Page 112 of Awestruck at Dusk
“Hey, mama!” Caro said to Lily. “Billie! It’s been a while.”
Caro and Frankie were there. They’d done our hair and makeup for Tobias’s premiere. They were the best.
Lily and I greeted them with big warm hugs. I took a seat on the couch, and Lily climbed on the director’s style chair to get started.
“Girl, what’s wrong. I know you,” Frankie said, shutting the door. “It’s about that emmer effer, isn’t it?” Lily burst out into tears as soon as Frankie said that.
Lily covered her face as she cried. “I tried to get out of it, but I couldn’t,” she started to say. “I talked to my agent, and I explained things to him, but he said he couldn’t say no to Haute. That they’d requested me andonlyme. They even changed the photo shoot date to match my schedule. What was I to do?”
“We won’t let him engage in any conversation with you outside of the photo shoot,” Caro said matter-of-factly. “We’ll stay till the end, mama. We’ll make sure of it.”
“I swear to God if he as much as looks at you funny, I’m gonna—”
“No, please,” Lily cut Frankie off. I kept quiet as I got a gist of the situation. “It’s—I don’t want to cause any trouble right now. I’m just nervous to see him. And if Joel finds out about the photographs … I’m not sure if—”
“What photographs?” I asked Lily. “What’s wrong?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
Caro sprayed thermal water on Lily’s face. Frankie looked away and tousled Lily’s hair.
“Shit,” Lily said in a breath, letting her head hang. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “He took some very—explicit—nudes when we were together. And when we broke up, I asked him to delete them. He even showed me when he did it. But he obviously had a backup, and he’s been threatening to reveal them after I started dating Joel. I was such anidiot.”
“He’sthe idiot,” Caro said, arching a brow.
I hated the guy already, and I didn’t even know his name or had seen his face.
“And what’s his problem?” I asked.
“He’s pissed that I started dating Joel a few months after we broke up,” she said. “But I was miserable. He was the worst. He always had girls over at his apartment with the excuse of it beingwork. And every girl starting out as a model would do his bidding just to have him take their picture. I don’t even want to imagine how he abused his power over them.”
I guess I understood why Lily was so jealous and insecure in her relationship with Joel. She’d been traumatized by the asshole of her ex.
“But what does he want from you? Is he asking for something in exchange?” I pressed.
“At first, he wanted me to end things with Joel, and when I didn’t, he started sending me the images at random hours during the day to make a point. I was afraid he would send them to Joel, so I begged him to stop. He then asked for money in exchange for not revealing them to the public. Every now and then, he asks me to wire him money. Sometimes a thousand dollars. Sometimes two, in exchange for his silence.”
Fucker.
“That’s blackmail, Lily. And it’s a criminal offense. What’s his name?” I asked.
“Billie, no.” She immediately understood why I asked.
“I’m going to find out either way, and I’m not going to let this fly, Lily,” I replied, standing up. “And you say Joel doesn’t know about this, right?”
“He doesn’t. Leonard says that if I tell Joel, the photographs will get out.”
Joel would probably chew the guy’s head off before that could even happen, but sure. “Leonard … what?” I insisted for her to spill the last name.
“Roux-Bertrand,” Lily said with a sigh.
“You’re going to have to write that one down for me,” I said with a chuckle.
Lily grabbed her phone and texted me the last name. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Ask Aaron to run his name, of course,” I said with a smirk. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“Fuck yeah, run it,” Frankie said with a laugh. Lily couldn’t help but laugh too.
“I don’t know,” Lily said anxiously, kneading her hands. “What if he finds out or something?”
