Chapter 3

The arrived at the Golden Plaza at least four hours before the event had started, but still found the entire square of it swarming with people as they got ready for the high and mighty society fashion show. There were people everywhere, from exhausted looking staff milling about with heaps of designer clothes slung over their shoulders to overexcited supermodels in short denim jeans that exposed their super tanned thighs and clad tops that barely covered much of anything.

And then they were the photographers, swarming around everywhere and clicking away their cameras at everyone from some of the most famous people in their designer clothes and overpriced shoes to the said models as they showed off their endlessly long limbs clad in the skimpiest of outfits. They all appeared very posh, intimidating even as they floundered about in their expensive couture designs, making me feel so unworthy in my simple flowery dress I got off at a buy two get one free deal from a local clothes stall downtown.

And so I left, pushing myself forward through the crowd of huge smiles and over exaggerated hair flips until I made it safely backstage. Here, I spotted hazel standing a good ten feet away from me dressed in a tight black dress showing off her incredibly sexy body. She looked completely exhausted though with her reddened eyes nearly closing shut on their own accord as she stared intently at what I assumed was a long list of things to do plastered across her MacBook.

"Well you look terrible darling." I informed her as soon as I reached her side, tapping my poorly manicured fingers gently on her shoulder to get her attention. She turned her head slightly to look at me somewhat suspiciously, with her blood red eyes narrowing down at me to the size of sewing thread.

"And where the hell have been hiding all this time ashanti?" She asked as she leaned over to the side, her heels threatening to give under her crumpled posture and send her sprawling all over that carpeted floor. "You left me here all by myself to do all the work."

"Oh dont be so dramatic, I haven't been hiding at all, I was just held up running countless errands at the office before coming here." I replied with an eye roll.

Hazel huffed, closed her MacBook and then looked down at me with a small frown on her face. "Well love I should warn you that our dearest madam madeline is in a bad mood today. She has been barking orders all day like this is a freaking war zone and we are her newest cadets." She frowned deeper, cocked her head to the side and then gestured it to where my boss, madeline ford was standing in an outrageously tight red dress and a contorted face smeared up with what could be a dozen shades of make-up.

"Well that woman is eternally mad at pretty much everything, so that's not exactly a surprise." I said with a scowl and hazel huffed again, her frustration evident on her perfectly smooth features.

"You know what Ashanti? I have decided that I will eternally despise Madeline Ford even though she is probably one of the most talented designers out there." Hazel confided in a soft whisper as if she was letting me in on a top secret when the whole company knew just how much those two despised each other. I nodded in agreement with her though, it's not like I liked her anymore than she did.

"Well we better go and find out if she needs anything before she breathes down fiery fires down on us like a bloody dragon." I suggested and we both started towards the bossy woman. But as we stepped further and further into her view, I realized that she was not alone. Besides her was a young pale skinned model with a head full of striking red hair that cascaded all the way down to her back, making her appear like her whole head had caught fire.

And of course, Madeline was screaming down at the poor girl like she was some movie villan and the girl looked as if she was about to pass out from it. Apparently all that drama was because the girl's foot didn't fit the 8-inch heels she was supposed to wear for her first walk down the runway. It wasn't her fault that they brought a size too small for her, but Madeline being the evil villan she was, didn't seem to take that into consideration and just rushed out at the poor thing for someone else's screw up.

She suddenly caught sight of us approaching her and then she sent the poor girl out of her sight. She was happy to oblige of course, fleeing out of there like she was being chased by blood thirsty beasts.

"And what the hell are you two doing here?" Madeline asked us as soon as we were stood in front of her. Her eye-shadowed eyes staring us down from head to toe as if we were a pair of her own personal servants.

Hazel's eyes tensed with anger and Madeline held her gaze in a challenge, daring her to say something to her so that she can have an excuse to just fire her right there and then. The two of them hated each other and this silent war was just the beginning of many more to come before the night was over.

"We just thought you had some work assigned for us, but we'll go back to our previous work stations if that's not the case then." I spoke for the both of us, breaking the terribly intense stare down those two had going on.

"Well go find yourself someplace where you can be useful." She spat back, venom spilling from her somewhat soft voice which could easily pass as the sweetest voice ever if it didn't belong to her hateful self.

I nodded and pulled on Hazel's arm as a cue for us to go as far away from the woman in red as possible, but just as we both turned in the opposite direction of the maddening miss Madeline Ford, we were met by the presence of the almighty Mr Erik Graham, dressed in a white dress shirt which was left untucked, a pair of dark perfectly fitting jeans and a different kind of boots from the ones he wore the day before.

Clearly the man didn't get the memo about the formal dress code which was what everyone was wearing that evening, but then again, something told me he was just the sort of man who lived to do the exact opposite of what was expected of him. He looked stunning though, in his usual bad boy sort of way with his hair held up in a man bun leaving only a few strands failing gracefully over his ocean blue eyes.

"Oh Erik! You are here." Madeline squealed from behind us and moved quickly in her 8-inch heels to kiss him on both cheeks. "You look wonderful darling, I like the whole casual appeal you have going on." She gushed, smiling brightly with her red stained lips stretching from ear to ear.

I rolled my eyes at the sight in front of me and started off to find some place else other than in the presence of those two people. But just as I was about to take two steps forward, Erik cleared his throat loudly, stopping me dead in my tracks and forcing me to turn around and met his paralysing stare which was shockingly raw.

"What's your name?" He asked me in a voice that was surprisingly warm. We weren't friends or anything so him asking my name was definitely weird and it seemed I wasn't the only one among the three of us who found his behavior quite peculiar. Madeline and Hazel did too, and now they just stood there with their jaws dropped as if they were spectators of a very weird show.

"Uhhh my name is.....uhmm.. Ashanti." I stammered a reply, wondering to myself as to why that man wanted to know my name.

"Okay." Erik nodded softly as he lifted his hand to brush away some of the strands of hair that were threatening to get into his eyes.

"Well sir if you could excuse me, I actually have loads to do." I started in a very careful voice just so I wouldn't speak out of tone with the man who ran the whole entire show. But Erik didn't answer me or even bother to acknowledge what I said to him. Instead, he just stood there, eyeing me like I had suddenly turned into something he didn't quite understand and now I didn't know if that meant that I should go ahead or stay and wait for his acknowledgement.

I chose to stay. Looking like an idiot no doubt but it seemed like a better idea in that situation.

"Well aren't you leaving?" Madeline asked in her sweet, venom filled voice and for the first time since I met that woman, I was actually happy that she was there with us. At least she had the power to release me from the blue eyed monster's clutches.

"But of course." I replied and started off in quick, hurried steps towards the first exit I saw. I didn't reach anywhere near it however because Erik stopped me once again. His voice bouncing all over that makeshift tent we were to use as the changing room for our models that evening.

"I didn't say you could go now did I?" He asked and I was suddenly frozen in place, trembling from the inside out and wondering if by any chance, I was now going to be the latest victim in Mr Erik Graham's infamous firing outbursts.

Damnit.