Fame, Lies and Vipers

Vivian I clutched my envelope tighter as I stared at the double glass doors, trying to ignore the chill crawling beneath my skin. Sleeping directly under the air conditioner all night probably hadn’t been my brightest decision. But none of that matters now. I was here. Imagine Studios… Four years of sacrificing everything for this degree because I couldn’t afford to fail now. One job. One chance. If I landed this position, I could finally stop worrying about how I was going to pay my mother’s hospital bills. The anxiety in my stomach only intensified the second I stepped in the building. Chatter, telephone conversations, the steady clacking of keyboards and the unmistakable stench of desperation in the air. With my head held high, I walked to the front desk. “Good morning,” The receptionist slowly dragged her gaze away from her computer, her blue eyes narrowing at me with open disinterest. My bravado waned for a second. “I have a meeting with the record label. Ten thirty.” Without a word, her gaze flicked to her watch, then back at me. “Do you have an appointment or are you just one of The Vipers crazy fans?” I gave her a plastered smile. “I have an interview with Mr Hale. I’d appreciate it if you checked your system for the details.” Her upper lip tipped up, but she turned her attention to her computer anyway. I strangled my envelope, the silence stretching way more than it should have. That obnoxious clacking sound didn’t help. Neither did the gum she was chewing loudly enough for me to hear every single smack. “Top floor.” She slid an access card across the counter. I reached for it. Then she looked at my jacket. “You might want to lose that before you go upstairs.” Then she muttered under her breath. “You look like a circus monkey.” I glanced down at myself. The black jacket I’d spent twenty minutes ironing that morning suddenly looked embarrassingly stiff. “Thanks,” I muttered. Her mouth twitched when I walked away. I made it to the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. As the doors closed, I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “You’ve got this,” I whispered. My reflection stared back at me. “You walk in. You smile. You answer their questions. You get the job.” Simple. Except my stomach felt like it was full of butterflies with a personal vendetta. I pulled the edge of my jacket straight and began rehearsing. “Hi. My name is Vivian West. I received your acceptance email regarding the role of manager for The Vipers and-” The doors dinged open, and before I could find some composure, a voice boomed through the hallway. “f**k you and your ten-year contract!” A man’s furious voice exploded through the hallway. I blinked. “What the-?” “And f**k this messed-up band!” A door slammed hard enough to shake the walls. My heart stopped. I knew that voice. Everyone knew that voice. Adrian Silvestre. Lead singer of the Vipers. The man whose face had been plastered across billboards, magazines, album covers, and posters for years. I couldn’t believe it. Then another voice followed. “Come on, Adrian!” Footsteps thundered down the hallway. “Mr. Silvestre, we both know you can’t just walk away from the band!” A second set of footsteps followed. “They’ll sue you! You’ll lose everything!” Panic crawled up my spine, washing away my earlier excitement. I should have stepped back into the elevator. I should have pressed the button and gone back downstairs. I should have done literally anything except stand there. Unfortunately, my feet had apparently decided to betray me. They stayed glued to the floor. And then he appeared. Adrian Silvestre. Up close. Not on a poster. Not behind a stage. Not through a television screen. Right in front of me. He was even more striking than I’d imagined. Golden strands of hair fell carelessly across his forehead, and his sharp jaw flexed as he glared at the man following him. His expensive black shirt was slightly rumpled, the sleeves pushed up his forearms. He looked nothing like the perfect celebrity smiling from magazine covers. He looked pissed. Really pissed. And somehow, that made him more attractive. Great. My brain had officially stopped functioning. “Adrian,” the man pleaded behind him. “You can’t make decisions like this because you’re angry.” Adrian let out a humorless laugh. “I’m not angry. I’m f*****g done.” Adrian continued down the hallway, his attention fixed on the manager. “You canceled the Paris tour without telling me.” “You weren’t in a position to-” “You don’t get to decide where I go.” “Adrian-” “You don’t get to decide what I do.” He stopped directly in front of the elevator. I realized, with growing horror, that I’d been standing there the entire time. His manager continued talking behind him. “Well, you should have thought about that before you signed a ten-year contract. You can’t just walk away from the Vipers because you had a disagreement with the label.” Adrian turned slightly. “And you should have thought about that before you accepted a tour in Paris tour without a single-” A sneeze ripped through me. Loud enough that Adrian slowly turned his head. His gaze landed on me. Oh God. Those eyes. They weren’t the soft green I’d seen in photographs. They were way colder. And right now, they were staring directly into mine. I tightened my grip around my envelope. Adrian’s eyebrows lifted. For one horrifying second, neither of us spoke. Then his lips curved into the faintest, most amused smile. “Well,” he said. His gaze dropped to the envelope in my hands before returning to my face. “Who the hell are you?”