BABY DADDY (32 page)

“Me, irrational? I’m the realist, you’re the fucking dreamer! I tried to entertain the dream, I really did, Raiden, but unfortunately, reality knocked me hard in the head too soon with a fucking headline, and thank fuck for that! You and I, not gonna happen for real. Us making it in a society you imagine, it’s just too good to be true. It’s a unicorn, a Utopia, John Lennon’s dream and John Lennon is dead!”

“Ella, please!” I hug her again. “I love you.”

She fights me. Hard.

She hurts me with her pain. But I overpower her, wrapping my arms around here tightly.

She cries in my arms.

I hug her tighter, absorbing her rage.

I carry her, walking around the room while she pours her pain out, drenching me in it, her hands grabbing and tugging at my shirt violently, beating at my chest and my back.

I’m holding tight to my dream, and she’s crumbling in my arms.

I can do nothing but hold her, try to keep her together.

I hope my strength is enough.

I’m praying I’m strong enough for my Ella.

I woke up early to prepare for the day.
I made her favorite breakfast but she only drank coffee.

“I’ll be busy the whole day,” she tells me in a monotone as we board the elevator going down to the ground floor.

“I’ll be with Guy at the park.”

She nods.

“Babe, don’t forget to eat. It’s gonna be a long day.”

She just nods again, not meeting my eyes.

We slept on the same bed last night. I was holding her in my arms but she had never been more distant. She only succumbed to sleep from sheer exhaustion at near dawn, the silence that stretched before that, unbearable. But I fought my own feelings.

She needs me more now. Even if she’s pushing me away, I’ll not abandon her when she’s down in pieces on the ground.

We alight into the lobby. It’s still seven in the morning and the building is still closed for business.

Rowann and Misha and some of her staff are already there, waiting. They all look anxious.

Rowann rushes towards us. “Stella!”

“What?”

“They’re outside!”

“Who?”

“The paparazzi!”

I walk over to the front door and peek out. Indeed, a dozen or so men are standing in front of the building, their cameras in hand.

I feel anger suffuse me. “Can we use the back door?” I ask Rowann.

“They’re there, too!” Rowann sounds frantic now. “What are we going to do, Stella?”

“Where’s the limo?” she asks.

“Out front,” Rowann replies.

“We go out at the front,” Ella says calmly, her face stoic.

She looks at me, her eyes dead serious. “You stay here. Don’t leave the building.”

I start to protest but she walks away. “Let’s go, guys.”

Her staff scrambles to follow behind her.

She goes out there into the vulture’s yard. They swarm her immediately, cameras flashing.

I want to burst out the door and knock them all out with my bare hands but I clench my fists hard. I don’t want to make it worse for her. She’d be dealing with a lot of things today. She doesn’t need me making a spectacle of ourselves for these hungry animals to make money on just a day before her big event.

Her employees shield her until she could board her limo.

Waiting the entire day
and into the night for her is hell. Forget the damn phone. She’s not picking up my calls. Not a single message was answered.

For the first time, I feel real anger form inside me for her.

Why is she doing this? Why is she pushing me away? I want to be with her now more than ever, but she’s doing everything she can to make me feel insignificant and useless.

She comes home at past midnight, looking wiped out.

I hug her but she’s lifeless in my arms.

She moves like a robot.

I wait for her to finish her shower. I’m desperate to make connection with her again.

She comes out of the en suite and prepares to sleep.

“Ella…”

“Please, Raiden, I’m very tired.”

My anger surfaces. I know how tired she must be but that’s beside the fucking point right now. “You’re being unfair to me. Why are you shutting me out?”

“So you will leave. I want you to leave.”

It was point blank. So sudden. A deadly blow. And her eyes are dead as she said those words.

I’m at the height of my fitness but I feel my legs giving way.

“Why are you letting them hurt you? They don’t know you. The real you.”

“Can’t you see, Raiden? It’s not about me. It’s about you. They’re not here because of me. It’s because of you.”

I’m at a loss.

“They want to see me with you. People are fascinated with you, this man who’s with me now. What kind of a man would want me? They want to know that, not anything about me, because they already know me. I’ve been here before. Nothing has changed. Same story, different man. They want to see the different, not the same ol’ me.”

I shake my head. “What they’re saying about us don’t matter. I don’t care about it. What matters is us, Ella. What we have. That’s all that matters to me.”

“Unfortunately, I’m in a world where what people say matter. I’m caught in this and I can’t get out.”

“Then we’ll just have to be braver. We’ll face this together.”

She smiles at me wanly. “Really? Are you ready to shout to the world that you’re in love with me? The Prince of Monte Franco is in love with fatass Stella Rhodes. It’s for the books. This aging, rich woman who can’t seem to find a good man and this dashing young prince who can have any woman he wants. It’s an incredible fairy tale that will dig up your parent’s own love story and drag all that your father held dear into the picture, because whether we like it or not, it’s inevitable. I’m famous and when people learn about you, I’d have nothing on the love child of King Pierre and Akiko Hara. You were already a legend even before you were born, Raiden. The world will lap up our story with insatiable hunger for royal and celebrity gossip and the paparazzi will bleed that story dry for ages until they become richer than both of us combined. And I won’t be at the center of it but you. I’m just the side story. Now, tell me. Can you handle all of that?”

I fall silent.

“I thought so. I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

I let her walk out.

I have to admit, even I got scared of the picture she so vividly painted I want to high tail it back to the island right then and there.

TWENTY-ONE

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25 CONTROVERSIAL QUOTES FROM THE STYLE EMPRESS

On gender equality:

There’s no such thing. Women have always been the dominant species.

We just foster the illusion that it isn’t so, scheming bitches that we are.

Stella Rhodes

____________________________________________________

THE SHOW IS SET AT DUSK
on this cloudless day of September. The juxtaposing architecture
of rusty metal scaffoldings cleverly anchored together, forming a tangled web of devastation, and the Manhattan night skyline as its main backdrop, is simply spectacular. I haven’t seen it got finished yesterday but Guy did great. The lighting is perfect. The set has an aura of dystopia with subtle allusions to the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy, which anniversary falls on this month.

This is Ella’s idea, perfectly executed by Guy. It’s both magnificent and deeply moving. I’m so proud of my baby.

Our conversation last night didn’t end well. The enormity of the responsibility riding on my shoulders didn’t become more apparent until she’d spoken of it to my face.

I was the one who staggered. For a bit.

Only for a bit. I can only blame my inexperience in living with the rest of the human race for my momentary cowardice.

I have to show her I’m not what she’s been thinking of me all along. I have to be here with her.

Ella doesn’t know I’m here. I went down to her boutique a while back and donned a suit. Matteo, who has been mostly idling at my suite at The Mark and around Manhattan the past weeks as I didn’t want him openly tailing me was happy to became useful again. He drove me to Pier 26 in a rented Ferrari.

“I said a discreet-looking car, not this bloody red shit,” I told him.

He grins. “No way I’ll drive a fucking junk in this fucking suit, man. There will be models there. Gotta drive the right car.”

Matteo is Sandro’s nephew and practically family. He came to work in the island five years ago. In this trip to New York, he’s my all-around guy, but he was especially trained to be my bodyguard.

Thankfully, no paparazzi was in sight to harass me when I left Ella’s building. They’re probably all here for celebrity sighting.

Ella’s guests have started arriving. Her designer friend Juancho is doing the receiving while Ella is busy backstage. Misha has been filling me in on the Who’s Who of New York.

I’m kind of awed by it all, intimidated too if I’d be honest with myself. This is the life that my mother left here in New York when she met my father and chose a quiet, reclusive life with him in an island. It’s ironic now that I’m exchanging my privacy in
Louÿs
Island for this fast and fancy lifestyle that Ella leads.

Misha sneaked me into the set through the back entrance. Dusk is slowly blending into the night. I’m making myself as inconspicuous as possible near the tent at the back of the set that serves as a huge dressing room. Ella’s in there busy with the models.

Misha appears beside me.

“Raiden.”

I immediately feel the anxiety in her voice. “Hey, everything okay?”

“Stella’s upset.”

I’m instantly alarmed. “What? Why?”

“Regina Harper is here.”

“Who is she?”

“Her father owns a huge film studio in LA.”

“So?”

“She arrived with her fiance and Senator Peyton’s wife. Her father’s a big supporter of Senator Peyton’s party. The senator’s wife is a regular guest at Stella’s shows, a huge client.”

“And…?”

“Didn’t you know? Regina’s current fiance is Aiden Ricks, Stella’s ex.”

Aiden…

That motherfucker.

If that son of a bitch ever try to hurt my Ella again, I’m gonna drag him to the river and tie him by his fucking balls to a boat and keelhaul him.

I’m shaking like a leaf
as I fit the dress on one of the models. I’ve pricked my fingers with the pins thrice.

I can’t believe he had the gall to show up here! What does he want? Sucking up with the senator’s wife to get a privileged entry into my show, the megalomaniac!

I wonder what the bastard did to get back into the scene. He was shunned for many years by the industry in general for what he did to me.

Dicks get around, you know. Like seducing an alcoholic daughter of a billionaire who’d just divorced from her third husband.

But he got new contracts now and is getting hot again. He recently appeared in a TV ad for that genius Italian designer who’s a rebel through and through as evidenced by his penchant for hiring miscreants and reprobates (famous celebrity alcoholics, drug addicts, womanizers, ex-cons, you name it) in his ad campaigns. Aiden sure belongs perfectly in his roster of notorious talents.

I prick my finger again. I curse loudly, startling the model I’m working on.

"Are you okay, Stella?” Tasha asks me with concern.

“I’m okay. Okay, gorgeous, walk. Make mama proud!”

She blows me a kiss and heads for the line of models about to walk out into the runway which Rowann is commandeering like a drill sergeant.

I suck my injured finger.

A hand touches my back. I jump.

“Hey, so tense.”

“Raiden!”

He hugs me from behind. “Everything’s going perfectly, baby.”

Oh god. I want to melt into his embrace. I’ve missed him. But that’s la la land momentarily doing a mean short-circuit in my neurons. I’m in the middle of New York Fashion Week and tonight, StellaR is on! Get your shit together, bitch!

It was a struggle to avoid thinking about him today just to get in the zone for this show I can’t afford to mess up. I squirm in his arms, panic surging inside me. What’s he doing here?! The place is swarming with paparazzi!

“Raiden, let me go. I’m working.”

He kisses my cheek. I caught the look on the models’ faces, their covert smiles. “Next!” I shout so he’d let me go.

Thankfully, his arms fall away from me.

Melania, a Russian supermodel comes closer. She’s wearing one of my couture gowns. I’m giving my audience here a prelude to what they’ll get in the Haute Couture Paris Fashion Week early next year.

I begin to work on Melania.