Free The Brand by M.N Providence

it was over and the
movie had been screened, Joelyn pulled Byron to one side and told
him, ‘It’s over, you bastard. I don’t want anything more to do with
you. Don’t call me, and don’t come to my house. I’m done with
you.’
     
     
     

Chapter 9
     
    While her sudden departure from the WTA
professional circuit gave Jansen time to reflect on her personal
life and her career options, it caused the executives handling a
Vermuelen account at each of the big corporations that had supplied
her with endorsement deals to develop ulcers. They were not
prepared to see her slip into oblivion before they realized a
return on their respective investments. They went into urgent
meetings to devise strategies to keep the Jansen Vermuelen brand
alive. One of the geniuses at a major sponsor for Jansen came up
with a temporary but effective solution. He pointed out cleverly
that music was a segment of popular culture that could prove
lucrative to any brand. This point was discussed further by the
executive-in-charge’s team until it was resolved that it was a
“workable” option. The executive-in-charge took the eventual
decision upstairs to his bosses, who commended him on his genius
mind and promised him a promotion if his plan worked. They did not
have to mention that he would be replaced quicker than lightning if
he failed to prove his worth to the company on this rather
unsettling matter. He was intelligent enough to know it.
    What followed next was a series of frantic
exchanges of communication between the corporation’s people and
Jansen’s people. The corporation’s request upon Miss Vermuelen was
plain and straightforward. The plan was that Miss Vermuelen should
lend her voice to songs to be released by the nation’s current
“hot” recording artists, building up to the release of her pop
album in the first quarter of 2012. Miss Vermuelen, still young but
wise enough to know her limitations, told them decently that she
had neither the hope nor the talent to cheat people into believing
she could sing. The corporation insisted. Miss Vermuelen stood her
ground and wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise. It got to a point where
she told them that if they wanted her to pay back the money they
had committed to her, then she would pay them back in full and they
would part ways amicably. Then politely she excused herself from
the meeting. ‘Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but I have to go
house-hunting.’
    It said something about Miss Vermuelen’s
character, and was one of the most fascinating facts of her life,
that while she called New York home, she did not, however, have a
permanent place of residence there. It was even more revealing
about the kind of lifestyle she was used to that over the course of
eight months while in the Big Apple, she had moved from the Four
Seasons to the Peninsula Hotel to the Ritz-Carlton to the Mandarin
Oriental, and was currently residing in a spacious suite at the
Waldorf Astoria. Now that her hectic lifestyle had been brought to
an abrupt halt by her misfortunes at the Wimbledon, she craved for
the comfort and privacy of her own home. Thus she was currently
being shown around possible apartments to make her home by a real
estate agent. Eventually, she chose a luxury condominium apartment
for rent at $40,000 per month at the Trump Hotel International and
Towers. Although it was a beautiful show of opulence in the state
she found it in, Jansen hired an interior decorator to redefine the
apartment in a style and colors that suited her fantasies.
    As mentioned earlier, famous individuals are
often surrounded by people who have ambitions and agendas of their
own that exclude the considerations of the famous individual. It so
happened that someone had the audacity to leak onto the internet
news that tennis star Jansen Vermuelen was currently in the studio
recording her debut album. This put her management team and her
sponsors in an embarrassing situation, especially now that Jansen
had