Chapter 38

Arthur hooked his hands under my arms and lifted me to my feet—or at least did the best he could with all the resistance I was putting up.

“Come on, my little fan. Up you go. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Are you kidding me? Look at this disaster!”

“You saw how horribly that was all set up. It was an accident waiting to happen. Just offer to pay for whatever’s broken and get back to work.”

I nodded, oddly calmed down by how certain Arthur felt about this.

“You’re right.”

“Of course I am. Now, go.”

With a gentle shove, he pushed me in Chrissy’s direction.

The closer I got to Chrissy, the less certain I felt and the more my stomach ached. Her beautiful face was contorted in anger as she barked orders at grips. When she saw me approaching, her eyes narrowed, and her brows furrowed.

“What do you want?” she snapped. “Thanks to you, we’re going to be behind schedule and over budget.”

“I am so sorry about that—about all of this,” I said quickly. “I can pay to replace anything that was broken.”

Chrissy’s brows twitched momentarily.

“You think this is all about money? Of course you do. This is why I told the execs that I didn’t want some airhead Internet celeb—”

“Excuse me? Airhead Internet celeb? I’m not the one who set the equipment up so dangerously close to each other.”

Oh shit, I thought. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

Before Chrissy could reply, I continued, “What I mean is that I’m not one of those people who doesn’t understand what it means to work for things in life. I’ve worked hard for everything I have—my career, my money, and my body. So please, think before you call me an ‘airhead Internet celeb.’”

Chrissy’s expression began to soften, so I decided to take my chance.

“I know that I haven’t shown my best side today, but you’ve seen my videos. People love them. Maybe if we work together, truly work together, we can make something that will make people love Freyja, too.”

By the end of my little speech, Chrissy was nodding her head, seemingly impressed.

“I like that fire,” she said. “That fire, I can work with.”

“So, I’m still in?”

“You’re still in.”

I sighed in relief.

“Just expect me to work that fine ass of yours hard. We have a schedule to keep, and we’re behind now.”

My heart sank into my stomach.

“Great.”

•* *

Chrissy didn’t lie. She rode my ass. Hard.

We filmed with the equipment we had, including reshoots. So many reshoots. Then, thanks in part to my funding, we had a new home gym in two days and started filming with that.

Of course, that required extra time for me to learn how to use the monstrosity in the first place. Then we filmed. And more reshoots.

At least Chrissy took my opinions on things. That, in turn, led to more reshoots. But arguments were at a minimum.

Unfortunately, working on the commercial was just a small portion of my day. Before and after the shoot, I would go see clients. Sometimes, I would fit in a vlog.

What was meant to take a week stretched out into two, in part due to my snafu the first day. By the eighth day, I was too tired to go the gym and film vlogs. My clients started to take notice, though only Arthur went so far as to tell me that I needed to rest more.

On the tenth day, I screwed up big time.

Ever since I had first worked with her, StarRise had insisted that I continue with the intergalactic theme for her—just bigger and more spectacular each time. It had become a challenge, albeit a fun and creative one, to come up with a new look for her every day. She was the reason I started to pre-plan some clients’ looks before I arrived at their offices and prepared bags specifically for their looks that day.

It just made staying organized easier.

Then came the tenth day of shoots, clients, and vlogs—well, no vlogs for at least two days, by that point. I had slept in by mistake and was running late for an appointment with StarRise. I skipped breakfast, grabbed the bags I needed for all my clients—fortunately just two besides Arthur—and rushed out the door.

I drove to StarRise’s office so quickly that I thought for sure I would get a ticket. I must have looked a mess as I ran inside, but no one dared say anything about it as I made my way back to StarRise’s dressing room.

“Finally, Anna!” StarRise exclaimed with a grand wave of her hands.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I set my bags on a nearby bench. “I overslept.”

“Never mind that. Come, come. We’re behind schedule as it is.”

“I know,” I muttered.

As I reached for StarRise’s bag, horror struck me. Aside from my purse, there were only two bags: Arthur’s and one for another client of mine, a plant vlogger.

“No,” I said under my breath as I frantically searched through the bags. “No, no, no.”

In my hurry, I had left StarRise’s bag at my apartment. Even worse, I didn’t have any of her signature colors or sequins. I only had the browns and greens for the plant vlogger and the natural tones for Arthur.

I cursed quietly.

StarRise cleared her throat.

“Is there a problem?” she asked.

I mentally debated before answering.

“No. Of course not.”

I snatched up the palette of greens and browns, praying that this wouldn’t cost me my job.

•* *

Once I finished styling and dressing her, I could tell that StarRise was not pleased.

Green eyeshadow ended in a swirl on each of her temples, and brown blush lightly dusted her cheeks. She wore a dark green cocktail dress and high heel boots, accented by dark brown tights and fingerless gloves. Her hair had been elaborately sculpted into a sideways swirl that stood high on her head.

It wasn’t orange suit bad, but try telling that to the scowl on StarRise’s face.

StarRise stormed out of the dressing room without a word. I followed her example and ran out of the office as quickly as I could.

Down in the gold Aston Martin, I lost it. I cried so hard that I gave myself a headache. I doubled over from the pain in my stomach, trying not to dry-wretch.

I rested my throbbing head against the steering wheel. I wondered if I should even bother to show up for my other clients that day or for the commercial shoot. After all, if I had messed up so badly with StarRise, who was to say that I wouldn’t do the same with everyone else?

I had already messed up with Arthur once, and I had nearly destroyed the set the first day of shooting. Either of those could happen again. There would be no way that they’d be so forgiving this time.

I hadn’t felt so horrible since my last dinner party with the Hayes…or so alone.

Then my phone rang. It was Barnett.

“He-hello?” I choked out through my tears.

“Hi, Anna. I saw that you hadn’t posted any vlogs in a couple days. Are you okay?”