Chapter 4: Burying Maria Blake
1561 Words
Maria Blake POV
The baby opened her eyes and Maria had to look away.
She looked back.
They were Raff’s eyes, sitting on a beautiful face the size of a fist.
She pressed her lips together.
“Hello,” she said.
She named her Lumi.
Lumi’s fingers found her thumb, in that moment everything seemed worth it.
————————————————————
Paris in the winter was a postcard—unless you were broke, and battling postpartum depression.
Their new apartment had walls that seemed to have pores, as they sweated when it rained and the radiator was as unpredictable as the weather, which made it practically useless half the time.
Her bed had a dip in the middle that made resting a struggle to find the best part of the mattress.
She looked at the four walls of the life she’d chosen, then she looked at Lumi.
There was no way out but through.
She rotated jobs for weeks. Waiter shifts, reception work, valet, whatever the city could offer.
She was eating soup at a corner table one day when a familiar voice filled the room.
She looked up without meaning to. There he was, Rafferty Cole, laughing at something the interviewer had said.
The café was playing something about his press tour.
She paid for her soup and left.
Lumi started walking at eleven months, which the internet said was early but the timing was perfect. She just got a new job that demanded as much as it paid.
It was a high-end events job that came through a regular who left a card one day. Maria called the number the next day. By the third day she was hired.
Even as her first paycheck sat in her account she still couldn’t believe it was real.
She arranged childcare for the first time. A young woman trying to make ends meet, she could relate.
By the third week she realized why the job had felt like a dream.
Girls who arrived chirpy left with a lot less enthusiasm.
She told herself she was new, convinced she didn’t know how these circles worked.
She ignored it till one day a girl asked her a question in the corridor between the kitchen and the main room that would haunt her.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Maria said.
She glanced toward the main room. Then back. She must’ve been nineteen at most.
“If something happened to me in there,” she said quietly. “Would you remember my name?”
Maria looked at her, confused. The fear in the girl's eyes was undeniable.
“Why do you think something would happen?” Maria asked.
“Sophie. I’m Sophie”
Then she walked into the room.
Three days later Maria asked about her.
A colleague shrugged. Another didn’t seem to hear. A third developed a sudden interest in the tablecloth.
Sophie wasn’t there.
Then one day she took a wrong turn to the emergency exit instead of the kitchen.
And there Sophie was, being supported by two men in suits. She wasn’t moving right. Her feet were working but only just.
Two other men stood watching, an envelope changed hands, then one of the men looked up, suddenly conscious of her.
He walked over.
“The people here,” he said, “survive by minding their business.”
“Of course,” Maria said. “Wrong door. Sorry.”
She smiled back.
The corridor or the city, it was hard to tell which she left faster.
Within forty-eight hours she was in a new apartment. New daycare for Lumi.
She sat on the floor the first night with Lumi asleep beside her and thought about Sophie.
About the way everyone had kept moving like nothing happened. Then she thought about Bex Ashford in a bathroom in Los Angeles, and for the first time in a long time, about Rafferty Cole.
The father of her child. Now Hollywood’s most admired bachelor.
The world worked for certain people differently than others.
Then she opened her laptop.
She bookmarked several articles about luxury brand strategy.
Then she searched for a certification on image management and media psychology. She signed up for a course.
She then ordered two things. Green contact lenses and blonde hair dye. It was time to bury Maria Blake.
The name came to her immediately after she dyed her hair.
Vivienne Le Clair. She said it out loud to herself in the mirror over and over again like a spell.
The heels came a week later — six inches.
Even though her feet were screaming within twenty seconds, she wore them every evening in the apartment anyway, walking circles on the hardwood until the blisters stopped forming.
“Mama fall,” Lumi said, the one time she did.
“Mama is fine,” Maria said from the floor.
She got up and kept walking.
The contacts irritated her eyes for the first month. The squats left her legs dead for days.
It hurt. She kept doing it anyway.
She walked circles in heels with Lumi on her hip and marketing case studies in her earbuds.
The next fourteen months became a blur of caffeine, screen glare, and exhaustion.
Vivienne learned to live on four hours of sleep. Precious hours she only got while Lumi slept.
Vivienne dissected luxury brand strategies until her eyes blurred. She studied the media psychology of celebrity scandals, and tracked how easily the public could be manipulated by a curated narrative.
If the world only moves for powerful people, she had to become one herself.
———————————————————-
Fourteen months later, the branding agency she was working as a freelancer for was pitching for a massive capital injection from the Marchand Family Empire. A popular founding family in France.
It was supposed to be a one time commission based job but she couldn’t help but imagine what it’ll be like to work there. Anyone in her field would kill for such an upgrade.
Théo Marchand sat across from her in a meeting room. He was young but looked like old money.
He sighed, closing his gold pen with a dismissive click. “This pitch is boring, and frankly, it looks like a money grab. No one cares about celebrities that much, this was a waste of time. We’re done here.”
The room went dead silent. Even her boss was speechless.
“It’s because you’re looking at the wrong demographic, Monsieur Marchand.”
Vivienne spoke up from the back row.
Every head in the room snapped toward her. Her boss shot her a look that promised immediate firing.
As a freelancer, Vivienne was only supposed to sit in the back row and take notes.
Théo paused. “And you are?”
“Vivienne Le Clair. Consultant,” she said, standing up. “You’re bored because they are pitching you talent. Audiences don’t buy talent anymore; they buy drama and parasocial obsessions.”
Théo’s eyebrows arched. “Go on.”
“Your family wants to break into the entertainment sector, but you’re investing in actors and influencers who rely on traditional PR,” Vivienne said, stopping right across from him.
She leaned against the table.
“You should be controlling the narrative, orchestrating controlled controversies that make them relatable, then deploy premium brand partnerships to monetize the redemption arcs.”
The room was suffocatingly quiet. Her boss now looked like the steam building in her had inflated her head. She ignored her.
“It’s either that or miss out on major opportunities by playing old school Hollywood.”
Théo stared at her. She held his gaze confidently.
“You’re underemployed, Mademoiselle Le Clair,” he said, his voice dropping an octave.
“I’m still building my—”
“No, I meant to say you are underutilized,” Théo interrupted. “These idiots are trying to sell me sand, you just pitched the whole island.”
He stood up to meet her height.
“How would you like to work for the Marchand Family? Full-time. Reporting directly to me.”
Vivienne kept her heart rate perfectly steady, though her veins were on fire. She didn’t smile. She just held his gaze.
“And what would that look like, Monsieur Marchand?”
Théo picked up his coat. “With a mind like yours, Vivienne? Whatever you want it to look like.”
She didn’t say yes immediately and he didn’t push either.
He met Lumi the following week after she started the job, a few months later their relationship had evolved naturally beyond professionalism.
Théo now sat on the floor of the apartment in his expensive suit and let Lumi explain her drawings, uninterrupted for minutes,
He listened to all of it.
Vivienne stood in the kitchen doorway and watched and thought: okay. Maybe.
He gave her the career and the stability when she needed it the most.
She gave him her loyalty and her presence.
When he proposed after a year she said yes. It wasn’t dishonest, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.
Maria Blake would have wondered if she was making the right choice.
Vivienne Le Clair always chose power.
- Writer
