"What does that mean?" I asked, frowning.
She sighed. "You know, I was young and dumb – " okay, so this excuse was being used, "and I was really into guys with power. Not that you don't have power, I mean you do," she flubbed, "but you know what I mean … " she said helplessly.
"No, I'm not sure that I do," I ground out. I've been surrounded by gold-diggers all my life, and this wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear.
"Well," she said helplessly, trying to continue. "I met Jake Sterling at a party in San Francisco, you know the CEO of Sterling Pharmaceutical, and I thought we were in love. I swear, I thought he loved me."
"Did he propose?" I asked flatly.
"Not exactly," she mumbled. "I went to Harry Winston and bought myself a diamond and pretended that Jake gave it to me. I just wanted to believe it so badly, he was handsome, rich, and I dunno … we seemed perfect together, like the charmed couple you see in movies."
"You've been watching too much Lifetime," I said sternly. "That shit doesn't exist in real life."
"I know," she said softly. "But I was poor, I was desperate, so I clung to a man who embodied my wildest dreams. We were engaged until my sister got pregnant with his baby, and then boom! Jake was out of the picture."
"And are they married now?" I asked, my voice dangerous.
"Yes, they have a baby named Janie, she's beautiful. She was born prematurely and wasn't well for the first six months of her life. I guess the stress pulled Jake and Tina together, being new parents to a sick child and all."
Okay, so at least the girl was somewhat honest about her goldigging past. Of course, there were two sides to every story, and that fucking Sterling scumbag impregnating his fiancee's sister was no walk in the woods, I'm sure. But I still hadn't heard what I was looking for.
"Is there anything else?" I asked, deceptively casual. This was her time to fess up, to let her deepest, darkest secrets out. Surely she realized that as CEO of Levast, I'd already done a good bit of fact-checking into her past. Surely, Jenna didn't think she could hide something like nude pix from the CEO of a media conglomerate.
But Jenna shook her head slowly, her long blonde hair swaying gently.
"No Rafe, that's it," she said. "I've been around some in my twenty-four years, but there's nothing that crazy. Why, is there something you want to ask?" she said curiously, tipping her chin to look into my eyes, blue eyes clear.
"Nothing," I said smoothly. "It's all good, I understand about the broken engagement," I said in a deep voice. But the truth was that our relationship was essentially done. I'd given her the opportunity to open up, to confess the error of her ways, and she'd pretended like nothing was amiss. How could I trust her anymore?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jenna
I haven't heard from Rafe in six weeks. I haven't eaten, drank, or slept, and my body's looking haggard, although of course industry rumors are that I've lost weight because people won't hire me.
At one fitting, they didn't even try to disguise their comments. The atelier employees spoke Italian, thinking I couldn't understand, but actually I'd studied the language during college and understood every word.
"She looks fabulous, doesn't she?" said one gay guy, giving me a charming smile. "Emaciated, just the way we like it."
"She does, but look at the poor thing," clucked an older woman while draping a length of fabric across my chest. "Bags under her eyes, her skin is dull, and this hair! That blonde hair she was always known for, it's now like straw, we've got to tell her agency she's got some serious psychological problems."
"She's not our responsibility," scoffed the gay guy, turning me around this way and that, as if studying a piece of meat. "The agency should be keeping tabs on her, and what do we care? As long as our clothes look good and fly off the rack, why should we give a shit if she dies?"
I almost cried then, this was how people talked about me when they thought I couldn't understand. Again, as my old self, I would have raged back at them in fluent Italian, telling them to fuck off, I was going to tell my boss, his name was Rafe Connor and wasn't he their boss too?
But the new me was different. Knowing my place, I bit my tongue even as a flush rose up my chest, my cheeks flaming.
"Would you mind if I went to the bathroom for a moment?" I murmured. "I've been standing here for an hour and really need to use the loo."
"Of course not, honey," said the older woman through a couple of pins in her mouth. "Let me just get this off you."
Of course the gay guy was shooting daggers at me with his eyes, but I was beyond that. I needed a moment of privacy to re-group, to steel my shoulders against this new assault.
Because I felt like I'd been at war for the last six weeks. Not that Rafe ever fought back, it was the wall of silence that was killing me. I'd left countless messages on his cell, on his work phone, with his secretary, and all for nothing. All I got was a polite murmur of acknowledgment from his personal assistant, and one day a package came in the mail.
It was astounding. I'd been feeling down in the dumps when my doorman called upstairs to inform me that something had arrived. "Yes, just send it up please," I'd said weakly.
"No," said Herberto. "This requires your signature, they won't take mine."
"Alright," I said with a sigh. I rolled off the couch, looking my worst. I'd had no jobs today and had spent hours alone in a dark apartment, feeling miserable, re-running the sensual times I'd had with Rafe over and over in my head. My bedhead was disgusting and I probably smelled, I was wearing last night's sweats with a very visible tomato stain on the knee.
But I didn't care. Since Rafe ghosted me, I was a mess psychologically. I couldn't focus on anything and had become the type of model that designers look for – a clotheshanger with no personality, a sullen expression, caved in cheeks and a penchant for moodiness. It was nothing like the public persona I'd built for myself, sparkling, bouncy, healthy, a real California girl.
So I schlepped downstairs in my slippers. Who cares if my neighbors saw? There were other celebrities in this building too, they could stalk Taylor Swift or Blake Lively instead.
And when I got downstairs, the delivery man gawked a bit. I use the moniker Angela Adams, so I'm sure he wasn't expecting to see top model Jenna Walsh appear, even in a disheveled state.
But Herberto hurried it along.
"Pen, Ms. Walsh," he said. And I signed, taking the package into my arms. It was small and flat, covered in brown paper with no indication of the sender.
But once I got back to my apartment, I scrutinized the package suspiciously. As a public figure, I need to be protective of my identity, but it's actually pretty easy to figure out where famous people live in New York. There are celebrities walking around all the time and it doesn't take much effort to trail someone back to their home. In fact, some of the male actors I knew were pretty careless, never wearing wigs or disguises, going about their business like they were regular people.
But dammit, if this was a bomb, I was kind of okay with it at this point, life was so painful. The gray pallor that had taken over was stifling, like I was being drowned in a deep sea of murky water, unable to breathe, unable to lift my head even and open my eyes.
With resigned fingers, I opened the seal to the brown paper, listlessly pulling out the box within. With uncurious eyes, I noted that it was from Harry Winston. Again, in my past life I would have jumped with joy because Harry Winston only meant one thing, and that was money, money, money.
As I opened the beautiful plush purple velvet box, I saw how bony my fingers were, how my nails were ridged from malnutrition and dehydration, only partially obscured by my fancy manicure. God, I needed to take care of myself better.
The box snapped open, and there it was. A beautiful diamond tennis bracelet, probably thirty carats total of perfect, emerald-cut stones. I lifted it to the light, and the bracelet flashed with fire and life, each diamond a perfect gem in and of itself, priceless in value.
I reached listlessly for the card. There was no note, just a card with the word "Rafe" written in a cursive hand. Of course that wasn't his handwriting, it was probably his secretary or worse, some nameless peon who worked at the jewelry store. Feeling sick, I hunched over, my shoulders heaving up and down as I took quick gasps of air.
I should have felt happy. I should have felt elated, lucky even, for receiving a six-figure piece of jewelry, even if the relationship was now over. But instead I felt miserable, the sadness overwhelming. I hated the jewelry on sight, letting it slip through my fingers to clatter to the floor, uncaring where it landed.