(7) A Burst of Violet

Ring!

The shrill sound of her phone filled the room of the penthouse. Violet groaned, her hand fumbling blindly across the nightstand until her fingers found the cold screen. She squinted at the caller ID through half-lidded eyes.

Wane.

Her manager. At 6:47 AM.

He never called this early. Ever.

"What?" she snapped, her voice raspy with sleep and irritation.

"Hey, Violet. I have some urgent news." Wane's voice was thin and strained. The kind that preceded bad news.

"If it's so urgent, then tell me right now. It better be important because I have an hour left for my beauty sleep." She glared at the alarm clock on the bedside, then noticed the empty space beside her. Samuel was already gone. He had slipped out early without waking her.

"Probably working on the film," she thought. "Good. At least someone is handling business."

"Okay. Well..." Wane hesitated, and Violet's irritation spiked. "The investors want to change the leading lady for that upcoming movie Sir Samuel is directing."

Violet laughed suddenly, a short, disbelieving sound. "What? I just won Best Actress of the Year, and they want someone else to play the lead? Is this a prank, Wane?"

"God, I wish." His nervous laugh did nothing to soothe her. "But they're serious. Sir Samuel is here with 1 Entertainment because... they want Vivianne Goldthorne to take the lead. And you... as a supporting character."

The words shattered something in Violet's mind.

For a moment, she couldn't breathe. Her heart pounded against her ribs, her vision tunneling as rage flooded her veins like lava.

Vivianne Goldthorne.

That blonde bimbo with her perfect smile and her perfect face and her perfect timing, appearing out of nowhere to steal everything Violet had worked for.

"I'll be at the meeting place," Violet said, her voice dangerously calm. "Send me the address. I'll talk sense to those hags."

She didn't wait for Wane's response. She ended the call and flung the covers aside, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. Her morning was ruined. And someone was going to pay.

---

The drive to Filmwood Headquarters was a blur, red lights and clenched teeth. Violet's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, her jaw so tight it ached. The cityscape rushed past her window, indifferent to her fury.

"How dare they?" she thought. "How dare they replace me with that nobody? That, that ghost?"

She barely knew Vivianne Goldthorne existed until the awarding ceremony. And now the woman was everywhere.

On billboards, on magazine covers, on the lips of every investor and executive in town. It was as if the universe had conspired to erase Violet and replace her with a younger, blonder, more convenient model.

She parked her car with more force than necessary, her heels clicking an angrily against the pavement as she strode toward the building. Wane spotted her immediately, waving frantically from the entrance.

"Violet!" He jogged toward her, sunglasses pushed up into his hair, his expression harried. "I know this is sudden, but before you blame me for anything, Sir Samuel and I did our best to dissuade them. I swear. But I think Vivianne Goldthorne has a massive backer. The investors won't budge."

"I'll show them," Violet said, her voice flat and cold.

She quickened her pace, her heels echoing through the marble lobby like gunshots. Staff members lowered their heads as she passed, parting like the Red Sea before her fury.

"Fix your face first," Wane hissed, grabbing her elbow. "We don't want a grumpy face. We want pretty."

Violet forced a smile. Tight, brittle, and utterly unconvincing.

They stepped into the elevator, and the doors slid shut with a soft hiss. The ascent was agonizingly slow, each floor ticking by like a countdown. When the doors finally opened onto the executive floor, Violet's eyes immediately found Samuel.

He stood in the middle of the hallway, surrounded by four distinguished men and a woman, the investors. His hands were raised in a placating gesture, his face etched with desperation.

"I understand that our goal is to provide enough opportunity for everyone," Samuel was saying, "but is Miss Vivianne really worth it? Violet may be my wife, however, I am not being biased here. She is the best and perfect person to play the leading role."

The female investor stepped forward, her expression cool and uninterested. "To be clear, Vivianne Goldthorne has been idolized by the younger generation since she showed up. And, her face, she looks like your late wife, Director Collins. A lot of the older generation admired the late Charity Redwood."

"In respect for my current wife--" Samuel began, but the woman raised a dismissive hand.

"Violet Collins is amazing, yes. But Vivianne is a rising star. Who knows if she can surpass Violet Collins in the near future?"

That was it.

That was the breaking point.

"Excuse me? Surpass?" Violet stepped forward, her smile razor-sharp and her eyes blazing. "Do you think a lapdancing newcomer can surpass me? I've been in this industry longer than this Vivianne Goldthorne. Shouldn't all of you want me more instead of her?"

The investors exchanged glances, clearly caught off guard by her sudden appearance. For a moment, Violet saw hesitation flicker across their faces. She had them. She could feel it.

Then a voice cut through the tension.

"We assure you, at 1 Entertainment, every talent we handle rises and shines brighter than the old stars."

Violet's head snapped toward the voice. A tall, blonde man in a perfectly tailored suit had emerged from the conference room. Paige, the assistant she had seen at the awards. And behind him, stepping into the hallway with the grace of a predator, was the woman herself.

Vivianne Goldthorne.

She wore a cream-colored pantsuit that hugged her slim figure, her blonde hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. The color complemented her porcelain complexion in a way that Violet could never quite achieve with her darker features. Everything about Vivianne was light, golden, radiant, untouchable.

"Mrs. Collins?" Charity's eyes widened in mock surprise. "You must have heard."

"Yes. It was... amusing." Violet's smile was frozen in place, her lips twitching with the effort of maintaining composure. Her eyes, however, betrayed everything.

The rage, the jealousy, the desperate need to claw this woman's perfect face off.

"Oh, you must be happy for me!" Charity clasped her hands together, her expression radiating artificial joy. "I know you're the type of veteran that is so supportive!"

The words were a knife wrapped in honey. Violet's vision went red.

Before she could respond, Paige stepped in smoothly.

"This is great news, isn't it? A huge collaboration. Mrs. Violet Collins and Miss Vivianne Goldthorne in the same film. People will flood the theaters. If the internet hears about this..." He trailed off, letting the implication hang in the air.

Violet opened her mouth to argue, but the words lodged in her throat. She stood there, frozen, her carefully constructed argument crumbling beneath the weight of their calculated maneuvering.

"Perfect," she finally managed, her voice strangled. "Just perfect."

---

"AHHHHH!"

The vase shattered against the wall, exploding into a thousand porcelain shards. Violet grabbed another, a crystal decanter and hurled it across the living room. It struck the television screen, spiderwebbing the glass before crashing to the floor.

Samuel stood in the doorway, his hands raised in a futile gesture of peace. "Vi, enough!"

"Vivianne Goldthorne! Vivianne Goldthorne!" Violet screamed, her voice cracking with unrestrained fury.

She swept a stack of magazines off the coffee table, sent a lamp flying, and grabbed a decorative bowl that had cost more than most people's cars.

"She's ruining everything! Everything I worked for! Everything we built!"

Baron watched from the kitchen doorway, a spoonful of cereal frozen halfway to his mouth. His blue eyes tracked Violet's tantrum with an unsettling calm, his expression unreadable.

"Her trantrum is worse than me two years ago." Baron thought and fed himself another spoonful of cereal.

Samuel pinched the bridge of his nose. "Vi, we can't do anything about it. It's either you quit the project or we sign the contracts and film right away. Millions of dollars are waiting. We can't afford to--"

"Yes! Yes, why not?!" Violet whirled on him, her hair wild, her mascara smudged. The epitome of a mad woman. "Let me sign that piece of paper that says starring BEST ACTRESS OF THE YEAR as a side character!"

"Just, just think of this as another small project and a way to prove you can overshadow Vivianne Goldthorne." Samuel tried to rationalize with her but he receive a gleaming glare from his own wife.

"Tell me, why haven't we heard of her? She looks exactly, EXACTLY, like Charity!" Violet grabbed her bag from the floor and found her phone real quick. She began searching in her phone and the results made her laugh hysterically.

"What?" Confused, Samuel blurted out, unable to stop his curiosity.

"That bitch doesn't even film here! She's going to debut in Filmwood through the leading role she stole from me!" Furious, Violet wanted to throw her phone away but Samuel grabbed it from her. She ran her hands through her hair and paced back and forth.

Samuel read through the articles on the phone screen. The name Vivianne Goldthorne was at the search bar and there were very few information about her.

What Violet said was right, Vivianne Goldthorne worked mostly on overseas indie films. She doesn't even appear on magazine covers or known articles.

"I've been thinking, if she looks a lot like Charity, why were there no rumors? Usually, people should be talking about it knowing Charity Collins is a prominent figure." Samuel said his thoughts aloud but he was right to question it.

"It's like.. It's like she waited for that moment, haha!" Violet leaned on the table close by and bit her lip.

"We already got rid of Charity. We buried her, remember?" Samuel approached her and tried to make Violet calmer but she pushed his hands away as she strode off.

She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms. Her voice dropped to a venomous whisper.

"I'll convince them on the way. And she will lose her job. I will make sure of it."

Samuel stared at her, his expression shifting from exhaustion to something else...something that looked almost like fear.