Esther put her hands on the table. “Yes, and it will be because you ghouls aren’t letting him be himself!Fix that tooth, build that muscle. Don’t eat that bread. Don’t wear that!None of this was in his contract, you know. I get the training boot camp—but the rest of this? Press junkets and appearances and all those pictures with Serena? We’ve been accommodating because we want the movie to succeed, too, but my client’s mental health comes first. Always.”
“Does he need a therapist?” Veronica asked. “We have one—”
Esther shook her head. “What he needs is to control his own life. You have him stressed to the gills. Look, you know what’s bad PR? Even worse than racist fanboys calling him a diversity hire? Progressive fans calling you out for harassing and putting way too much pressure on your only POC cast member.”
The executives stared at Esther. Nikhil knew exactly what Esther’s threat here was: if they didn’t lay off, then a few anonymous tips and social media posts could go out about how the studio had been treating Nikhil. Right now, the racists weretalking about boycotting the film. If progressive fans got wind that they were putting an unfair amount of pressure on the only marginalized main cast member, that would add more fuel to the already-burning fire.
Nikhil actually had the upper hand here. He had a lot of fans on his side. One more video of him licking his lips and he could have even more. They could turn this whole movie into an even bigger shit show.
“What are you suggesting?” Stuart said. “Who’s his handler? Let’s get her on the line.”
Esther shook her head. “No. I want the team gone. No more handler.”
“Yes!” Nikhil loved that idea. No more Lydia sounded like a dream.
“He has to have a handler!” Stuart said.
Esther crossed her arms in front of herself. “No, he doesn’t.”
The other executive nodded. “Okay. He’ll have to manage his own schedule, though.”
“I’ll get him a personal assistant,” Esther said. “I want everyone Lydia hired gone, too. No more media trainer, dentists, even the dietician. He’ll still go to training and rehearsals, but that’s it. Cancel the rest of this pre-production promo. No more talk show hosts or press junkets until release, as is stated in his contract. And stop with the fake-girlfriend stuff. No more leaks to the gossip pages about him. He’ll lay low… Everyone will forget he exists until closer to release.”
Nikhil nodded. He loved all this. He loved Esther.
“Stylist, too,” Esther added. “He can pick his own damn clothes instead of working with that store.”
Nikhil’s head shot to Esther.Marleywas his stylist. She was the only good thing that had happened to him in all this. Shewas his savior, the one who was grounding him every night. He couldn’t do this without Marley.
The execs only nodded. Clearly, they were terrified of Esther.
“Nik is a professional and an absolute doll if you let him be himself. I promise I won’t let him slack off on his diet, and he won’t look like a couch bum. He’ll do a better job of what is required in his contract for post-promotion with his mental health intact. Do we have a deal?”
It was clear that Estherwasn’ttrying to make a deal here—she was telling them how things would work from now on. And they had no choice but to agree.
Stuart sighed. “Fine. We’re canceling Lydia and everyone she hired.” He pointed to Nikhil. “You’re on your own—but you’d better keep up or this contract will be considered breached. And lie low.”
“Excellent.” Esther stood. “Now, I’ve got to make sure my client gets some rest before his early flight tomorrow. Good afternoon.”
But Nikhil couldn’t rest after that meeting. His mind was racing too fast. How the hell was he going to tell Marley about this? He’d pretty much just lost the studio’s contract with Reid’s. Marley needed the client. Her promotion to personal shopping was riding on it. Maybe he could tell Esther that he wanted to keep Marley and the store only.
Marley was the only one on his team who wasactuallyon his team. She was his lifeline through all this chaos. He wanted her with him. And she needed him, too.
But he didn’t have to lose her. Not being her client anymore didn’t mean he couldn’t still be her friend. In fact… without a working relationship, maybe they could have another kindof relationship. But Nikhil didn’t want that… not if it meant Marley would lose her dream job as a personal shopper.
Tyler had said that having it all was a lot harder than they thought it would be. And yep, Nikhil couldn’t see a way out of this one.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Marley
Wonderfully, spectacularly amazingly, Dr. Abernathy agreed Marley’s drains were ready to come out when she saw him on Wednesday. Even better news was that he said she could finally take a proper shower under running water. After the drains were removed, the doctor rebandaged her and left her alone to dress. There was a large mirror in the room—which made sense since it was a plastic surgeon’s office—so Marley stood in front of it. Most of her bandaging was gone now. Only thin strips of tape on her incisions remained. For the first time since her surgery, Marley intentionally looked at her new body.
It had only been two weeks since her surgery, and she was still bruised. Not quite black and blue, but a sickly yellow that was kind of hard to see under her brown skin. And she was definitely swollen—especially under her arms. Her new breasts were round, tight, and high. Also, totally uneven. And without nipples, her chest looked like a Barbie doll’s.
But… she lookedhuman. She still looked likeher. Her skin was still smooth brown. Her stomach was still soft with an innie belly button. Her legs in her black leggings were still long. She wanted to turn around and look at her back to see if it reallywassexy like Nikhil had said it was.
She maybe looked a little weird, but she knew her skin would get used to the implants and heal. And also? Her chest was just one part of her body. The rest of her was still her.
