Three Years Wasted, So I Reclaim Everything

Chapter 3

A farce on set finally convinced me to end my experiment early.

My roommate sent me a link to Violet's private Twitter account. She had posted an unopened Hermès Birkin bag:

He said making movies requires a reliable producer, so he decided to reward me first. Such a beautiful bag. Thank you, darling.

Only a few days earlier, Julian had complained that postproduction was out of money and the crew could barely afford meals. He had asked me to transfer next month's rent as an emergency loan.

The bag itself didn't break my heart. It proved that the premise of my experiment was wrong.

Before I could process it, an uproar swept through the set.

A prominent gossip account had posted candid photos of me hauling sandbags, shaking hot oil from my hand, and standing awkwardly in the hotel lobby.

The caption screamed: Gold digger Alyssa exposed on set. She works like a servant to cling to Mr. Clement. Dressed like a pauper and still dreaming of marrying up. Shameless.

That post exposed the truth about Julian Clement.

He wasn't a penniless filmmaker waiting to be discovered. He was the newly acknowledged illegitimate son of the Clement family patriarch.

The Clement family didn't support failures. Its patriarch had set Julian a ruthless test: conceal his identity and produce an acclaimed independent film with no family resources. Only then could he enter the family business.

His impoverished artist persona had never been about art. It was a performance for the family's evaluation.

I, the desperate and destitute production assistant, was the perfect prop for proving that he truly had no money and urgently needed funding.

He needed my humiliation to make his anti-capital act convincing. He needed my obsessive devotion to hide the gaps in the accounts he kept secret.

Every hardship I endured had helped him climb.

A cup of iced Americano struck my chest. Brown liquid stained my only clean white T-shirt, and ice cubes bruised my collarbone. Sticky coffee soaked through the fabric and stung my skin.

Violet stood a few paces away holding the empty cup.

"Oops. My hand slipped. You don't blame me, do you, little assistant? You were in my way."

The crew erupted in laughter. No one offered me a napkin. They looked at me like a stray dog.

Julian approached from behind the monitor. I thought he might finally end the spectacle.

He only rubbed his brow in irritation.

"Alyssa, can you stop causing trouble on my set? Violet is the lead actress our investor chose. You can't afford to offend her. Clean yourself up and stop delaying production."

I stared at him as the cold coffee seeped through my shirt. The last of my patience vanished.