My face hurts from the wide smile I have had plastered on for the last six hours. My eyes sting from the flash of multiple cameras but I force myself to keep from closing my eyes.
What must have been the hundredth reporter today pushes a microphone into my face. I answer the same questions almost automatically and direct him to my new administrative assistant for publication permissions. My feet ache and the jewels on my dress rub against my sensitive skin, creating a red irritation that is hidden by the fine material.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Johnni is suddenly behind me, his heavy arm draped over my bare shoulders. The rapid flash of bulbs lets me know that the vultures around us are capturing every minute of his casual familiarity with me but I don’t care. I’m too tired to care.
I don’t turn to look at him, instead waving to the crowd of people standing next to the red carpet. Security keeps my fans from stampeding, but the surge forward requires a hastily refortified barrier.
“Is it that obvious?”
Johnni slides in next to me and joins the procession of actors and actresses. “No,” he responds lightly. “It’s not obvious; I just know how irritating those precious gems can be.”
We laugh because we both know how many hoops he’s jumped through in order to make the gown in the first place. It isn’t the section of fashion he specializes in and branching out—especially in such a big way—is typically frowned upon in the industry.
I am wearing over eighteen million dollars’ worth of diamonds at once. My dress alone was sewn with the thinnest gossamer thread and it feels as if it could float away at any second. I am amazed at how sheer and airy it feels while still being heavy and constraining.
“Oh yes, they’re absolutely a drag,” I say sarcastically. We both know how much I love it. Anything this high-end could only be for me. It is what I was born for and I am deeply touched that Johnni picked me to debut his upscale female clothing line.
“No doubt none of the wannabes will even bother to copy this one. It’s too much.”
Johnni nudges me with his shoulder and directs my attention to one of the women in the crowd struggling to get to me. My jaw drops.
I’ve been wearing this dress in particular for less than an hour. Before that, the design had been kept carefully under wraps. Even while I was changing into it, only a select few people had been able to be anywhere near my dressing room. The fashion business is as glamourous as it is cutthroat and designers have to work hard to keep their secrets. Since Johnni segued into design and I became his leading lady, my security has been tripled.
That’s why seeing a woman wearing a cheap knock-off of my dress floors me. I know my eyes go wide as I take in the slap-dash attempt at mimicking what I am wearing. The materials are cheap and even from this distance I can tell that the gems she is wearing are glass. Still, it shocks me.
“That was quick.”
Johnni shrugs and grins. “That just means that it’s a really good design. You’re going to be on all of the covers tomorrow.”
I blow a tense breath out but immediately straighten my face back into a serene smile. “We both know that was going to happen anyway.”
Johnni loses some of his good cheer, a serious expression replacing his goofy grin. “Yeah, well that’s what happens when you make such a momentous announcement out of the blue.”
I run my hands down the luxurious sides of the gown and try not to worry my bottom lip. “I know. You should have heard the way the reporters gasped. It was like something out of a movie.”
“I like your choice of words there, since you basically told the film industry that they could fuck right off.”
I laugh because Johnni almost never swears. But he’s right. I didn’t make any friends this morning and I am sure to have made at least one enemy. “I know, I know. But it was the right thing to do.”
Johnni scoffs. “How is announcing that you won’t be doing any more modeling or acting deals the right thing to do?”
I pat his shoulder to remind him where we are. Johnni makes a face that tells me he doesn’t care and I smile. He has to worry about appearances just as much as I do but when it comes to something that could endanger me, he doesn’t think twice about making a scene. I love him for that but I don’t want any more trouble. That’s the whole point. “I didn’t say that I wouldn’t be doing any shoots. I said that it was time for me to step back. I don’t need it any longer.”
Johnni shakes his head. “You should have talked to me before you made such a giant decision.”
This time I do bite my bottom lip. The worry in his voice is completely for my benefit but I can’t help but wish I could make it go away. “I knew you would just try to talk me out of it.”
He huffs. “You bet your firm but supple booty I would have. No one does what you did, Fallon. You took the mainstream entertainment industry by storm. Actually, you were the storm. You blew in and changed everyone’s perceptions of porn. You changed rules and flipped tables. You are at the top of the pyramid.”
He pauses to answer a few questions as another reporter pops up beside us. The questions are all about me and the gown I’m wearing, and Johnni answers them with ease and charisma. While I watch him go through his questions, I wonder why he never went into show business himself. He’s certainly handsome enough for it, and he’s got the right charm. I wonder if he knew how ruthless the entire entertainment world was from the get-go and had decided not to toe that line.
I wonder if I would have done the same, had I known what I was getting into.
I shake myself out of such gloomy thoughts and force another smile. My feet are throbbing with each step in my disgustingly high heels and I focus on putting one foot in front of the other for a moment.
When Johnni returns, he’s wearing a smile just as forced as mine. “You can’t just do that and then walk away.”
“Why not?” I ask and wince when I hear how weary my voice sounds.
Johnni doesn’t miss the dip in my tone. “It’s like barging into a mafia room and telling them they’ve been doing it wrong…only to be right. You can’t just leave after; it makes them look bad.”
“Ha ha ha, why would they complain about that? I would think they would just be grateful that someone came in to help. I’m basically a fairy godmother at this point.”
Johnni laughs at the craziness of my comment and I grin at him. He opens his mouth to respond but it cuts off when someone shoves him to the side. Another pair of hands drags him backward before I can respond.
“How could you?!” A man dressed in jeans and a thin T-shirt shoves himself into my space and grabs me by the shoulders. He’s amazingly strong and he shakes me for a moment, screaming “Why?” in my face.
I am stunned. How did this crazy man get to me? Security here is tight. Even as I grow dizzy I look around, desperate to find one of my bodyguards. As I take in my surroundings, I begin to understand.
At some point while I was talking to Johnni, the size of the crowd had doubled. The roar of the crowd is deafening, and I hadn’t even realized something abnormal was happening. I must be more exhausted than I realized. Or maybe I had just gotten so used to screaming excitement when I appear that I didn’t put two and two together.
My security team struggles to keep everyone at bay and I realize that none of the other actors and actresses are being mobbed in the same way. Their lighter security force surrounds them, protecting them from people who aren’t even looking at them.
Even though I have three times as many bodyguards as all of them, mine are being hard pressed.
“Help!” I scream toward one of my fellow actor’s groups. The man continues to shake me, knocking me to my back on the ground. No one does anything.
Sheer terror makes my body numb. It is as if I have stepped outside of the situation and am seeing it from the outside for just a moment.
From that distance I see everything.
My security force tries to make its way to me but the crowd keeps them pinned down. Johnni screams my name, fighting to get to me, but four brawny men drag him into the waiting crowd. My supposed “peers” look on with a twisted sort of glee in their eyes. Their thoughts are written clearly on their plastic faces.
…serves her right.
How dare she think she can step away from this?
This is what you get…
…thinks she can make a fool of us.
I hope he kills her.
Whore.
Pain assaults me, dragging me back into my body. The crazed man bites my shoulder hard enough to draw blood. I scream, unable to block the pain as I kick and claw, trying to get him off me. Panic makes my breathing heavy and desperate and I hear the material under me rip.
“These are d-diamonds! Take them. This dress is worth so much m-m-money.” I barely manage to say the words through teeth chattering with fear.
The man doesn’t respond at first, just leans down and bites me again. He’s making his way closer and closer to the exposed swell of one of my breasts. The terror in my brain shifts and morphs into an unholy fear. Am I about to be raped in front of this animalistic crowd? The dress tears again and more of my skin is exposed. Bile rises up in my gut, burning my throat.
“I don’t want jewels.” The man says in a low, venomous tone. “You’re worth more than all the diamonds in the world.”
I gag and he leans down, opening his mouth above the top of one of my breasts. A scream like nothing I’ve ever heard leaves my throat just as the man is jerked back violently.
My vision is blurry. I think I may have blacked out for a moment but I can hear an eerie kind of silence. No. The silence is a backdrop to the most sickening thuds and grunts I have ever been forced to listen to.
Bones break and shatter. Muscles pop. Lungs deflate.
By the time the beating—for that’s all that it could be—is done, no one is speaking. I fear for a moment that no one is breathing. It’s as if I am standing in the center of a football stadium where everyone is suddenly holding their breath.
A dark, deep voice penetrates the darkness. A beautiful accent washes over me, even as it barks a brutal command. “Get her to a hospital. Now!”
The lights go out behind my eyes and I know nothing else.