CHAPTER 3

CELINE POV

“Waiter, another glass of champagne.”” I said, wearing back my sunglasses and stretching my long legs on the sand of the beach.

I was sunbathing in the exclusive Hotel -Victor in Miami, one of the finest resorts in California. The sun was blazing hot and I could see my skin had already become a shade darker. I made a mental note to change my sunscreen. I desire tanned skin —the reason for my sunbathing— but I was not going to allow my skin to be more tanned than this. It was, after all, still my ticket to Hollywood fame after everything. That would be a nightmare.

I belched because of the wine in my stomach. It was hardly ideal to drink in the afternoon, but when you have a lot of money, you make the rules. Or at least when you come with a guy who does.

“Enjoying the view sweetheart?” Jim asked. That’s the only name I knew him as and to be frank, I didn’t care enough to know more than that. Jim was one of my most recent and very generous ‘friends’.

I met him the first time I moved to my house in Miami and he came along with a mutual friend to the house warming party I had held. We met again when I was attending the birthday of one of Hollywood’s top actors. He was not very good-looking, but not ugly either. He was ordinary— slightly overweight, going a little bald, but not bald. The most important thing was that he was bloody rich. I was sexually attractive so things naturally fell in order. He gets what he wants and I get what I want. It was a fair trade. It is so obvious that people find it repulsive because they are jealous. I bet if people could command the attention I do, they would do it too. Unlike what most people believe, successful arrangements like this do not magically fall into place. It takes time, effort and a lot of hard work to craft an effective profile so that you attract the right kind of attention.

“Yes, baby. This has been the most wonderful vacation ever.” I gave him a quick kiss on his lips and he responded by giving me a deeper one of his own.

I had been with a lot of men in my years on earth, but none of them can ever compare to the one I had married - Luca. If I was willing to admit the truth, I would say that the memories of our lovemaking still gave me shivers, and sometimes, I imagine that he’s the one with me when I am with one of my admirers. It was the memory of him that is washing over me now.

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Luca and I met at a freshman welcoming party in college for theater students, which was my major because I wanted to be an actress. When I saw him for the first time he looked so out of place with his glasses which seemed too big for his face, his worn-out shirt, jeans and his suede shoes.

Who wears suede shoes to a party in this century? I had wondered.

Despite how uncultured his appearance was he still looked very handsome. I was surprised at my attraction to him because this was not the kind of guy I usually went after. As if he knew I was staring, he suddenly looked in my direction. We made eye contact and then I knew the attraction was mutual. There was electricity in the air and I could feel it coursing through my veins, in every part of my body. He stood up and walked across the room to meet me.

"Want more beer?" He had said with a smile tugging at his lips and eyes.

"One more glass and I will definitely not walk out of this place with my two legs.” I said. I staggered a bit to show how tipsy I was. He laughed, leaned in, and whispered into my ears in a voice that sent shoots of pleasure down my spines. "Then thank goodness I came here today. I would gladly be your knight."

I giggled and waved a finger at him. "I may be damn drunk, but I am no damsel in distress." I giggled again. "Yay. My alliteration is getting better."

"You sure bet." He flashed his grin at me. So you are also good with words too huh? Not just acting? Damn!"

"You bet." followed by another drunk giggle.

Luca made me laugh like no other guy ever did. I was surprised that he didn't make any attempt to invite me to his room for sex even though the sexual attraction etween us was so blatant. Instead, he had held me gently to his car so I would not stumble in my drunken state and drove me to my dormitory.

During our conversation on the drive, we discovered we had a whole lot of things in common. We loved the same authors. We liked the same kind of music. I found out that he was a computer science major and was only at the party because he lost a bet with his roommate. Like me, he was highly ambitious. In fact, he had planned to dominate the computer world when he graduated. This generation’s Steve Jobs, he had said.

He took me straight to my dorm room and besides a kiss on my hands, he didn't make any other romantic gesture. I was shocked. Any other college guy would have tried to grope my breasts or at least kiss me whether I was willing or not. When I invited him to spend the night, he told me that we had to know more about each other before allowing that level of intimacy between us. And most importantly, he was not going to have let me have sex with him for the first time when I was drunk. In his words, I was going to be fully present the first time he made love to me.

He was a year younger than me and although I swore never to date younger guys, it never mattered because he just seemed so right for me. He did not act like he was the younger one. He did all the right things and he knew all the right words to say. He was a perfect gentleman. We dated all through the remaining semesters of college. He was always working on the computer, trying to create new software, although I never did understand the process no matter the amount of times he tried explaining to me.

He would always say, “New things always shake the computer world through and through. It is our job to keep up.” Then he would watch with adoring eyes as I studied scripts in front of him, sometimes using him as the other character to practice with.

The first time we had our major quarrel was a few months after graduation. Luca was still working on his software with no major breakthrough in his small room that he shared with another guy while he did some menial jobs to get money for eating and to gradually pay off his student loans.

But I had already gotten my first job on a movie set. There were big name actors on the cast list, so this promised to be a movie that would rock the cinema world that year. The director had seen me rehearsing before I was to film a video ad for a brand. He must have taken note of my spectacular features and superb acting. He must have known I was a raw gold waiting to be polished because he had collected my contact card and called me the following day to make the offer to be in his movie that he was presently directing.

Of course, I had jumped in with both feet. I had nearly blacked out due to excitement.

With great colleagues, a super thrilling plot, and a fat budget, even though I was a side character, I was bound to become famous on my debut into Hollywood. No one who watched me on screen would be able to ignore the charisma that I had mastered from years of practice even before entering college.

I was already feeling intoxicated and overwhelmed by my prospective fame. The paparazzi, the fanbase, the spotlight. They came quickly and I reveled in them. I was not one of those newbies who were easily overwhelmed by fame. I knew what to do and say to the fans at the right time. It was what I had been waiting for all my life for.

But the paparazzi, the fanbase, the spotlight had quickly put a strain on my relationship with Luca. Did I feel guilty every time we never saw each other face to face because of it? Nah. I never saw myself at fault for anything when we clashed. What could a young computer geek who was always slaving away in his tiny room possibly know about fame anyway?

I was on top of my world. I was getting endorsement contracts from top brands worth hundreds of thousand dollars. I was being invited to exclusive parties hosted by the top one percent of the society nearly every weekend. So it was irritable to me hearing Luca whine continuously over lack of attention to him. No time paid to you? Damn it man, you are the love of my life but I would absolutely love it if you focus on your old computer with cracked skin and peeled keyboard pads and I would do the same to my blooming career.

In fact, I had broken up with him after a heated argument during a date. I was not going to allow a struggling young man to taint my reputation by publicly associating himself with me as my boyfriend. He had nothing to offer me. What if my fans didn't like him?

But had Luca seen reason? No!

He had kept on ranting how we were together before the fans and fame came into play. How in the heat of fame, I should never forget the girl that was not so conscious about the public perception of her and could get drunk in parties and giggle over mad wordplays. Jeez, trust Luca to be caught up in the cocoon of the past and not face the reality of the present.

So I had cut Luca off with no single ounce of remorse in me.

Life is what you make of it.

I already knew mine would be great so I was determined to not let anyone slow my race to all what I had ever dreamed of. Certainly not a guy with an old laptop always with high talks about changing the digital world.