Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Picture on screen of Mika and Tom standing and chatting with Imogen Swan and Duncan Holloway.
Cut to photo of Judge Oakley, Chloe Pierce, Jamie Oakley, and Nora Ellington talking with Tom and Mika.
Cut back to Elsa.
“All in the family, as ever, but I must pout.” [Close-up shot as Elsa pouts at screen, before the camera pulls back.] “I have no news of Judge and Chloe’s impending nuptials. Not that first snippet. They are being very stingy. I hear this, and that, and I fear it’s close, and I…know…not one thing. But! What’s this?”
Picture on screen of John “Rix” Hendrix with his arm around Alexandra Sharp, both of their heads were bowed, seemingly in deep conversation with Alexandra’s father, Ned Sharp.
Cut back to Elsa.
“It wouldn’t be a Pierce/Swan/Holloway/Stowe event if the Sharps, and one of our favorites, the handsome hero Rix Hendrix didn’t make an appearance. It seems all is, as ever, astoundingly well with our favorite family as it grows and spreads. But this leaves us with a question. I know you know what it is. Who’s next?”
Photos flashing on screen of Cadence Merriman with tennis player Dougal Baldwin. Another with Cadence and Duncan Holloway’s youngest son, Gage. A third with Drusilla Lynch and Sullivan Holloway. And last, one of Hale Wheeler and Blake Sharp.
Cut back to Elsa.
“I, for one, will be waiting with bated breath. And watching. Watching. Watching. When I find out, you’ll be the first to know. Now, until our next exchange, keep it positive. Elsa is signing off.”
The branded Elsa wink and blowing of kiss.
Sign off.
* * *
Elsa
She stepped off the set and moved to the space where they did hair and makeup.
Her set was only hers. She’d gotten to the point they didn’t break down so someone else could use it.
A win.
However, the actual set was tiny, as was the space around it.
There was a cage where they locked their equipment, since it wasn’t the greatest part of town. Elsa also had a small office where she could work and take calls and field tips and decide on what pictures to buy. Further deciding what would go on-air, and what she’d put on her website (and then putting it on her website, at that point, she couldn’t afford someone else to do updates, her posh set and comprehensive, carefully branded website were smoke and mirrors, she didn’t like to think of how much they cost, but it had been worth every penny).
Her followers were exploding. So were her sponsors. So were her website hits, and from there, affiliate advertising.
If this kept going in a way she could trust, she’d be able to move, expand, have a bigger office, a dressing room, maybe an assistant.
This was a seat-of-her-pants operation.
But soon, it wouldn’t have to be.
However, she knew even if she traded up, Hale Wheeler would follow her.
Elsa had to scrimp and save and find designer dresses to appear on her show on online resale sites, or consignment stores, handing out money to her beloved little ferrets who scurried everywhere to bring her tidbits, and shelling out even bigger money to maggot paparazzi when one of her team couldn’t get a shot.
But Hale could buy the building where she set up a new shop without blinking.
“Good show, babe, see you later,” her one and only cameraman, Chuck, said as he headed to the door.
“Thanks,” she replied.
“You good to lock up?” he asked.
She had to change. She wasn’t walking through this neighborhood in a Prada dress.
“Yes. See you tomorrow.”
Chuck gave her a salute as he walked out.
Elsa grabbed her phone from the dressing table.
She had two new texts.
Text one: What’s with the avoidance tactics? I’m in New York. We were at the same goddamn party last night. You didn’t even say hello and you took off every time I approached. The last time I came your way, you booked it so fast, you dropped your bookmark, which I have, by the way, and now I’m holding it ransom. I’ve texted you repeatedly to set this shit up. What the fuck, Elsa? What’s with the games? Are we doing this interview or not?
The second one said, Just saying, you don’t get your bookmark until we get that interview done and in the rearview.
That was from Hale.
And the bookmark he was talking about was worth a ransom (kind of). It was a Tiffany’s Elsa Peretti heart bookmark. It came with Mika’s book for the big splash launch party.
Elsa had loved it the second she saw it. It was something she’d want to have, but not something she could buy for herself. She’d been upset when she’d noticed she’d lost it.
Now it was worse because Hale had it.
Her bookmark in his possession.
A shiver slid over her skin.
She went to her pictures, the series she, herself, took of him at Mika Stowe’s book launch last night.