He laughed. “Ah, I’ve needed that since my first boyfriend. But don’t you worry that pretty little head. The Adonis at Greenstone assured me I’d be covered. And not in the way I’d want to be by any of the men there. Fuck, even the chick would almost turn me straight.” He paused. “I’m good, Anastasia. I’m far too egotistical to put myself in any danger for you.”
I smiled fully then. He was right. That was why I liked him so much. He was just as egotistical and selfish as I was.
“You’ll get through this, girl. You’ll come back, better than ever once you survive this part.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’ll survive this part.” He stepped back. “Now do your hair, your makeup, and perfect that armor for the trip. I’ve got a feeling you’re gonna need it.”
I thought of Duke downstairs.
Yeah, I was gonna need it.
But Duke struck me as a man who tore right through any kind of armor, couture or iron.
I was going for the former, because that’s all I had. And I was going to fight to the teeth to make sure that Duke didn’t get under my skin.
I was going to try my best to lie to myself and think he wasn’t already under there.
“There’s a hot man downstairs who looks pissed off,” Andre declared, walking back into my room after he’d left me to get ready. I’d heard him shouting from his “office” next to my bedroom. He must have been canceling photoshoots, ad campaigns, and whatever else I’d committed to for the next few months. “And I’ll say, he wears pissed off well.”
My stomach dropped. This was real, this was happening.
Of course, it started getting real the second I watched Salvador die.
But there was something final about the neatly packed bags on the ottoman at the end of my bed.
“Okay, I’ll be right down,” I told Andre, who, without asking, grabbed the bags.
Yet another thing the man was not paid for and had refused to do. He gave me a sad smile and left the room.
I turned to regard my reflection in the mirror. My hair was pulled into a tight bun at the nape of my neck, making my sharp cheekbones more prominent. I’d done my makeup out of habit more than anything. My natural freckles were covered with layers of La Mer foundation. My signature wing lined my eyes, and a vibrant red, which almost matched my hair, was slathered on my lips.
Despite what many publications said, it was my natural color. It was a random thing to be so controversial, but I was well known for refusing to cut or dye my hair for a role. I’d lose weight. Gain it—though not many directors had asked for that. Apparently, “no one wants to see a fat woman on screen. If they do, they’ve got those Bridget Jones movies,” a direct quote from one of the owners of the biggest studio in Hollywood. Yeah, men were assholes. But we knew that already.
This legend of my hair was tied to many reports of me being “difficult” or a “diva”—the two D words that men loved to paint on women who didn’t blindly take their orders. I had a few choice D words of my own for those men.
There were never any reports of the fact I’d happily worn wigs for various roles. Wigs that itched, made me break out in rashes and sweat profusely. Arguably much more uncomfortable than sitting in a hairdresser’s chair for a few hours.
But people didn’t want that story.
They wanted the bitch.
On the flip side, my hair was one of my signatures, the bright, thick waves something that had been replicated countless times over.
I hadn’t kept it to start a trend or various rumors.
I kept it because that bright red hair was the only thing I had in common with my father. My one and only tie to him.
Not what I said in interviews, of course.
My hands—nails painted in that same bright red—smoothed down my cashmere turtleneck. I hadn’t known the dress code for being spirited away to an unknown location so I wasn’t murdered before testifying in open court, but I figured all black was a safe bet. My cigarette pants were close cut, elegant, and comfortable for traveling.
The six-inch pointed black heels with the red bottom were not comfortable for traveling but you wouldn’t catch me in a flat shoe unless I was in a gym.
Most people would call that high maintenance, that I didn’t leave the house unless I was in one-thousand-dollar shoes.
But I didn’t care about the shoes themselves—okay, I cared a little, I was a woman.
I liked towering over the men who “directed” me. I was already tall and the extra six inches gave me an edge. Men didn’t like their women like that—they liked them small and vulnerable—which was why my romantic interest in every movie was usually on a step and creative camera work made me seem a lot smaller than I was.