ALMOST UNFIXABLE.

059 - Obsession

I can't help but ask myself, dabbing my face and neck with a handkerchief.

The woman wasn't even paying any heed to me, leaning back against the seat and typing away on her phone leisurely like we didn't have an appointment to meet in the next five minutes.

I was kinda curious as to why she followed me for this particular shoot. Since she's my manager, my mother receives all the mail invitations for collaborations with brands and usually, she'd send the ones she dimmed fit for me to model for to my email with all the necessary pieces of information.

More often than not, I'd be the one to go for the shoot myself, sometimes Sheba or Mama Marie would follow me... but never with Mother.

But this one was different.

She got an invitation for this shoot weeks ago and told me immediately. She didn't give that much information, like which brand or company I would be modeling for and I still don't have that information up until this moment.

She only noted that it was important for building my brand and I must not mess it up. She was strict with my eating regimen and heaven knows, I've lost weight that I didn't even know I had. It has not been... easy. But I couldn't back down because that would be equivalent to a death sentence.

Now, we are here and we are about to be late, even after spelling out how important this particular shoot was.

She was the one that always rang it in my ear like an alarm that I should never be late for any shoot, and that I should always get there at least thirty minutes before time. But here we are, five minutes to the beginning of the shoot and we were still sitting in the car like we didn't have any place to be.

And she didn't born me well to step out of the car before her.

So, I just had to sit and wait for her to be done with whatever she was doing. She must have a reason for stalling. Knowing Natasha Malik, she always wants to make a statement. Only heaven knows what this particular statement is.

"Iris,"

She finally spoke, calling my name in a tone like silk, jolting me out of my thoughts. I sat up straight, turning to look at her. Her neatly manicured fingers were still typing away on her phone but I could tell that her attention was on me still.

"Yes, mother,"

She paused her typing momentarily, or rather she stopped it all together because she closed her phone case over the screen and pushed it into her back before she turned to look at me.

Her gaze on me was gentle, but I knew better. Her dark orbs were fiery with an unspoken warning, and threats actually and I knew exactly what she was going to say before she opened her mouth to speak.

"We have been doing this for close to four years now, so I don't have to remind you of the rules when it comes to photoshoots," She spoke, her voice clipped and precise.

"But I am going to remind you once again because this particular photo shoot is very important to your brand as an international model and you must EXCEL."

The way she used the word EXCEL made it seem like I was about to write a very important exam. But in this context, it seemed like this photoshoot was just as important as an examination, if not more.