by Anna Lewis
As the guy grabbed hold of the curtain ropes and went to pull them, I glanced over to Ellie, and she did me. We shared a moment, an understanding, and I got the sense that the anger might be losing its grip on her.
But then the curtain fell, and the picture that was revealed only showed me. Ellie’s hand was on my torso, and her leg wrapped across me, but it was only me there. I could tell that I was smiling at her, and there was that familiar loving look in my eyes when it came to Ellie, but she wasn’t there. She’d been cropped out.
My heart stopped dead in my chest. What was this? Why the hell was this happening to me, and how the hell could I fix it? Who had authorized this behind my back? Whoever it was, he about to get fired, because someone had to pay! I couldn’t just let that slide.
“Wh… what? Ellie?” I gasped out, but this time as I turned to face her there was only hurt there. She thought that I’d used her the entire time, it was written all across her expression. “N… no… I didn’t…”
I tried to grab her hand, but she shook me off violently, and ran out of the room, leaving me a total and utter mess. First the thing with Heather, now this? How could I fix it? Ellie would hate me forever. I knew that I couldn’t even run after her, because she was far too emotional now, she would never want to hear what I had to say.
I pumped my fists angrily at my sides, an intense need for revenge flowing through me. Whoever was messing with me was going to pay, and I could guess who that was…
Book 3: Revenge
Moving past the man that I’d put all of my faith into, the man that had betrayed me, wasn’t easy. In fact it was damn near impossible, but I didn’t have any choice. I couldn’t go back there, not after what he’d done to me, and I didn’t want to circle home with my tail between my legs either. I had to put up and shut up… after all it was my own fault that I found myself in this position.
I had come to New York with one dream in mind: to be a model. I started my modeling career late, and absolutely against the wishes of my father. With my red hair and my slightly curvy figure, I didn’t know that I had a chance really. But I held my head high and did my best to go for it and make it happen anyway. I loved it. I was determined.
I really thought that I’d made it when I landed the job at KM Styles, working alongside the most notorious man in the fashion industry. I thought that I’d gotten lucky and hit the big time. Sure, I had an awkward attraction to Kyle Mercer, the notorious bad boy fashion designer that I had to work with, but I could get past that… surely?
But then he helped me too many times. He saved me from a pushy male model who wanted to spike my drink. He helped me deal with a creepy paparazzi photographer who seemed to be stalking me. Among all that we became friends. Then we became more than friends. The chemistry between us got the better of me, and I eventually caved, giving in to temptation.
His ex-wife Heather warned me not to trust him, and it seemed might be right. He was a cheat who couldn’t remain faithful to anyone, and he also cut me from the photo shoot without telling me. I found out at the reveal party. I was humiliated, completely shocked, and I ran from it all, never wanting to hear about KM Styles again.
Unfortunately, escape was never going to be that easy.
I was at another fashion modeling go-see. A fashion mogul there saw me and asked, “So, you’re the one who hooked up with Kyle Mercer, right?”
I nodded, immediately wishing I hadn’t.
“Didn’t you work with him for a while?” said the mogul. “What happened there? How come I haven’t seen your pictures anywhere other than online?” he glanced at the pinched face woman who was sitting next to him, not even bothering to crack a smile. “Except for in the tabloids though of course.”
“I… it didn’t work out…” I stammered, hating the fact that I had to explain myself yet again. Why couldn’t anyone just see me for who I was, not the one stupid mistake that I’d made? I’d been better off as a complete unknown, at least that way I could be ignored rather than judged.
“Ah… he met someone else,” the mogul said. “Of course, men like him always do. They are heartbreakers and that’s all they will ever be.”
“I’m not really here to talk about my past,” I said, trying to sound firm. Unfortunately there was an undeniable wobble in my voice that wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how hard I tried. “I want to move on. If that’s okay with you?”
“I don’t know if there’s much we can do with you,” he said. He waved his hand dismissively at me, shattering my heart all over again. “You’re not the right look for the foreground girl, but you’ll be too distracting as a background girl. What with your reputation.” He shuffled through some papers, but I already knew that it was far too late for me now. My past had ruined me yet again. “Maybe for the runway later in the year.”
“Thank you,” I snapped, standing upright and grabbing my bag. “Thank you for your time, I will speak to you later.”
With that I stalked from the room with tears streaming down my face. Why couldn’t I get another shot? Why did no one else want to know me? It just wasn’t fair. This was all that I wanted, and it didn’t feel right that it had been taken from me just because I’d fallen for someone that I shouldn’t have. In any other career, I would have been able to move on much quicker. It wouldn’t have been quite the same problem.
Suddenly, my phone rang.
For a split second I allowed my heart to lift, thinking that maybe someone had changed their mind about me and wanted to give me a shot. Then I saw the name plastered across my screen. It was the last name that I wanted to see.
Well, maybe the second to last name. Kyle had given up on me ages ago. It was his ex, Heather, who was calling. Again.
“Don’t say a word, Heather,” I said coldly into the phone, feeling totally done with the whole day. “I don’t want to have anything to do with Kyle or KM Styles anymore. Please leave me out of it.”
Heather had a revenge plan to take Kyle down, and she wanted me to be a part of it. I could have gotten involved in it, if I wasn’t so hurt.
“But…” she interjected, but I hung up before she could get the chance. I couldn’t deal with any of that, not right now. What I needed to do was buck myself up, dust myself down, and keep on trying. As painful as it was, as much as it continued to hurt me, staying the course now was preferable to going back to my parents. That would be the end of it for me. I would never be able to leave them again. Being sad and dejected for the time being was better than going home in defeat, my dreams crushed forever.
***
Kyle
“Oh God,” I groaned, tossing my head back in ecstasy as the blonde chick whose name I couldn’t remember ran her lips up and down my cock. “Fucking hell, El… Emma,” I corrected myself quickly, almost giving away the one name that I never wanted to say aloud anymore. Ellie was constantly on my mind, no matter how hard I tried to get rid of her. The last thing I wanted was for this girl to realize that. Everyone knew about us. Everyone knew that we’d been together.
I missed Ellie so much, but what could I do? She didn’t want to know me anymore. Ever since that horrible party where the doctored photo was revealed – all without my permission, I might add – she was dodging my calls and refusing to respond to my texts. She was blanking me. I’d tried, I really had, but she didn’t want to know me anymore. She had made that very clear.
I’d tried my best to move on in the only way that I knew how, by returning to the guy I once was – the one who would sleep with any girl with a pretty face – but it wasn’t quite working. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get Ellie out of my head.
“It’s Marie,” the woman snapped quickly, moving away from me. “Emma is in the bathroom.” Phew, lucky guess! “I’m sure she will be back for round two in a minute.” I was doing all that I could, but even having multiple women in my bed wasn’t ridding my mind of the redhead who had changed absolutely everything for me.
Ellie was the one for me. I’d know
n it the second that she walked into that modeling audition looking totally different to everyone else. She was innocent, sweet, but she had a fiery side that I’d managed to unlock. I really thought that things were headed somewhere, that we were about to become something real. But then Heather swooped in and fucked things up.
I couldn’t prove that it was her of course, no one was admitting to getting the orders from her, but her last words were constantly swimming around in my ears, affecting every damn second of my life.
“I want what you didn’t allow me to have last time. I want in on the business, and you might as well know now that I will not stop until I get it.”
I was starting to understand that I should have taken her threat seriously from the beginning. I should have understood that she meant it. Greed would always be Heather’s downfall, she’d proven that to me more than once. Now, she was outwitting me at every turn, and it drove me damn near insane. I hated other people having any sort of control over me and my destiny. It didn’t feel right. Unfortunately I didn’t see what I could do about it.
“You know what,” I said sharply, sitting up on the bed. “I don’t think that there’s going to be a round two. I think we might be done here.” It certainly wasn’t like me to turn down sex, but at the same time, I wasn’t in the mood right now. Not with all of my failures floating through my mind.
I glanced up at the gorgeous woman in front of me, with an angry expression on her face and her hands on her sexy, curvaceous hips… and I felt nothing. Even when her brunette friend wandered back into the room with her blow job lips pouted out just for me. This was never going to work, it wouldn’t ever feel the same.
“Kyle is kicking us out,” Emma or Melanie or whatever the hell she was called. “How boring is that?”
“But we were just about to get started!” the other one teased, but I wasn’t about to be swayed. I was seriously not in the mood. Even if they started kissing and touching each other, I doubted I could get back into it.
“I’m sorry, girls, I’m just not in the mood.” I stood up and walked towards the bathroom, needing some time alone. As I clicked the door shut behind me I could hear them whispering to each other, bitching about me. I knew that their gossip about me would float around the fashion world like wildfire. I just didn’t care. What the point in having any kind of reputation when the only woman that I’d ever really cared about didn’t want to know me?
I was depressed. My eyes slid shut. I imagined her smile and her laugh, and her body shuddering against mine as the orgasm consumed her. It wasn’t just the intense chemistry we had that kept me hooked. It was the fact that she wasn’t like anyone that I’d ever met before, and I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t find anyone like her again.
I picked up my phone and found her number on my screen. I ran my fingers lightly across it, wondering if I should break my own heart all over again by trying to call. It was pointless. I was already aware of that. But I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to try.
I heard the front door moving, so I knew the girls were finally leaving. That would give me the space that I needed. I didn’t want random sex with women anymore. I wanted to organize my thoughts, to work out where I was going to go next.
What a mess, I thought to myself as temper coursed through my veins. What a total fucking mess.
***
Ellie
I ducked my head down as I saw him again. It was that paparazzo, the one who was doing his best to wreck my life. Even as all the other gossip rag photographers and columnists started to slowly move on, even as others found other stories to report, he didn’t lose any interest in me. Wherever I went, his stout, sweaty presence was there, slowly driving me to the brink of distraction.
Over and over again I found myself wanting to scream at him, to beg him to leave me alone. However, I got the distinct impression that it wouldn’t do any good whatsoever. He never stuck around for long enough for me to ask anyhow.
“Hey, Katya,” I said glumly into my phone. “How are you?”
“Oh, the audition didn’t go very well then?” she replied, empathizing. Things were a little strained in my friendship group these days. The other girl that we used to spend our time with and who was still friends with Katya, Talia, was one of the many, many women whom Heather had photographed with Kyle during the time that he and I were dating.
Of course, I should have forgiven Talia, because there was no way that she could have known that I was sleeping with him, or even about my true feelings for Kyle. But I found it hard to let it go. It was all still so painful, what Kyle had done to me.
“That audition didn’t go well, but there will be others,” I sighed, trying to remain positive despite everything. “I just have to keep trying, right?”
“It took me a while to get steady work too,” she said. “You’ll get there.”
I knew that she was only trying to make me feel better, but really she was simply reminding me of the truth of things. Soon enough I would have to become a cliché waitress slash model, just to make ends meet.
“Anyway…” she started in the tone of voice that I knew could only mean that she was about to bring up the dangerous subject. “I spoke to Talia last night… she misses you.”
I didn’t reply, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything to say. “I know that she should have told you about her one night with Kyle right away, but she told me that it happened ages ago, and that she just felt awkward… what with you being such a new friend, and all.”
It all felt like excuses to me. Why would Heather say that it happened just a short time ago? Sure she wanted me to join her crazy revenge mission, but as soon she realized that I had no intention of doing that, then surely she would have told me everything?
“I just feel weird about it,” I said.
“Do you think you might want to meet up with her sometime? All three of us together? Then we can discuss it all properly? Get it all out in the open so we can move on.” I knew that both Talia and Katya were desperate for this to happen, but I wasn’t quite ready for it. Not yet.
“Maybe soon,” I half promised. “And as always, if you hear of any work, let me know…” I stopped dead in my tracks, spotting him again. I knew that I should have told Katya what was going on, just to get her moral support, but I didn’t. I simply clicked my phone shut and I started to slowly walk towards him.
He snapped images of me, probably with a dumb, blank looking face in every single one, but in all honesty having my photo in the papers was the least of my worries by this point… even if I did look like crap.
Plus, weirdly enough I didn’t think that I’d particularly seen any of his pictures anywhere anyway. Maybe he ran some creepy blog. Maybe he’d decided to stalk the next new model to walk the streets, just for his own sick enjoyment. Or maybe he was a part of something else, something I didn’t yet understand.
“What are you doing?” I mouthed at him, despite knowing that it was pointless. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
Of course, as to be expected, he jumped up and raced away. He was old, chubby and slow, so if I really wanted to, I probably could have caught up with him… but I didn’t have the heart to follow through with that, I didn’t think that it would do me any good.
Just then, my phone started ringing again.
I didn’t need to look at the screen to know that it would be Heather. She wouldn’t leave me alone. But still I had no interest in speaking to her. She could do whatever the hell she wanted to. All I wanted was to leave all of this behind.
As my phone rang out, I felt a pang in my heart, and an overwhelming desire to ring Mom. I’d purposely not been calling her because I didn’t want her to confirm my idiocy and for her to tell me that I was wrong for leaving in the first place, but for once my pride needed to get to one side.
“Hello?” she answered, in the tentative manner that already told me Dad was by her side. He’d brought me up in such a strict manner. Me running off to become a model
was his worst nightmare. Maybe he was right.
“Hi Mom. Don’t worry, I know that you can’t talk,” I replied glumly, already regretting giving in to this urge. “I just wanted to say that I love you, and I’ll speak to you soon. Whenever you’re alone, please give me a call.”
“I will,” she said, far too stiffly for my liking. Why the hell couldn’t my family just be normal? “Goodbye.”
As she hung up I felt lonelier than I’d ever done so before. I didn’t really have any real support. I was simply here in New York, doing my best and getting nowhere.
How long would I have to keep this up before I could finally accept defeat? How long until I could give up on my dream? However long it was, in that moment it felt far too long.
***
Kyle
“What is this?” I snapped at Greg as I stared at the image in a fashion magazine. The image was there, the photograph from the campaign that I’d been a part of with Ellie, but she was nowhere to be seen. They had actually gone ahead and used the image of just me. You could see Ellie’s hand and leg, but that was it. I wouldn’t have it.
“Well, as you already know, market research suggested…” he started diplomatically, giving me the line I’d already heard and dismissed a hundred times.
“I don’t care what market research suggested!” I threw the magazine onto the ground and watched it slide along the floor. “I didn’t agree to be a part of any of this, not on my own!”
“Well unfortunately that’s just the way it’s going now,” he shrugged, angering me further.
“You did this,” I screamed in anger, needing to have someone to blame. “You must have approved this. I’ve been blaming Heather all this time, but now I’m starting to think that you are far more involved than you seem.”