“Thanks, Juliet,” I call back, hoping that I get her name right. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Take your time,” she answers after a brief hesitation that tells me no, I did not get her name right. Damn. There are so many photo shoots in my life, so many eager, young assistants waiting for their big break, that I have trouble keeping track of all the names.
Faces, I remember forever. But names…names are harder. Most days I’m lucky if I remember my own. Then again, if I don’t, there’s always someone around to remind me.
Still, I’ll have to ask somebody else what her name is and make a point of apologizing. No one deserves to feel like their identity doesn’t matter. Especially in this business where there’s always someone waiting around to remind you of just how unimportant who you are really is.
I go to put my tablet in my bag, and as I do I catch a glimpse of myself in the huge, full-length mirror that takes up nearly one whole wall of this room nobody ever uses. I freeze for a second—for several seconds—then bend over slightly and brace my hands on my thighs as I try desperately to catch my breath.
Try desperately to fight back this latest iteration of the panic attacks that are becoming more and more common.
Breathe in through the nose, I tell myself a little frantically. Hold it for seven counts then out through the mouth.
In through the nose, hold for seven, out through the mouth.
I do this several times, all with my eyes closed. All with my brain focused on the words, on the actions, on anything and everything but what set the attack off in the first place.
It’s enough to have my hands stop shaking and my heartbeat slowing down. Thank God. The last thing I need is anyone on the shoot gossiping about how Veronica Romero is losing it. My agent would kill me—even if it were true. Most particularly, if it were true. I’m not allowed to do that in public. Not allowed to do anything in public, really, except smile and sign autographs.
Oh, and fuck. Cole would totally love it if I got caught fucking in public. It would play right into the reputation he’s worked so hard to build for me. The reputation the public so loves to pull out and oh-so-carefully examine.
When I can finally breathe normally again, I open my eyes. Stand up straight. And find myself once again staring straight into the ice-cold eyes of the Belladonna.
This time, I don’t panic. Instead, I slip my feet into the five-inch designer heels that are standing at attention a few inches from my chair. Heels that not-Juliet had brought in to me a little while ago, claiming the stylist wanted me to wear them with the red 1950s Chanel suit he currently has me in.
As I do, I try not to notice how they’re half a size too small. Or how they pinch my toes and rub painfully against my heels.
It’s just for a little while, I remind myself. I can wear the shoes, wear the suit, keep the smile on for that long.
And still, even with the pain shooting through me, I take small, mincing steps toward the mirror. Once I’m in front of it, I study my reflection from every angle. Turning to the right, the left, even facing away from the mirror and then glancing back over my shoulder. I study this version of Veronica Romero, this version of me. No, not me. The Belladonna.
Sergio, the stylist, has done such a good job preparing me for this Vanity Fair vintage shoot that even I can’t tell where I leave off and she begins.
The panic starts to come back, but this time I’m ready for it and I tamp it down. Ruthlessly.
Then I reach out to the mirror, to the woman who is and isn’t me. I trace the elaborate pinned-up curls. The red, red lips. The double strand of pearls.
And wonder how beauty can be so cold. And evil so perfect.
It’s the role of a lifetime. No one can argue with that—certainly not me, considering I would have done anything to land this role. Would have, I think, even sold my soul for the chance to play the woman whose name over the last decade had become synonymous with revenge, a woman scorned, a high-profile murder.
It seems crazy to look back on it now, four months after filming has wrapped. Crazy to think about how badly I had wanted the Belladonna, from the moment I heard they were making a movie from Ian’s first book.
I sent Cole to Universal before the ink was even dry on the contracts—before there was a screenplay or a director or even a guaranteed green light for the project. Read Ian’s book cover to cover at least a dozen times. Scoured the Internet for everything I could find about the Belladonna. About her husband and his mistress. About who she was and what she’d (allegedly) done.
That’s how much I’d wanted it.
It really was too bad that before it was all over, I’d come to hate the role more than I’d ever wanted it. To fear it—to fear her—even more.
My whole career, I’ve immersed myself in the characters I portray. I burrow under their skin, play around inside of them, try to figure out what makes them tick so I can understand them. So that I can become them.
FBI agent.
Ingénue.
Superhero.