, Sarah, cheer up, will you?"

Sarah had been down since just a while ago, and despite Adrian’s attempts to shift the conversation, she didn’t seem to perk up. That’s why he brought up the film.

"It’s alright, Ed, just some minor issues, I’ll get over it soon," Sarah said with a smile.

After staring at her for a moment and noticing she couldn’t help touching her own cheek, Adrian finally sighed, "Alright, I’ll be more mindful in the future."

"Huh?" This time, Sarah was confused.

"I’m very perceptive, especially about you, so don’t think you can fool me," Adrian said, pinching her cheek. "I promise I won’t do any of that in front of you again."

"That... that..." Sarah’s eyes widened, and she quickly looked away, her cheeks starting to redden slightly. She hadn’t expected Adrian to actually guess.

In fact, it wasn’t a big deal. It was just that during a previous "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" party, Adrian had openly flirted with Amanda Seyfried, who played Buffy’s sister. He had her laughing boisterously one moment and bashfully shy the next. If it hadn’t been for certain issues, Adrian probably could have easily taken her out.

Sarah had seen all this, and even though she knew she couldn’t change Adrian and had come to accept his behavior, it still didn’t sit well with her heart. However, Sarah had been open about these feelings with Adrian, and since he cared for her as well, a bit of reflection made it all clear.

"I do as I say," he continued in a gentle voice, leaving Sarah momentarily unsure how to respond, while Adrian sighed to himself.

Sarah would never know how much Amanda flaunted herself. In fact, she had started doing so from their very first meeting. Although they had only met four or five times, it was always the same. But her skillfulness was well-honed, and while she was showing off for him, she was indeed tickled pink by his attention. Only someone seasoned in such environments could detect that.

What happened in the past was the past, and the present was the present... Let it go, it was a good thing that Sarah reacted this way, Adrian thought, deciding not to dwell on it any longer. He would just have to be more careful in the future.

The daughters’ birthday party went by just like that, the only disappointment being that he couldn’t get all the women together... Well, that was just wishful thinking.

Later that month, another noteworthy event was on the horizon. It was the upcoming release of Avril’s debut single on her birthday, and the single was titled "Wherever You Will Go".

Yes, it was the hit song by The Calling, which should have been released last year. However, due to the small flutter of a butterfly’s wings, some things changed, and quite dramatically, the song landed in Adrian’s hands. (To be continued. If you like this work, please come to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for it, as your support is my greatest motivation.)