The Problem With Names

"Raine," The sound of china meeting china punctuated her name. "What are you going to do?"

The dining room wasn't as huge as Laia expected, but it was still unreasonable for a household of five. The table, although nothing like those extravagantly long ones that featured on television, could seat twenty people. Every piece of silverware, every plate, and every glass felt like the definition of luxury.

Laia lifted her gaze to the beautiful woman thumbing the walls of an elaborately decorated teacup. Every action carried grace; an elegance that looked was otherworldly. Her hair was like a nightless sky and her eyes a nearly translucent, piercing gray. Being scrutinized by such an attractive person was unnerving. Almost like you were looking at a timeless painting on the wall, and it was looking at right back at you.

The woman was Gemma Hastings. Her mother.

After seeing her own reflection in the mirror, she could tell that she was a carbon copy.

"I'm still uncertain," Laia said.

That was a lie. She had many things she was going to do: choke the life out of some devil child, finish the quests in this world, and then return to hers. Saffron had already assured her that she would be let successful let go once she satisfied all the requirements in this world.

Recalling the robotic words from earlier, she refrained from letting out a snort.

'Main Quest: To Have a Loving Husband.'

As if she'd go through the trouble of fighting for the heart of some douche. That was how every other green tea bitch got the short end of the stick. She already knew how she wanted to go about accomplishing her first quest and there would be no sacrifice of her dignity.

Since she was already here, why not run amok for a little bit? She'd just be even more pissed if she didn't have the opportunity to do that.

Taking a sip of her tea, she eyed the four people seated next to and across her. She was trying to get a feel of the playing field. If she could get their support, then it would be easier for her to manipulate this generic, drama-filled nightmare.

For all intents and purposes, Laia has and will always be monetarily driven. She likes nice things, so there was nothing she could do except be successful. If she hadn't been able to profit off writing, she would have gone into any course that could promise her big bucks in the long run.

As someone making a living in the literary world, a commercial manuscript is the main way to ensure a pocket lined of cash. She understood this at an early age. Tropes, cliches, stereotypes; she studied them and then had capitalized off them. Many of the novels with her name on them had been deliberately crafted to satisfy a large and paying audience. Only a few of her projects– unpublished ones, at that– were penned without compromise to what she really wanted to write about.

[Untitled (47) ewLOLfinal ewer.docx] was definitely not one of those.

How the fuck did kidnapper kid have access to her drafts and other miscellaneous files? She didn't know or have the will to particularly care. Magic or something.

What mattered was that she was here now.

Had Saffron not been able to access the system's database to help her, she likely wouldn't have even remembered the protagonists' names. It was all slowly coming back to her now that she had the basic story beats down.

The main plot of the novel could be easily summarized with a few phrases. Loveless arranged marriage between rich people, rich guy falls for poor girl, scheming bitchy wife, happily ever after.

Recalling the storyline made her want to gag.

Drama may sell, but her already limited supply of brain cells would drop by the word count. It wasn't rocket science to figure out why she abandoned it. Given that, she had no fucking clue about what would happen to her in the future. She was the wife of the male lead. One of the ultimate obstacles to his and the female lead's happiness and yet the thing that would push them closer together.

Highlight: she was a problem.

Given the track record of CEOs in romance novels, there was a high chance that in some way somehow he was a mafia boss that lorded over 99.9% of the black market. If she tried to touch even a strand on the female lead's head, she'd go straight into some underground torture room without the hope for a quick end.

Thinking about that all now, Laia faintly remembered outlining the antagonist's death.

The antagonist. Her.

She wasn't particularly afraid of death, but she sure as hell didn't want to go out for some shitty reason in some sad excuse of a romance novel.

"I'm certain that I'm sick of this situation." The slamming of silverware against the table silenced the entire room; bringing her out of her internal aggravation.

A pair of eyes glared at Laia. "Didn't I spoil you enough growing up? Didn't I teach you to know your value? How can you still stay with the Norton boy after everything he's done to you?" A man sharply dressed in a navy suit asked angrily. "If you hadn't begged for me to stop last week, I would have chopped his balls off and fed them to him."

Laia found his words interesting.

When she abandoned the novel, she didn't remember writing much, if anything, for Raine's back story.

She studied the man's expression; trying to piece together a puzzle. Saffron had been able to access the basic information of her family members, but nothing more beyond that.

"Do I have a choice on the matter?" She asked. It was a genuine question.

Raine had received a contract instead of an engagement ring. The arranged marriage had been drafted, proposed, and signed by that man.

Rafael Hastings. Her grandfather.

He leaned back and sighed; dragging a hand down his face. "If you have to ask that, then that means that we failed at raising you."

With knowledge of the marriage contract, it wasn't difficult to picture him as any who would use their kin as a political pawn; selfish, greedy, and apathetic. But hearing his words today…

Laia understood the situation clearly.

"Raine," her mother cut in, "I know you're an idiot, but I didn't think you were this much of an idiot." The words were so calmly spoken that even Laia felt offended.

She was starting to get glipses of her mother– her real mother– from this surrogate one; despite the appearances of the two being night and day.

Both seemed to have an affinity to calling her an idiot.

"Gem," her father spoke up. Erick Hastings. Current CEO of Hastings Incorporated. He handsome and charismatic in a dignified way, with strong features and a pleasant voice. "She's just… blinded by love or something like that. We've sheltered her too much. She doesn't know these kinds of things yet, okay? That useless one over there was the same way too," he pointed at Darren.

"…sure. That's right, mom," her older brother assented reluctantly; throwing a short glare at their father. Darren Hastings. Vice-president of Hastings Corp. Playboy– the system had him labeled as one. She could definitely see why. He wouldn't look out of place in a boy band or a telenovela.

"She's an honor student, isn't she? Her IQ's working fine. The EQ needs work–lots of it, but she's not a lost cause yet. Rain-rain will learn to realize and appreciate these things eventually. She's just at a point in her life where she has shitty judgement. She'll learn to invest her efforts into a better person someday," he said. She could sense a helplessness in his tone. As if even he didn't believe what he was currently saying.

The room had gone from a deathly silent zone to an active shooting range. A single question triggered all of this. Laia had only been Raine for about an hour, but she was already having her character assassinated.

The system was the useless one here, okay? It was just dumping her into a world with zero context and zero assistance! How could she know everything that was going on?

"Ah!" She jumped from her chair; a piercing shock coursing through her head. The others turned to look at her with worry and confusion on their faces. "Raine?"

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It was hard for her to stop from cussing out loud.