Chapter 4 Laurel

My hands quake as I facepalm myself with eyelids almost stretched past its elastic limit. I'm just getting up, and what greets me first thing in the morning are photos of me and Ivan bombed all over the internet.

The way he held up my chin to embolden me before meeting his family.

The kiss at the dining room thereafter.

The way he held on to me when we first got to this suite.

Him holding up my legs with a slight smile.

There is no single cozy moment we shared that is not glaring right back at my face as I struggle to beat the quavers drowning my hand while holding up my cell phone.

None of this was forged. If I were a fan of Ivan and not the one in the photos, I'd easily bathe them with sweet compliments and good wishes, hoping their 'beautiful marriage' lasts forever when it's all FALSE – a charade.

Who could have done this? Who could have dared planted secret cameras in Ivan's suite?

The door creaks open, redirecting my thoughts to Ivan who walks in.

'HIM.'

I look down at the photos across my screen. I don't look grumpy like I was forced to take them. The reason isn't farfetched – Ivan had me head over heels for him last night. COMPLETELY.

Was that intentional, premeditated for me to unconsciously make the photos prettier?

As I delve deeper into the well of facts, my mind grows heavier with the realization.

I heave my eyes to him, following his movement as he ends his call. I'm just getting up and this menace is the first thing that pops up in my newsfeed. He could have been up for hours and has been on his phone. Which means he has seen everything I just did. Besides, this is HIS hotel.

His privacy has just been invaded. Yet he is not brimming with fire and sulfur, ravaging this entire building like a beast in the hunt for the culprit. He looks rather calm.

It can only mean one thing.

The reality settles in my head the way heavy matter pools at the depth of a liquid. And it spirals a vortex of ugly emotions inside of me. Acting as a motor to my legs, they push me through to him, mad!

"You devil!" My voice cushions the sharp smack that ensues after slapping him.

"Is this why you did that last night?" I scold, wearing a disgusted scowl. "Is this why you were so sweet? You did all of it to film me secretly? How could you, Ivan? How could you?!" The last 'you' is high-pitched, leaving an itch in my throat.

He untilts his head from the position the slap left it in, bringing his frosty hazel eyes to mine. If I had no reasonable reason to be fuming, I would have been turned into an iceberg beneath his gaze by now.

Wordlessly, he pushes the tall vase by his side to the floor. My shriek complements the crash sound as I watch a once pretty piece of pottery reduce to shards and litters of sand and flowers. A small black circular object rolls to my feet and upturns, baring its dot-lens to me. It's a camera.

"How could I?" His voice jolts my head up to him. He approaches me slowly while I retreat, releasing shaky and tensed gasps in the face of the 'devil' in him. If his eyes were frosty before, they're dead now. I cannot pick any hint of emotion in them.

He stops a few paces from me whose back is merged with the wall. The weight of my breath doubles and I almost give up the ghost when another crashing sound breaks into the space. My heart springs to my throat but I manage to hold it back on realizing he just ruined another vase – the one on the center table. The table cracks, bearing its fair share of the damage while yet another aesthetic ceramic lies in ruins. Another black miniature camera rolls into my view.

I clasp my lips with a shaky hand as a river begins to form around my eyeballs.

He picks up a thick glass cologne bottle from the dressing table beside me and swings his hand upward diagonally. It lands on a lampshade made of glass, producing a sharp clink on contact, and when they all plop to the floor in a crash.

My back slips against the wall, and I crumble to the floor in tears. I cannot believe I let him trample on my intelligence. How could he have filmed me secretly?

My peeve grows the farther I travel deep into the implications of what he did, causing me to beat my chest frustratedly.

"'How could I?'" Crouching to my level, he forces my head up, gripping my jaw painfully. "You think I was elated being in your company last night?" bringing his face closer, he starts, digging into my soul with sinister eyes. "You think I was delighted to have touched you, kissed you, rubbed your filthy feet?" Each of those memories gushes in as the words root deeply in my head, peaking my whimper. "But I had to bear it all. Why? Because someone somewhere thinks this crazy concept will skyrocket my fashion brand to stand on the fashion pyramid."

A pregnant pause follows, our eyes locked on each other's.

His tone steeps into a solemn whisper as he continues, "Welcome to my world, Laurel." He stands and turns away to leave.

"Is this why you pushed the wedding forward?" I whimper, turning his legs off.

"Precisely," I hear before he turns back around to me. "Smart of you to think that far, beautiful." He arches a brow, slanting his neck to the side as he looks down at me. The urge to get up and punch that bloaty look on his face courses through my veins but I only unleash them on myself, clenching the tiled floor in my fists. "I needed the dates to coincide with the official opening of my new hotel. So I'm basically killing two birds with a stone."

"You're evil," I grit out.

"I get that a lot," he returns in apathy. "Now get ready, Laurel. We have a flight to catch," he concludes and continues on his way.

"Where are we going?"

"Consider it your honeymoon," he replies impassively, walking out of eyeshot.

He leaves a shriek behind, my vocal chord threatening to burst from all the pressure as I fist my hair fiercely. I could lose strands from the amount of energy I'm pumping in but my provocation annuls the pain. It doesn't even hurt, so how am I supposed to tell when I'm overdoing it?

Here I was thinking I'd finally attained the life my mom never had. True, me and Ivan were barely acquainted, but I thought my life would at least be less hellish if he at least had respect for women due to all he said and did last night. Even though the beating he gave Alicia and 'respect for women' were light years apart.

I was hopeful. But look where I am now.

Fifty exhausting minutes pass, and right now, we're both at the dining table where breakfast is served before us.

I can see the food. It's physically before me, but I don't see images of scrambled eggs or yellow egg yolks in my risotto breakfast. Instead, all that has my mind's eye preoccupied are the gruesome images from last night into this morning.

He kissed me, held me close, defended me, and made me feel like a LOVED wife. Like a princess. Only to tell me today that he did all of that to promote his fashion brand? And to think that I also checked everything I was adorned with yesterday and confirmed the 'BR' logo which stands for 'Brass' – the Briggs fashion brand – was on every one of them.

Does this even make sense?

'Told you, Laurel.'

There is no need to rub it in. I feel like shit right now!

"You're not touching your food, Laurel," his nerve-racking voice bounces into my ears and agitates every fiber in my being. I look up to him beside me with tears lining my under-eyelid, that I wipe off almost at once.

He's being a jerk again. Playing the loving husband in front of the servers who surround us and are waiting to take more orders if we have. "I'm not hungry," I reply bluntly.

"Laurel, you – "

"I am not hungry, Ivan," I yell. "Let me be!"

The next sound that follows comes from his ceramic plate after dumping the stainless cutleries in his grip, on it. The clink is dense and personal. "Leave us," he orders low-pitched and the uniformed servers all obey.

"Look, you need to – "

"Why do you ca – "

"I AM NOT asking for your well-being," he snaps, and my attempt to quibble goes 'poof' – into the wind. "I AM NOT asking because I CARE. We are producing a fashion magazine of exactly 500 pages. On each page will be at least two photos of us. No two pages will bear the same photos. That ultimately means we are going to be taking about 1,500 shots. We are going to be working all around the clock for seven days to achieve this target. I wouldn't want you passing out mid-shoot due to fatigue, and flopping my efforts entirely. Do you get it now?

"Ingest it. Inject it. Stuff yourself with it. Gobble it. Do whatever you can to get this – " he gestures to my food, "into your system, I don't care. I need you sound and fit today. Every day counts."

"You are the Briggs group, Ivan. You have more than what it takes to hire the best models to do this. So why?" I shake my head at the question, finding it difficult to digest any of this.

"Apparently, I will do a better job than any model that is going to be hired. And besides, they all believe having the CEO himself do this will have a revolutionary impact on the brand." He pauses, pulls closer, and continues, "Ever seen a 500-paged magazine? Once it hits the market, it is going to spike our sales to an unimaginable level."

"And if it flops?" I challenge.

"Then let that be my headache. And the food, yours."

"Did you really have to go this far?" My tears seep through. "Take pictu ..." I sigh, unable to complete my sentence. The more I think about it, the more I lose my mind! The thought that someone somewhere was watching me through the night all under his consent pools a sickening feeling in my gut. "Take pictures of me without my consent?" I force out, leaving a mild sob behind.

"Would you have done it voluntarily?"

"What if I exposed my nudity, Ivan?!" I cry out.

"Well, you didn't," he cuts in sharply and I shut my eyes as they're full now. They drip while he says the remaining words, "And even if you did, those wouldn't have been leaked. I am a businessman, not a monster."

"You should have told me," I insist.

"They wouldn't have been natural. We needed those pictures as real as possible so the ones we take today do not look like a sham."

"You clearly weren't thinking of today, right?" I shake my head vigorously, wiping my tears like someone who just found light at the end of a tunnel. "Do you think you'll be able to get me to reproduce genuine and natural pictures with you?" I ask daringly.

"You will, Laurel," he says with no speck of doubt that it sounds like a declaration. "You have to."