Beautiful Monster 2 (Beautiful Monster #2)(17)
Author: Bella Forrest

“Take a deep breath,” he said, as foundation was being brushed on face. “The key here is to breathe. You’ve gone over a list of all the things you are going to say?”

“And spoken to everyone I’m going to interview about 6 million times. It’s kind of dumb, because I talk to these people every single day, and yet when it came time to rehearse interviews, I couldn’t come up with a thing to say to them.”

Liam smiled, reaching for a steaming cup of coffee he had brought with him.

“Sounds about right.”

I shook my head, taking the coffee cup right out of his hand. “You’re not helping.”

It took half an hour to get my makeup done, and when she was finished, I barely recognized myself. I looked like a model, some glamazon version of myself with high cheekbones and long eyelashes.

“Wow, thank you.” I turned to the makeup artist, who was putting her stuff away.

“It was easy, you’re beautiful all on your own,” she said, and I blushed.

Liam stood up, holding out his arm. “Ready?”

“Uh-huh.” I took a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Liam planted one last kiss on my lips, and then, with practiced ease, wiped away the lipstick that had gotten on him.

The Sites crew had arranged to meet us in front of the school, where the first shots would take place. Liam kept me chatting the whole time, keeping my nerves at bay, and it worked so well that I didn’t notice that there was an insane amount of noise outside. In fact, it wasn’t until we rounded the corner that I clued in to what was happening. We rounded the corner and I was blinded by a sea of camera flashes. I let out a scream, startled as a wall of people that I had never seen before, at least one hundred people, met us.

They weren’t students of the school; the students were trained to behave better than this. I had seen, mostly on YouTube, the paparazzo’s reaction to Liam wherever he went. But this time, it wasn’t just his name they were screaming, it was also mine.

“Amy! AMY!” They shoved cameras in my faces, and autograph pads, and I froze, tightening my grip on Liam’s arm.

He seemed unfazed by the whole scenario, and dipped his head down to my ear. “Is this ok? Do you want me to get you out of it?”

“Why I am I suddenly a celebrity?” I asked.

He smiled. “You’re my girlfriend. You were in Gatsby. You’re now hosting Sites. You go to this school. You were Beauty. Take your pick.”

“Aye-yi yi.” I plastered a fake smile on my face as Liam signed a few autographs and wrapped his arm around my waist and posed for a few photographs. “If this doesn’t piss Selene off, I don’t know what will,” I said.

“So smile,” he said, as he gently led me through the mob towards where the camera crew was set up.

“Amy, it’s nice to meet you.” A woman who I could only assume was Aphrodite stuck out her hand. “Are you ready? We pretty much do things in one take, go with the flow and all. You’ve seen the show?”

“Yep.” I shook her hand, sure that she could feel my sweaty palms. “And this, of course, is Liam.”

“Nice to meet you.” Aphrodite didn’t seem dazzled by him at all. “Shall we get started?”

“I guess.” I took the microphone that was handed to me and looked at the crowd that was being pushed back. “Will this work over the noise?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Aphrodite smiled. “Let me just give the cue to the camera crew and then we’ll be all ready to go.”

“Alright.” I stood on the mark she pointed out and stood in front of the camera, trying to hide my shaking hands. I was going to interview Liam first, which helped my nerves a little, but I was still terrified that I would make a mess of the whole thing.

“Alright, Amy, we’re ready.” Aphrodite smiled at me. “Camera is on, so whenever you are ready.”

I took a deep breath and then nodded, looking directly into the camera, as Liam had taught me. He was standing beside me, completely at ease, as if millions of people wouldn’t be watching.

“Hi, I’m Amy and welcome to another great episode of Sites! We’re here at Leopard Academy, the top acting school in the whole world. Leopard admits children from kindergarten all the way through to grad school, and they turn out some of the best actors in the world. With me now is the headmaster and former Hollywood star, Liam…”

I turned to Liam and everything fell into place. The interview went smoothly, and when they praised me on my style, I realized that this was no harder than leading Sarah through the school on her first day.

That was until we actually went into the Red Theater on camera.

“So, this is the Red Theater, probably one of my favorite theaters, as well as Liam’s, and I… oh!”

As the lights turned on, I was startled to find Sarah, sitting in the center of the stage, and practically sitting on Connor. Both of them scrambled to their feet as soon as the lights came on, but not without guilty looks on both their faces. I didn’t miss the glint of Connor’s wedding ring as he stood in the light.

“And we have two of our advanced students here…”

Chapter 8: Liam

I realized as Amy’s interview went on that this was a worse and worse idea. If Selene had any brains in her head, she would realize that I had several vampires enrolled in my school. She could see it on the episode. On top of that, I knew she would choose to play on our weaknesses, which at the moment, all had names. Nina, Connor and Isabelle and Sarah, all stood out as people she could attack and use as bait for the rest of us to fall into her trap. And so, the plan had to be revised.

“Make it public,” I said to Amy, as she paced in my office, waiting for the cast list to be posted for Phantom. “Every time you get an audition, we’ll pull strings to take one of the vampires alongside. I don’t want Selene to think that we are hiding anything.”

“But we are hiding something,” she protested.

“But I don’t want her to think that we are. So let’s put it all out in the open. The only thing that she can’t know about is Sarah. That’s our trump card.”

Amy bit her lip. “And what if Sarah’s not strong enough? Or worse, what if Isabelle finds out that she’s having an affair with her husband and slaughters her in the night?”

I winced. “I know Isabelle, and she won’t wait until night time to do that. In any case, Amy, they are both adults and so we have to let them make their own choices.”