by Anna Lewis
I was acting crazy, staring at Greg wide eyed and manic, walking him backwards until he hit the wall. Everything in my mind was swirling like crazy. I needed someone to take the hit for that. I needed something to make sense. I didn’t approve these pictures. I’d argued furiously against using them. Yet somehow they had happened anyway. It had to be Greg, there wasn’t anyone else.
“Kyle, I don’t know why you’re acting like this,” he started, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t know what’s making you take such offence to this. I don’t know why you care so much about Ellie… she’s just another…”
“She isn’t just another anything,” I all but shouted in his face. “Don’t you dare say that.” I didn’t want anyone to assume that Ellie was just like all the others, because she really wasn’t. “Ellie is nothing like the other women.”
“Okay, okay, so you love her?” he asked me in an overly calm tone of voice, as if he was trying to work out where my head was at. He held onto my shoulders, but I shook him off quickly.
“No, of course not, I… I…” I hadn't known this woman long enough to love her. That was ridiculous. She was just very special. “Don’t try and turn this around, Greg.” I shook my head and did my best to get back on track. “You have been trying to undermine this business for years now. Why? Is it because of my fame? If so, please take it. I don’t want it anymore, that isn’t why I got into any of it…”
“Of course it is!” he exploded back, finally losing his temper with me. “Of course it is, all you’ve ever wanted is to be the most famous person in your very successful family. Maybe you don’t realize it, maybe that much is genuine, but it’s been your driving force since day one.”
“No… no…” I stammered, trying to sound confident, but I couldn’t keep the wobble out of my voice no matter what. Was he right? Had that been my driving force? Sure, there was always a competitive element there, and yes it had felt good to finally be the most successful out of everyone, but that had nothing to do with why I was angry now.
The photographs with me and Ellie in them were magnetic. The chemistry, the connection, it was obvious and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that they would have been successful. They would have brought the KM Styles fashion line back up to where it needed to be. That was why I was in charge of the visual side of things. Greg’s forte was the business and management side.
“Plus, why would I want to undermine the business that I am a major part in? KM Styles might be named after you, but it’s my future too.”
His arguments were solid, but I didn’t want to hear them. I didn’t want him to try and make me see sense because right now I was like a bull with a red rag in front of me. All I wanted to do was charge at him.
“I’m going to get you out of the company,” I promised him, squeezing my fists by my side, hoping that I wouldn’t lash out and punch him. “Whatever it takes. It’s my name, it should be my company.”
“Don’t be so silly…” he started, finally showing fear in his face. That pleased me, it meant that I was getting under his skin. That was exactly where I wanted to be. I wanted him to feel bad for what he’d done. It had to be him who’d doctored the photo. He had to be involved one way or another. And if that was the case, then he was no longer my friend. Before long he wouldn’t be my business partner either.
Greg said, “Let’s just talk about this calmly and sensibly.”
“No,” I finally snapped, before stomping out of the room. I just wanted to be alone, in the way that I always seemed to want to these days. The only way I could get that quiet was to get the hell away from Greg.
Greg was an asshole. I was sure that he was a part of it. I just needed proof. Once I could get that I would be able to get him out of my business without any troubles. I’d seen firsthand how money could change people. Now it seemed like it had happened to my best friend too.
In that moment, with that revelation, I felt lonelier than I ever had done before. It was as if my entire life was slipping through my fingers, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I could feel the sand flowing through my fingers, but I couldn’t grip onto any of it, however hard I tried.
***
Ellie
Today would be the day I would land a modeling job. I was sure of it. All that I needed to do was keep my head held high and the go sees that I had planned for the day would pay off. I decided to take on a positive attitude in the hope that I could finally overcome the ghost of Kyle. I wanted to be known for myself and my own talent. If I kept that at the forefront of my mind, I would be fine.
I was trying my darnedest to keep a positive attitude throughout the day because failure and depression was nipping at my heels. I feared that I would eventually succumb to one or both.
I heard a very unwelcome female voice call out behind me as I stood in line at the coffee shop.
“Hello there,” she said.
As I turned to face her, she took my breath away a little bit all over again. She was just so classy and glamorous. She really made me feel like a bag of crap every single time. I had what had been described as an ‘interesting’ look; red wavy hair, big green eyes, and cheeks that felt slightly too big for my face. Unless I was made up, I looked like a normal girl off the streets, whereas Heather looked incredibly, like she’d just stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine.
“Fancy seeing you here,” she said.
“What do you want, Heather?” I sighed wearily, really not wanting my positive mood to be shot down by her right now. “I have a busy day ahead of me.”
“Well, luckily this won’t take a moment then!” she shot back gleefully, all the while placing her hand firmly on my shoulder. “I have the plan in place now, I know exactly what I want to do.”
“I don’t want any part of it…” I tried, but she wasn’t about to let me get away with that one.
“Now, I’m sure by now that enough time has passed for all the hurt to have gone away. Now I’m sure all you want is revenge.” The hurt hadn’t gone away, but I didn’t say so. Heather said, “I have taken the time out to come up with the perfect plan, and the best thing is it barely needs any effort from you! All you need to do is sign one piece of paper.”
“What paper?” I asked her curiously, narrowing my eyes at her. Even though Heather had been the one to show me the truth about Kyle, even though I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear it at the time, I still wasn’t totally sure if I could trust her or not.
“Oh, just a small form,” she continued innocently. “Stating that Kyle was abusive and cruel to you while you were working for him. That is all I need to take him down.”
“Abusive?” I gasped in shock. “Cruel?”
“Was it not cruel to treat you as he did and then kick you out of the advertising campaign?” My mind spun at that, wondering if maybe she was just a little bit right. She went on. “Was it not abusive of him to seduce you, fully knowing that he was seeing other women at the same time?” She grabbed onto my hands and gazed imploringly into my eyes. “Do you not want him to feel some of your pain? Don’t you think he deserves it? This isn’t just about me, and what Kyle owes me. This is about you too. I already know that you aren’t used to this world and how awful it can be. He took advantage of you.”
My ears buzzed and my blood ran hot at that. She was making far too much sense for my liking. Maybe it wouldn’t be exactly as Heather was trying to make out, but he had treated treat me poorly. He deserved to pay for that, in some way or another.
I glanced around the coffee shop, just looking for some sort of sign, an answer to all of my problems. I spotted a woman holding up a fashion magazine. When I spotted the image on the back of the magazine, my heart stopped dead in my chest. It was him. Kyle, in the photo shoot that we did together. Of course the picture that they’d used was the one that I should have been expecting, the one from the reveal party. I guess a small part of me had hoped that he would see how hurt I was, and that he would change it. But
of course emotion held no place in the fashion industry. I should have learned that by now.
“So?” Heather asked me, dragging my attention right back to her. “What do think? One little signature and Kyle gets everything that he deserves. It will bring you some positive media coverage too – the sort that will have people clawing at you, wanting to hire you.”
If I wasn’t so desperate for work, I might not have even considered it. I might have turned her away and left it well alone. But I was desperate for work, and I did want Kyle to suffer too in the way that I had. It felt only fair.
“Okay,” I said quickly, allowing the emotion to get the better of me. “Okay sure, I’ll sign anything you want.”
“Meet me here tomorrow, at 11 AM,” she smiled happily at me, while patting me on the shoulder. “Then you can finally put this whole mess behind you.”
To be honest, that was all I wanted really. Right then in that coffee shop, Heather’s plan seemed to be the only way to get that done.
***
Kyle
I spent the rest of the day watching Greg like a hawk, not that he knew it. After I stomped out from the building and I paced around outside, I finally calmed down enough to realize that I couldn’t just throw accusations like that around, especially not when it came to my best friend and business partner.
I needed proof. I decided I was going to do whatever it took to get it.
I watched him closely. Much to my disappointment, I didn’t observe him doing anything suspicious looking. I decided to take matters into my own hands. I sent one of the receptionists rushing into his office, acting as if there were an emergency. The aim was to get him out without giving him time to shut down his computer, giving me a chance to look at it. He was always very private about his emails, and now I was starting to wonder why. I was curious to what he was hiding in there.
I ducked out of sight as he raced from the room looking bewildered and shocked, and jumped into his office at the first opportunity I got. At first I scrolled all through the messages in my inbox, without any luck. I started to delve deeper and deeper, checking folders that were labeled very boring names. ‘Money’, ‘Orders’, ‘Invoices’. I was almost about ready to give up hope, before I spotted the last name in the world that I expected to see.
Heather Powell.
It had taken a lot to persuade Heather to go back to her maiden name, and it seemed like she’d finally applied it to everything, maybe in another attempt to hide herself away from me, but I’d found her regardless.
As I clicked on the email, my heart raced in my chest, my emotions zig zagged across my body in fear, making it very difficult for me to control myself. I read it apprehensively.
‘The plan is in place. Soon, the company will be ours.’
“What the fuck?” I yelled out, scraping my chair backwards. “What the fuck is this?” I knew that Heather was willing to betray me, and of course I suspected Greg, but I never thought that he would team up with her over me. I thought that he and I went much further back than that. I thought that we had a real, solid friendship.
At that exact moment, the door swung open, and Greg strolled back in. As I turned to face him my entire body ran cold with terror, and I felt sick to my stomach. Everything that I’d ever thought about my life and the people in it was all wrong.
“Why?” I asked him simply as his eyes moved slowly towards the computer. “Why her? Why Heather?”
“I… I…” he started to shake and sweat as he ran his hands through his hair, proving to me that it was all true. Deep down I probably hoped that it wasn’t going to be, but that was all gone now. “I think that she’s been manipulating me for months, trying to get under my skin, trying to make me do her bidding, I don’t know…”
Of course, there was only one way that Heather would be able to hook this man. She used her best asset, her womanly charms. “Did you sleep with her?”
“I… I’m sorry,” Greg shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry I know I shouldn’t have, but she made it impossible.”
“Greg…” I said. I didn’t want to accept what he was saying. It was never impossible to resist someone, he was being an idiot. I shook my head at him.
“And now she’s after Ellie…” he said.
“Ellie?” Of course, it was all finally starting to come together. The pictures, the photos of me kissing random girls, this was all to get what Heather thought that she deserved from me. “What is she going to do to Ellie? Isn’t she done with her already?”
“Heather is never done,” he told me with tears filling his eyes. “She will stop at nothing to get what she wants.”
I was overcome with a sudden, desperate need to call Ellie and check up on her. But I knew for a fact that she wouldn’t answer me. If Heather could turn Greg totally around on me, and we’d known one another forever, then poor, sweet, naïve Ellie stood no chance.
“Well, what can I do?” I asked Greg, pacing the room. “How can I stop her? I mean, you don’t really want her to destroy this business do you? She can’t really be that good… so good that you would throw away your future?”
“N… no,” Greg stammered. “No I don’t, I don’t know how I managed to get so caught up in this… I’m not sure what happened. I... I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I told him seriously. “I can’t even think about what you’ve done right now. All I can focus on is making it right. That’s how you can make it up to me. We need to come up with a plan, we need to put a stop the Heather before she goes too far.” Greg didn’t look convinced, but I didn’t care. He would damn well do whatever I told him now, after all he was a massive part of the problem. If he ever cared about me at all, he would at least stick around for long enough to make it right. I felt like he owed me that much. “What can we do? Do you have any ideas?”
“I… I… well, I suppose there is one thing,” he stuttered, filling my heart with hope. “But it won’t be easy.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” I told him determinedly, anticipation coursing through my veins. “Anything to make this right.”
***
Ellie
I sat stiffly at the table in the coffee shop, feeling incredibly awkward. I hadn't even touched my coffee. It was just sitting there for show. This wasn’t exactly a normal meeting with friends. This was Heather coming to get me to sign the papers that would ruin Kyle’s life. It was like something out of a crazy movie, yet here I was living it in real life.
I had thought long and hard about Heather’s offer. For a long time I did not know what to do. But I had now made up my mind. My course was clear.
As I heard the door fly open, I could sense Heather’s presence before I even glanced up to see her there. She had an aura surrounding her, one that caused you to look at her even if you didn’t want to.
“Hi Heather,” I said. I drank in her pristine appearance, feeling self-conscious about my own. Because I didn’t have any work planned, I had simply come out in a sweater and jeans, with my hair scraped back and no makeup on. It was impossible not to feel self-conscious next to the goddess wearing a skintight bodycon dress and looking as if she’d just been at the salon. “How are you feeling today?”
“Oh, I’m just peachy,” she replied, giggling like a schoolgirl and taking the seat next to me, making me feel even stranger than I did before. “This is the first day of the rest of my life. Now, can I get you a drink or anything? This is a big day for you too, right?”
“No,” I shot back quickly… possibly a little too quickly. “No, I have a drink, thank you. Do you have the papers with you?” The sooner this was done, the better as far as I was concerned.
“I do,” she clicked open her bright pink briefcase and started sorting through things.
“So, I just want to say thank you,” I told her, looking at her out of the corner of my eye. “For showing me those photographs. I don’t think that I ever would have been able to see the truth about Kyle without them. That really was something els
e.”
“Oh of course,” she said. “Anything to help.”
“I just never would have believed that he was such a cheating scumbag if you hadn't proven it to me. I mean, all those women in such a short time…”
“Oh well, maybe they weren’t all from when you were with him. Maybe some of them were during the time I was married to him, maybe some of them afterwards…” she stated. My skin prickled. She had confirmed my biggest fear. Had I just been suckered? “But it allowed you to see what sort of man he is… the type that can never be trusted.”
“Hmmm…” I muttered, unable to form a better reply as my mind spun like crazy. There were so many expletives running through my mind, but I forced them all to stay inside. This wasn’t the time or place for that. “Sure.”
As Heather placed the papers in front of me, and handed me a pen, there was a self-satisfied smirk playing on her lips.
“This is so awesome, I’m so glad that you’re finally doing this for me, you don’t know how long that I’ve been working on this plan. It’s like you’re an angel, dropped from the sky.”
“Yeah?” I asked distractedly, scanning my eyes over the words in her document.
“Yeah… I mean, I thought that I was going to have to do it all through Greg – the massive idiot that he is – but then you came along and answered all of my prayers. Now I can finally get what I’ve deserved all along. Kyle tried to stitch me up in the divorce, blaming the failure of our marriage all on me, but now I’m about to rectify that.”
“He blamed you?” I couldn’t help but gasp. “But I thought he cheated?”
“Oh, well I suppose that the pictures came from the time that we were separated… but we were still married. It counts.”
I actually sensed a bit of guilt emanating from her, which piqued my interest that little bit more.
“So… why did you get divorced?”