Abdicatin' Royalty

Colleagues

Note, this is one of the worst parts of the four months the story takes place! If not the worst. I couldn't believe it happened and when it did, I wanted to rip Isla into pieces then have Akasha help me beat the crap out of her. It was this day that I realized why Christian and Akasha can't stand her.

After Hadley and I found a reasonable solution to the problem of Vince and Isla going out, we headed home: me and Marco to Antoine palace while Hadley and Emily retired to Hadley's house on some desolated hill.

The next day, I had a fashion shoot with Renée and a few of her intern designers. She started this internship program that takes amateur designers and throws them in the deep end of the industry. They had to take old items and make them relevant again and they could alter the style and the fit but that was it. Then this morning during a brief meeting, Renée through in a plot twister; they had to dress two models.

I was in hair and makeup along with a few of the other models -that look like they'd die if they saw a bakery. One of the models -Elray Nelson- said that she was excited to meet the new model. The conversation started a stir amongst us as we all jumped at the mention of any of Renée's protégé models.

They're young but they know what's what.

My intern designer -Diva Ugbobuaku- took items from last year's autumn collection. She placed me in a cream turtle neck, matched with black woolen tights, deep olive green ankle boots and an olive green cape coat with a cream fur collar. The cape coat was originally a trumpet sleeve jacket but Diva's got style.

She told the hair and makeup people to keep the makeup in shades of red and orange -like autumn leaves. My hair was down with a single braid wrapped around my head to look like a beanie.

When I was done, I sat with the other prepared models and we continued to bicker about who the new model was. Renée walked over and we begged and pleaded for her to tell but all she said was that I was pair with the protégé. Once all the models were partnered up, the photoshoot began.

The interns stood next to the photographer and directed which way to go while the nerves clearly got to most of them. Renée called Diva's name and I walked next to her, holding her hand. Next to Renée was the protégé model, Casey Prinsloo!

Tall, fair skin, green eyes, clustered freckles around her nose and under her eyes and fiery ginger hair that was tied in a curled ponytail. Her makeup matched mine, as did her remodeled outfit. A black and white cotton top, black woolen tights, a navy blue parka jacket with navy blue patent leather knee high boots.

I recognized all these items! The black and white top once had a baggy turtle neck collar. The parka once had fur around its hood and it was longer. The buttons were bigger and rim of the sleeves had the matching fur as the hood. This was from the winter collection six years ago!

I turned to Diva with a smile, "if Renée doesn't keep you, I will!" We stepped onto the plain black backdrop and the shoot started. Casey had a good on-set chemistry and she made it so easy to just go with the flow. When we were done, I high-fived her the whispered, "not bad for a newbie." Smiling, Casey walked away towards the other protégés who gathered in a corner, supporting her.

Renée, Chloe and I walked to Renée's private studio where we found a Rosenthal guard and Isla. I was utterly surprised to her and she seemed to like that. Her sudden smirk vanished and was replaced by a bush of fury. Somehow I still found it in me to admire her curves that were clearly not going anywhere.