Chapter 169: She’s A Crazy Bitch!

Lorali

An hour later, hair and makeup were finally finished, and we were led out onto the ad set.

The set was visually insane. It was a massive, immersive floral wonderland, but constructed entirely out of artificial flowers molded and arranged into oversized sports equipment, huge basketballs made of red roses, hockey sticks wrapped in white orchids, and tennis rackets outlined in yellow marigolds.

I have to hand it to them, I thought, looking around in genuine awe. This actually looks incredible.

A hyperactive, espresso-fueled choreographer named Raul who had to be a beta clapped his hands together, jogging over to us with a tablet in hand. "All right, listen up! Here is the flow. We want dynamic movement, high energy, athletic synergy! Walter, you’re leading the crossover pivot; Lorali, you drop into a figure skater’s stance right beside him. You need to mirror each other’s energy."

He walked us through the blocking step-by-step, barking instructions about posture and camera ticks. We both nodded along, though personally, I wanted him to shut up. I mean how hard is it to take a damn ad.

Then, Raul turned to Walter with a serious expression. "Walter, if your omega misses a cue or doesn’t quite grasp the footwork, you need to help her out. Keep her right on track."

"Got it," Walter agreed smoothly.

He walked over to me, flashing a sickeningly helpful, big-brother smile. "Hey. If you don’t get the choreography down, don’t worry about it. I’m right here. I know the routine inside and out. I’ll help you get past it with little to no mistakes."

A hot, searing spike of irritation pierced my brain.

Oh, look at him, ’Hey. If you don’t get the choreography down, don’t worry about it. I’m right here. I know the routine inside and out.’ where does he get off playing the savior! Does he honestly think I can’t handle a basic dance routine?! Has he completely forgotten I am a figure skating prodigy and an omega of freaking Alma? You know I haven’t forgotten a single second of his condescending bullshit, especially not his little speech after I broke his precious vases! He thinks he can talk down to me like I’m some helpless amateur? I am going to make him regret every word he just said.

I didn’t know how I was going to get back at him yet, but looking at his smug, perfectly styled face, I knew one thing for certain, I was going to completely crash out today, and he was going to be the primary casualty.

"Lead the way, expert," I muttered sweetly.

We took our positions on the flower-covered stage. The director shouted instructions from behind the camera crane, the heavy studio lights flared to life, and music thudded through the massive speakers.

"Action!"

We moved into the routine. Walter executed his spin, shifting smoothly into the choreography, and that was my cue to step up, pivot, and lock into our synchronized pose.

Instead, I deliberately planted my heavy sneaker right on top of his foot.

Walter winced, stumbling out of his rhythm. "Ow—!"

"Oops," I whispered loudly, flashing an apologetic grimace.

"Cut! Cut, cut, cut!" Fred, the producer, screamed, throwing his hands up in the air from behind the monitor. "Lorali, what was that?! You drifted three feet to the left! Let’s take it from the top!"

We restart.

Second take. We launched into the sequence again. As Walter pivoted toward me for our shared lift-and-turn transition, I misjudged my footing on purpose, swinging my arm back with excessive, exaggerated force and catching him squarely across the chest with my elbow.

CRACK.

Walter let out a choked gasp, losing his balance entirely as his legs tangled in the artificial rose-basketball prop, sending him crashing hard onto the wooden studio floor with a heavy, humiliating thud.

Silence descended over the entire soundstage. I stood frozen over his fallen body, staring down at him with wide, innocent eyes.

"Oh my Goddess! I am so, so sorry!" I cried out, clapping my hands over my mouth in dramatic horror. "Are you okay?! I didn’t mean to do that! My depth perception is completely shot today!"

Walter pushed himself up off the floor, clutching his ribs, his face pale as a sheet. A small, ugly scrape was bleeding across his knuckle where he had broken his fall against a wooden riser.

"It’s... it’s perfectly fine," Walter wheezed, his voice strained as a crew member rushed over to help him up.

"Cut!" Fred yelled, storming onto the set, his face red with frustration. "Lorali, what is going on?! That’s the second time! You stepped on him, you threw him off balance, and now you’ve literally tackled him to the floor! We are losing thousands by the hour here!"

"I’m so sorry!" I repeated, turning on all my waterwork charm. "I’m just having an off day! I’ll get it right!"

On the final take, my blatant sabotage reached its peak. If the producer was already shouting at me, I needed to give him a bigger reason to shout at me. During a fast-paced running sequence where we were supposed to sprint parallel toward the camera, I didn’t just bump into him, I threw my entire shoulder into his side, tripping his stride and sending him flying backward straight into a jagged stack of plastic prop crates.

This time, Walter didn’t bounce right back up.

He let out a genuine cry of pain, clutching his bleeding hand and his bruised shoulder against his chest. A small pool of blood began to drip from a nasty gash on his palm where the plastic crate had split open.

Chaos erupted on set. Crew members swarmed around him and first-aid assistants rushed over from only the goddess knows where with gauze and antiseptic wipes.

As two assistants helped a limping, bleeding Walter away from the set toward themedical room, I stood near the back, crossing my arms over my chest with a quiet, vicious sense of satisfaction.

"The rumors are totally true," a makeup artist whispered to a sound technician right beside me, thinking I couldn’t hear them. "She’s such an absolute bitch."

"Seriously," the sound guy muttered back, shaking his head. "Did you see that? She totally did that on purpose. What a psycho. How does anyone work with her?"

Before I could whirl around and give them a piece of my mind, Scarlett appeared out of nowhere at my elbow, her face white with absolute panic.

"Lorali, what in the world are you doing?!" Scarlett hissed, grabbing my arm and pulling me behind a lighting rig. "You need to calm down right now! People are talking about you"

"Come on, I haven’t given them anything to talk about," I lied smoothly, batting my eyelashes.

"Don’t blow this deal for us!" Scarlett practically begged, her voice shaking. "This is a half-million contract! Just go into the medical room, apologize to Walter like a normal human being, and stop acting like a rabid animal so we can finish the shoot!"

"I am not apologizing to him," I stated flatly.

Oril as well appeared out of nowhere ready to give me a piece of his mind, he crossed his arms and looked at me with disdain. "I know you’re doing that on purpose, Lorali. Just go in there and apologize."

"I am not going to do it," I snapped.

I looked at Scarlett and Oril like they had both lost their minds, turned on my heel, and walked away.

As I made my way toward my dressing room to avoid those two irritating pests, my path took me right past the open door of the set’s mini-clinic room. The wooden door was cracked open about six inches. Inside, a medic was wrapping thick white gauze around Walter’s bleeding hand while he hissed in pain.

I paused in the hallway, unable to resist the urge to listen in.

"I don’t know how you put up with her," one of the production assistants muttered, holding a tray of medical supplies as she looked at Walter with pity. "She’s evil and completely unhinged. She was totally doing that on purpose the whole time."

My jaw tightened. Oh, really?

"Oh, no, she’s not," Walter’s voice drifted out strangely defensive.

I blinked, wondering what he was playing at.

"It’s all right," Walter continued, wincing slightly as the antiseptic touched his skin. "She’s not evil. She... she just doesn’t know how to do this ad stuff. She’s just new to the whole concept of modeling."

Are you kidding me right now?! A furious wave of absolute indignation crashed over me. I am trying my absolute hardest to be a nightmare, I am deliberately trying to assault him on camera, and he is sitting in there making excuses for me?! He’s covering for me?! Why is he defending me when I was being an absolute bitch?! I hate it.

It infuriated me it would have been better to hear him bitching about me.

"She’s an absolute maniac," the medic muttered, shaking her head as she taped the gauze down. "If my sister acted like that, I’d have her locked in a facility."