Chapter 51: filler
"She had the nerve to bully my wife. There will be consequences for that. Valerie, I may be gentle with you, but I am not easy to deal with when it comes to everything else."
A man who held that much influence over the entertainment industry was never going to be a simple character, and I had known that from the very beginning. "You only noticed her bullying me," I said, trying not to laugh. I had already backed Amara into a corner she could not see yet, but this man had said nothing about that.
"I will come pick you up after the shoot is done," Caspian said, and I could hear the quiet warmth in his voice. To him, everything I did was reasonable and worthy of his full support.
I laughed softly and nodded, even though he could not see me. His thoughtfulness was something I had long since stopped trying to refuse.
Quinn and Nicole walked with me to the waiting room to get changed. Since the front cover featured both of us, my outfit and Amara’s were deliberately coordinated to be nearly identical. This shoot was designed to be a direct comparison, a clean test of pure skill with nothing extra to hide behind.
Both of us privately wanted to make the other disappear into the background. But how that would actually play out depended entirely on ability.
I was quiet as I prepared, the way I always was before any shoot. I did not make conversation or move around the room with any kind of performance. Amara read my stillness as nervousness, as an admission that I already knew I was outmatched. She moved through the space with the ease of someone who believed the outcome was already settled in her favor.
The theme was Oriental Trend, and we were both dressed in traditional two-piece costumes. The top was a beautifully structured high-collared shirt, fastened at the neck with intricate buttons, the sleeves carrying fine detailed patterns. From the waist all the way up to the collarbone, delicate orchids had been embroidered in full bloom. The skirt that paired with it was long and elegant, carrying the same stunning embroidery throughout. After I put the outfit on, my expression went completely still, like a blank page. I was in the early stage, contained and waiting.
Amara, meanwhile, had already begun radiating the soft, feminine presence of a woman from ancient times.
Chapter 46
The makeup artists and staff around Amara could not seem to stop talking about how beautiful she was. Her personality filled up every corner of the room, warm and magnetic, pulling attention toward her without any effort. I sat quietly at my own mirror while all of this happened around me. When I was not working, I did not perform. I did not make conversation or seek anyone’s eye. That kind of stillness, especially placed next to someone like Amara, made it easy for people to look right past me, and I did not mind that at all.
"Miss Amara, since you are ready, please head into the studio for your solo shoot first."
Beyond the front cover, the magazine also needed individual shots for the inside pages, so Amara went in ahead of me. As she rose from her seat, she let her gaze sweep over me with a look that was all confidence and provocation, like the result had already been decided and she was simply waiting for everyone else to catch up. That kind of certainty was visible to every person in the room, and it worked in her favor. The staff watched her walk in and quietly placed their faith in her.
The studio had been set with careful intention. Against one wall stood a traditional wooden window, aged and beautiful. In front of it sat an old table carrying a blue and white porcelain vase, and from the vase rose a single pink rose in full bloom. Beside the table was a Taishi chair, and Amara’s task for the solo shoot was simply to sit in it and be photographed.
The photographer looked up when she walked in and was immediately taken with her appearance. An Oriental beauty of her caliber, seated in that setting, should have produced something close to a painting. If she could bring the right skill to match the look, the Oriental Trend campaign had every chance of landing powerfully in the Western market.
"I heard this model is being compared to Anders Marlon," the photographer’s assistant remarked. "She must be very polished."
"I have high expectations," the photographer replied, then called everyone into position and let Amara know they were about to begin.
Amara knew better than to treat even this solo portion casually. She was ambitious enough to understand that every frame counted.
"Let us start with a few side angle shots," the photographer instructed through the translator. Amara shifted her body to one side, leaned her right arm over the back of the chair, rested her left hand along her dress, and turned to show the left side of her face with a slow, seductive smile.
The photographer’s brow pulled together. He had been expecting Oriental elegance. What he was looking at felt closer to seduction.
He took the shots anyway, assuming she simply needed a moment to find her footing. He tried again with a different direction, asking her to convey the quiet intellectual grace of a traditional Oriental woman and handing her a red woven basket as a prop. Amara straightened in the chair. The angle was better this time, but she had tilted her head downward, and all the camera could find was the expanse of her forehead.
He took those shots too, but his expression had already gone flat. He could not understand how anyone had placed this model in the same conversation as Anders Marlon. The most damaging problem was not any single pose or angle. It was that across the entire shoot, Amara cycled through essentially one smile and one expression, wearing it over and over regardless of what was being asked of her.
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