Chapter 3

Jessy's POV

“Where is that asshole?” shouted someone in the back of the studio, being reprimanded at the same time. That place was chaos, a joke. I've never seen a more disorganized team. “Can anyone call Hazz? Why doesn't that stupid answer this cell phone shit?”

“He's late” shouted a female voice, followed by a chorus of boos. “I've already warned him that he should leave the house two hours in advance if he has so much capacity to be late. But does anyone listen to my opinion in this place?”

“Keep checking the sound, Amelia” cursed the first voice, and I moved my eyes to the man with headphones and black robes, who shouted orders and pointed everywhere. “I want to know why that guy hasn't been sent away to this day?”

“He is protected from Ruth” joked another man, messing with the big cameras that made the live broadcast. “She will only send that scam away when there is no longer a single soul that does not complain about his delays.”

The place looked like a pandemonium. Everyone seemed wilder and angrier than before. The silence that was offered to us for the transmission became extinct like dust swept under a carpet. I felt cornered, like a prey in the middle of a zoo.

Someone passed screaming on his cell phone, someone else bumped into a cable and fell, and someone cursed such a bad word that I laughed. Despite finding it funny, it was clear that the unpreparedness of those people was not only in a mere delay but because they did not offer enough opportunities for more qualified professionals to occupy the same position. It wasn't for nothing that they despaired.

In the end, the excuses they gave me for the photographer's delay were that he had had an accident that morning and that they were trying to communicate with his assistant. Even though I wanted to know about the physical state of the photographer oriJessyl, I was bothered by the way they treated the assistant. From all sides, the curses sounded, a Prague that wanted the man's dismissal, and derogatory murmurs.

My irritation was not with the delay itself, but with the fact that a station of that size was so unprepared. A cell phone with a good camera would be enough, and I even thought of suggesting the use of mine, but the expression of those who ask for patience on my advisor's face made me keep quiet and quiet.

I would have liked to say that I couldn't wait and that there were more interviews in my day - although it was a lie - just to end everything and go home. But I was an empathetic idiot and I didn't dare to say that for me that fucking interview would have already ended with the first stupid question.

Where have you ever seen a respectful interviewer wanting to know if the lingerie I pose for photos on Instagram is part of my arsenal to conquer men? No wonder I had responded to everything as much sour as I could, without looking as scrotum as I was already painted on television. The problem with my scouts was those idiots.

My advisor approached me when they brought me a glass of water and asked me to wait to sit down. I should have been lying down because my spine was already sore from the bodice of the short dress and the waiting.

While people walked around, complaining about the lack of commitment of their employees, my advisor and a makeup artist approached to keep me in order. While my advisor warned the makeup artist that I could not have contact with any product in my eyes, because they are too sensitive and swell easily, I allowed myself to sigh pure boredom.

It was a dream life. A perfect life. I didn't have to be in a hurry for anything. Even so, there were times like the one when all I wanted in the world was to be late for work and walk freely through the streets. Lately, I couldn't even go to restaurants, thanks to the paparazzi on duty.

When the makeup artist walked away, I passed one hand through the dress, feeling the thick and slightly transparent fabric in specific areas, in which a more reinforced and black seam made them draw long shapes and with arabesques around all the delicate fabric, made a tattoo. The dress had no straps but had sleeves, and it was a little uncomfortable in the armpits.

However, I always wore my brand's clothes, very proud to stretch my body to the fullest to the extremes. My thick thighs were only half covered, exposing straight knees and beautiful calves. I wore black heels, just like the dress, with lacy details on the heel.

Honestly, the camera for the photo wouldn't even have to be good. I was beautiful enough to look good even in a drawing made by the worst artists. A photo was nothing. I raised my chin while admiring myself in the reflection of the erased screen of my cell phone. My lips were covered with a generous layer of gloss and emitted small crackles as I pressed them or pouted them. I posed in front of my cell phone, pretending that I didn't even hear all the chaos inside that studio.

My advisor approached, growling like a dog that has just had its tail stepped on by a distracted human. I watched her from the corner of my eyes. Gabbie had goosebumps with black hair, whose curls on the tips were already beginning to fall apart. She wore strong makeup, which made her fine features even more foreign - although she was as Brazilian as I was. She approached with anger, but took a safe distance, knowing that I was just disguising my hatred for all that delay and mess.

Someone tripped near my feet, and I lowered my cell phone to see. The rush was so exaggerated that even my security guards approached the stage set up for the interview, keeping alert at the slightest sign of risk. I used to go out with only two of them. Breno and Luiz.

They were longtime friends, and they were even romantic interests at a certain point in my life when I wanted to be a 'Daughter of the President' and go out with a bodyguard. But as my life was perfect, but in nothing like a movie, things ended up going wrong before it started.

Luiz still watched me with a glow of desire but never implied that he still had plans to take me to his bed, or any other place that was not acceptable in a boss-and-employee relationship. He was my ideal type of man. Tall, with wide shoulders, and big hands.

I had this pattern so I didn't have to get annoyed by men who didn't know what to do with a woman my size. Luiz just gave me a kiss in my life, and it was the best almost-sex I've ever had. Just for this reason, I also corresponded to that glow of desire in the look, even without risking doing more than looking.

I can't be hypocritical to say that, despite my aversion to weddings and happy endings, I wouldn't have a long list of lovers or almost sex. Even though I was discreet about the subject, I was nothing Puritan when I found something that caught my attention enough. That's why I hired Luiz, for his beauty and for what I could earn in exchange for that job offer, but that's all. In the end, he just wanted the job, and I felt bad enough not to take advantage of it.

I've never had problems getting interested men. Not for my fame, for my beauty, or the money. I always thought that when you are a naughty person, you have a radar to identify who you are too. And I was very good at detecting people like that.

Even the most straightforward ones used to be the ones that gave me the most work between the four walls. I giggled low when I remembered an embarrassing situation during one of the best sexes I've had in my life, and Gabbie, thinking I was laughing at another desperate employee who ran in front of me, also laughed softly.

“But what a shitty interview, huh, Gabbie?” I complained, frowning my nose. “Could it be that you couldn't make me waste more time than in this job?”

My advisor gave me a guilty look. Gabbie was the best person in the world, but there were times when I wanted to ask if she liked me or just forced me because she involved me in every fucking invitation. That was the smallest of them.

There was a time when she sent me to a party, where I should do a little publicity, and in the end, I spent the rest of the night dodging the sponsors who mistook me for mere models. Sometimes I wondered if she forgot that I could buy half of our country's brands, and I would still have a good chance of it.

“Oh, Jessy, forgive me,” she said, joining her hands in supplication, and making her bracelets tink with the gesture. “They looked so professional on the phone. I swear that if I knew I was going that way, I wouldn't even have confirmed it. They don't have an ounce of commitment. What about those questions? For God's sake! I thought you wouldn't even answer and then you would tear this chair off the floor and knead the interviewer's head.”

“I felt like it” I confessed, crossing my legs gracefully. “But I felt sorry for the other journalist. She seems to be subordinate to him, she was terrified of my reaction and the way he behaved. I even think she may have some problems with having ended the interview without his endorsement. Can you find out if he's something other than an interviewer?”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, half closing her eyes. I gave a naughty smile, moving my hair away from my eyes. They were heavier than usual that morning, since I had lost long minutes while their tips were heated and curled, and now they stuck to my eyelashes from time to time. “Oh, Jessy, please don't get into trouble. I already double work to rid your name of any complicated subject, don't make everything worse with layoffs from a station that you don't even own.”

“Ask the price and buy” I spoke in a tone of order, but I used my gentlest voice not to throw my irritation on Gabbie's shoulders. She was a sweetheart and had been with me for years. As she just blinked, confused, I explained: “I want this station for myself. Ask for the price and buy it. And send that idiot away, or any idiot who has asked those questions. I don't care. Or rather, tell Joana the price, as a member of my legal team she will know what to do.”

There was a reason for everyone to find me scrotum and impolite. I wanted to, I would take it and buy it. My motto was never to stop having something that could add to me in the future. And this applied both to things and to men.

“I will still need compensation when I quit this job” grumbled Gabbie, in a dramatic and melancholic tone. I laughed. “We'll go home as soon as the photos are taken, right, Jessy?”

“Well,” I replied, gesturing with my shoulders.