Chapter 166: A Chance Worth Taking
Xenia liked him. Far more than she should. Maybe it was his composure.
Maybe it was the quiet authority he carried without effort.
Or maybe it was because, around Stan, she never felt like she was being viewed as a trophy to obtain.
He never chased her. Never tried to force conversations.
Never looked at her with the greedy hunger she had grown used to from other men.
Ironically, that restraint only made him more dangerous to her.
Her heartbeat quickened again.
At this point, Xenia suddenly realized something else.
If she kept waiting for Stan to make the first move, absolutely nothing would happen between them.
A man like him probably had countless people approaching him every single day. If she truly wanted him to notice her, not casually, not politely, but genuinely, then she could not continue sitting still like this.
For perhaps the first time in her life, Xenia decided she would have to be proactive toward a man.
The thought alone made her face grow warm.
....
At the Netflix table, Daniel worked relentlessly on his phone.
The casual professionalism from earlier was gone. What remained was the silent, concentrated intensity of someone who understood exactly how serious his director’s request had been. If the information he brought back proved insufficient, the consequences would land squarely on him.
Within the first ten minutes, he had already exhausted Netflix’s standard background channels.
Those produced exactly what anyone could find through a simple Google search: Stan Harrison, wealthy university student, connected to the Ghost Signal production, loosely affiliated with Wanhai Group and Star Entertainment. Clean. Public-facing. Carefully ordinary.
Nothing actionable.
Nothing that explained the composure.
Nothing that explained why an entire room seemed to unconsciously adjust itself around him.
So Daniel escalated.
The secondary tier took longer and cost considerably more. Paid intelligence databases. Discreet industry channels. Quiet favors called in from people who only answered when the price justified the inconvenience.
Several calls went unanswered.
A few were returned almost immediately after hearing the name.
That, more than anything else, unsettled him.
Then the report finally arrived.
Not a full dossier. Just a single document.
Sparse in wording.
Extraordinarily dense in implication.
Daniel read it once.
Then a second time, slower than before.
By the end of it, he finally decided he was willing to bring it to Lily.
He stepped closer and leaned slightly toward her chair.
"Director Reeves. I have something."
Lily’s posture did not visibly change, but her attention, which had appeared fixed on the stage, shifted entirely to him.
"Go on."
"He’s a shareholder."
She turned her head a fraction, surprise showing on her face. "Of Star Entertainment?!"
"Yes."
A faint crease formed between her brows.
Like almost everyone else in the arena, Lily had assumed Stan’s position at the Star Entertainment table came from his association with Ghost Signal and his growing reputation as a student tycoon worth cultivating.
A shareholder position changed the category entirely.
"Stake?" she asked.
"Thirty percent."
For the first time that evening, genuine surprise slipped through her control.
"Thirty percent?" she repeated quietly. "That’s not a minor position. At thirty percent, he practically..."
"Yes, He effectively controls the company," Daniel finished in a lowered voice. "The remaining seventy percent is fragmented. Ten separate holders control roughly five percent each. The only other major shareholder is Madeline Chen at twenty percent. Everyone else is fractional."
Lily’s gaze shifted instinctively toward the Star Entertainment table.
’Doesn’t he technically own the company at that point?’
Three seats away from Stan, Madeline Chen sat in quiet conversation with another shareholder. Until now, Lily had interpreted the seating arrangement casually.
Now the details rearranged themselves into something far more meaningful.
Stan occupied the centered position.
Xenia sat beside him, not Chen.
And Chen, despite holding twenty percent, had unconsciously deferred to his placement.
’My sister reports to that man,’ Lily realized slowly. ’And every shareholder at that table operates beneath him.
Impossible.’
"And Wanhai," Daniel continued evenly, clearly aware he still was not finished. "He owns forty percent."
Lily’s hand, resting lightly against the table, slowly curled into a loose fist.
"Forty percent of Wanhai Group?"
"Yes."
"Any comparable holdings?"
"Only Grayson Davies holds anything near that level. The rest is heavily fragmented between institutions and private investors. Davies and Harrison effectively control the group together."
Silence settled around Lily for several long seconds.
Across the arena, Stan Harrison remained exactly as he had been all evening. Relaxed. Composed.
Speaking quietly with Vivian while occasionally glancing toward the stage, where another performer worked through an audition piece.
There was no tension. No visible effort.
And now Lily finally understood why.
He had not been performing composure. He had not been borrowing authority from the room.
He had been sitting in a position of structural power over a significant portion of the entertainment industry’s commercial infrastructure, and doing so with the effortless ease of someone long accustomed to it.
Which, at his age, should have been impossible.
Meaning something else had to be true.
Lily lifted a hand and adjusted the small clip near her temple, the motion automatic, an unconscious habit that surfaced whenever her thoughts accelerated.
Her eyes lingered on Stan several seconds longer.
A faint glimmer appeared within them.
’There might be a chance,’ she thought. If I move carefully. If I move now.’
The words escaped almost soundlessly.
"There might be a chance. I have to do it."
"Director?" Daniel asked cautiously from the side, thinking she was talking to him...
Without looking at him, Lily made a small dismissive motion with her hand.
"It’s nothing."
Daniel nodded immediately and stepped away, returning to his tablet with the practiced discretion of a man who had learned long ago never to ask questions his director had not invited.
Lily’s composure never cracked.
Her posture remained elegant. Her expression stayed polished and professionally neutral.
But her heartbeat had accelerated hard enough for her to feel the pulse beating in her throat.
A short while later, at the Star Entertainment table, Stan rose from his seat.
"I’ll be back," he said quietly, glancing toward Xenia and Vivian. "Vivian, keep the development discussion moving. I want this finalized by morning, not next week. Don’t disappoint me."
