Page 22 of Brutal Legacy

Absentmindedly, I grabbed the pot handle, forgetting it was hot, and gasped. I dropped it. Scalding water spilled out and hit me in droplets of fire.

I jumped back, letting out a yelp. I stared at the mess of the kitchen, pot sideways on the floor, water everywhere, and started to laugh.

Maybe I was an eternal optimist, and I really did believe that deep down, one day, things would change…

Or maybe I was just losing my mind.

7

GEORGIA

Another day, and another chance to personally deliver a dress on my lunch break. Seeing as the actress needed on-the-spot adjustments, I was out again. This hotel wasn’t as far from my office as the one yesterday, so I took my time to walk through a park and take a quick break on a bench, then jumped on the bus. It was a hot day, the LA sun baking down on me. My clothes were better suited for working in an overly air-conditioned office, not walking around on the street. I was sweating already.

At a leisurely pace, I headed to the hotel where I’d do my out-of-office adjustments. I had the dress, plus a heavy backpack with everything I could possibly need to fix the item of clothing.

A little later, I was knocking on the door of a suite, at the very top of a very fancy hotel.

The actress’s assistant let me in. I’d met Alexandra a handful of times before. She worked hard as hell and she never failed to impress me. Today, she took my heavy backpack from me right away.

“I hope you brought an abundance of patience, you’re going to need it,” she warned me.

“What? Why? Did Elise gain?” The one thing that I didn’t have in my bag was the ability to make the dress I had designed bigger.

“No, nothing like that. Her boyfriend is here… or the guy she wishes was her boyfriend.”

Well, that was a relief. I could ignore any canoodling, that was no big deal, but the dress needed to be ready tonight.

I followed Alexandra into the sitting room and paused as I took in the scene. Elise was a French actress who everyone was talking about. The kind all the boys wanted to be with, and all the girls wanted to be. Right now, she was putting on a show for a man dressed in black, slouched arrogantly in an armchair. The worst part was how he was staring at his phone instead of the bombshell gyrating in front of him.

His eyes flickered over to us.

“Excuse me, Elise, the dressmaker is here to do alterations.”

Elise straightened up and looked at us with a hazy expression. Her pupils were small. Was she on something? I’d seen it all in my years working for the Hollywood elite, but Elise had never been high or drunk or unprepared for our meetings before.

She stood and swayed.

“Okay, fine. Give me it.”

I approached. “I’ll help you put it on.”

“Whatever.” She sighed and pulled off her dressing gown. She was completely naked underneath.

I grabbed it off the floor and held it in front of her.

“Maybe some privacy,” I said pointedly to the man sitting in the chair.

Now that I was up close to him, he didn’t seem like Elise’s type at all. He seemed too disreputable to be an exec and too tattooed to be another actor. I’d have recognized him if I’d seen him in anything, so he’d have to be a newbie. There was no way this man was new to anything. His confidence oozed off him.

“Are you talking to me?” he asked, arrogance striking through in his tone.

Something about it was so fucking annoying. I felt like I’d spent my entire life being ordered around by arrogant men, and after last night with Howel, I’d had enough.

“Yes, I am,” I blurted, before Alexandra could step in to smooth things over.

“What we mean to say is—” Alexandra waded in.

“I think she knows exactly what she means to say and has, in fact, said it.” He stood, adjusting his suit. He had a slight accent. Something Eastern European.

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