Lovegame(6)

Oh, and f*ck. Cole would totally love it if I got caught f*cking in public. It would play right into the reputation he’s worked so hard to build for me. The reputation the public so loves to pull out and oh-so-carefully examine.

When I can finally breathe normally again, I open my eyes. Stand up straight. And find myself once again staring straight into the ice-cold eyes of the Belladonna.

This time, I don’t panic. Instead, I slip my feet into the five-inch designer heels that are standing at attention a few inches from my chair. Heels that not-Juliet had brought in to me a little while ago, claiming the stylist wanted me to wear them with the red 1950s Chanel suit he currently has me in.

As I do, I try not to notice how they’re half a size too small. Or how they pinch my toes and rub painfully against my heels.

It’s just for a little while, I remind myself. I can wear the shoes, wear the suit, keep the smile on for that long.

And still, even with the pain shooting through me, I take small, mincing steps toward the mirror. Once I’m in front of it, I study my reflection from every angle. Turning to the right, the left, even facing away from the mirror and then glancing back over my shoulder. I study this version of Veronica Romero, this version of me. No, not me. The Belladonna.

Sergio, the stylist, has done such a good job preparing me for this Vanity Fair vintage shoot that even I can’t tell where I leave off and she begins.

The panic starts to come back, but this time I’m ready for it and I tamp it down. Ruthlessly.

Then I reach out to the mirror, to the woman who is and isn’t me. I trace the elaborate pinned-up curls. The red, red lips. The double strand of pearls.

And wonder how beauty can be so cold. And evil so perfect.

It’s the role of a lifetime. No one can argue with that—certainly not me, considering I would have done anything to land this role. Would have, I think, even sold my soul for the chance to play the woman whose name over the last decade had become synonymous with revenge, a woman scorned, a high-profile murder.

It seems crazy to look back on it now, four months after filming has wrapped. Crazy to think about how badly I had wanted the Belladonna, from the moment I heard they were making a movie from Ian’s first book.

I sent Cole to Universal before the ink was even dry on the contracts—before there was a screenplay or a director or even a guaranteed green light for the project. Read Ian’s book cover to cover at least a dozen times. Scoured the Internet for everything I could find about the Belladonna. About her husband and his mistress. About who she was and what she’d (allegedly) done.

That’s how much I’d wanted it.

It really was too bad that before it was all over, I’d come to hate the role more than I’d ever wanted it. To fear it—to fear her—even more.

My whole career, I’ve immersed myself in the characters I portray. I burrow under their skin, play around inside of them, try to figure out what makes them tick so I can understand them. So that I can become them.

FBI agent.

Ingénue.

Superhero.

Car thief.

Princess.

Corrupt politician.

Whore.

I’ve been them all.

How could I have known that this was the role that would burrow back? The one that would get under my skin, that would play around inside of me and leave me with nothing but nightmares and cold sweats and a feeling of dirtiness I couldn’t wash off for weeks. Months.

When we’d wrapped filming, when I’d taken off the last gorgeous 1950s-era costume and pulled out the last of the pinned-up curls, I’d sworn that that was it. Sworn that I would never be her again.

And yet, here I am. All dressed up with nowhere to go but crazy.

Another knock sounds at the door and this time not-Juliet calls, “Is everything okay, Ms. Romero? Can I get you something?”

How about an evacuation plan?

The question is on the tip of my tongue, but I bite it back like I do so many other things. Funny, isn’t it, how being famous takes away your voice instead of giving you one? How it makes you mute just as it gives you a gigantic platform to scream from…

“Actually, I am just about ready,” I say, striding to the door with shoulders squared and my best smile. As I open it and see not-Juliet’s face, her name suddenly comes back to me. Thank God.

“Thanks so much for all your help today, Jules,” I tell her, pulling her in for a quick one-armed hug. “And I’m sorry about the name confusion earlier. This diet I’m on has me off coffee and I swear the no-caffeine thing has addled my brain.”

“Oh, no problem at all, Ms. Romero.” But she’s grinning hugely, a sure sign that my apology makes her feel a little less erased. I’m glad, because this town does enough of that for the both of us. “I can’t imagine going without my daily espresso.”

“That’s because you’re gorgeous and you don’t have to. For the rest of us mere mortals—” I give an exaggerated shudder. “It’s terrible.”

She’s laughing full-out now. “Somehow, I think you manage all right, Ms. Romero.”

“Call me Veronica. Please.” I give her another quick hug, then turn toward the front parlor, where the photographer, Marc Benneton, has his cameras set up.

Originally, Vanity Fair had wanted Annie Leibovitz for this shoot, but I’d talked them out of it. Annie’s shot me twice before and while the images were astonishing in their lush beauty, I wanted something different—something grittier—for this photo shoot. Something that would contrast with the Belladonna’s beautifully coiffed perfection. Thankfully, the editors had agreed with my vision.