Page 12 of Are You Going to Love Me

“I don’t sell bullshit. Only real shit. You could’ve been out of here. You missed the photoshoot,” Mac’Roy shared, sitting back and studying her somberness.

“I lost my grandmother.”

Mac’Roy’s expression turned soft. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s life. You lose more than you win. It is what it is,” Eden shared. “Do you want a dance or...”

“There’s another photoshoot. A big brand and being that we barely found someone by the cut-off time last time, I’m not in the business of letting my brands down.”

“So no to the dance?”

“Eden, is this what you want?” Mac’Roy asked, waving his manicured fingers around the dark space. “Spending your day dancing? Is that what your grandmother would’ve wanted? I’m sure she didn’t want you here.”

“You have no idea who or what she was to tell me what she would or wouldn’t want,” Eden snapped. “Don’t try to use her to get me to bend.”

Mac’Roy held his hands up. “Fine. I won’t try to sway you. I’ll just leave you with this – I wasn’t looking for you. You weren’t looking for me. But you are searching for something, and you’ll never find it if you don’t step out the darkness, Eden.”

Mac’Roy stood, lending her a soft expression. “Have a good night, Eden.”

“Yeah, you too.”

If Eden didn’t wake up soon and see what was opening up right in front of her, she would slip deeper into the darkness. She let another four days pass by without reaching out to Mac’Roy. Even Priya told her that he’d been coming to the VIP and sending messages for her. It wasn’t until the fifth day that Mac’Roy was tired of Eden avoiding the inevitable – her destiny.

“You’re a hard woman to hunt down,” Mac’Roy said, leaning on the side of Eden’s car as she exited the hair store. “I see you never got my message.”

Eden groaned. “Not you stalking me so you can ruin my life.”

“I’ve said it once, I’ve said it twice – I’m not in that business.”

“Explain to me the business again, then.”

Mac’Roy chuckled. “You weren’t listening?”

“Seemed like some bullshit,” she said with a shrug of the shoulders. “Leaving a message through Priya seemed like even more bullshit.”

“Alright then, ride with me and I’ll tell you all you need to know.”

“Nah, not doing that. Tell me the lies right here,” Eden stated, as she pointed to the cracked asphalt. “Your cover model fell through, and you want me to be on a cover of a magazine I never even heard about. That was the first one. The second one was that you had a big brand, and you weren’t in the business of letting business slip through your fingers or whatever you said.”

Mac’Roy tapped the trunk of his Rolls-Royce parked next to her car. The door opened and out stepped a girl a little older than Eden. She was gorgeous and moved like she floated. “Eden, this is my daughter, Natavia. This new magazine is Natavia’s idea, and like I said last night, you would be a good fit.”

“Daddy, I’ll take it from here because I’m not going to lie, it is a little bit creepy given the age and all,” Natavia expressed, touching his arm slightly and nudging him away. “I’m sorry about his persistence, but we are a few weeks away from publishing the second issue with online content, and we have no model who fits the vibe. When he told me about you, I looked you up. No social media footprint means we can build you up and be the next hot thing.”

“Yeah, see, the thing about the next hot thing means it’s over as fast as it starts, and I’m not trying to be back here in three months. So, I think I’ll pass on being your project.”

“The position starting off is twenty thousand. The more followers and content you create and leads we get from your content, the more the number increases. Look at it like this, in three months, you’ll be out of here and never looking back. It’s yours, all you have to say is yes.”

Eden mused over the idea. Twenty thousand dollars would clear her debt to Mama and have her and Staysha out of Trae Way. “No shit, right? Like I won’t have to beat y’all’s asses for playing with me?”

“Not at all. In good faith, we’ll give you half today, at the first photoshoot.”

Eden weighed her options. The deal seemed too good to be true, but it also could’ve been her way out. And she wouldn’t know if this was answered prayers if she didn’t take the leap.

“I have one request before saying yes. My sister is kind of in some legal trouble, and I need her by my side.”

“Whatever it is, we’ll make it go away and sign her as your management, but we need you. And I got photographers, stylists, and venues on standby, so I kind of need an answer yesterday.”

Eden pulled out her phone and dialed her sister.

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