One would have expected the devious chuckle to have come from Kayla’s lips, basking in the newfound power she had so rudely ripped off another. But the roles seemed to have been reversed as the chuckle escaped Rina’s lips. She shook her head at the sight of her former best friend, and for the first time since the drama started, felt pity alongside her fury. Pity for Kayla that she would never know how loving someone genuinely felt, as well as getting to the top without being shady.
It didn’t matter to Rina that Kayla belonged to one of the most powerful families in the country. That made her, more than ever, want to show Kayla that no matter how hard she was pushed, she would only push right back. Now, Rina was obsessed with success and she was going to stop at nothing to attain it.
The expression on Rina’s face made Kayla pause suddenly, her smile faltering remarkably. Kayla looked for the next opportunity to sink her fangs in, and the instant she realized Albert was seated behind them, the cocky smile returned.
“Were you asking for a job again?” Kayla leaned in closer, whispering to Rina. “When are you ever going to learn to give up? Your place is down, Rina Powers. Stay there.”
“I have a feeling that if I stay down, you would still feel I’m a threat,” Rina whispered right back. She had prepared herself mentally for this. “And do you know why that is? You’ve always had this sense of uncertainty about your person. You would always feel that I’m a threat to you, up or down.”
Kayla’s hands wrapped into fists by her side, but Rina was unfazed. “So a word of advice. Rather than exhaust all your energy on someone who will just bounce right back untouched, why don’t you do something else with it?”
“Like fucking your husband, right”
Rina blinked and her smile shook. She didn’t want Kayla to know how much she’d been affected by that, but it was hardly possible. Finn was the person she had spent a good number of years with, absolutely in love and wanting no one else. She’d given up on her career for him, never wanting to do anything that would make him feel less.
Kayla saw her punch left a gaping hole. She was thrilled that she now had the upper power in this conversation. “You didn’t know, did you?” She continued, taunting Rina further. “He needed comforting after all the ugly things you did to him and guess who was there at the right time?”
“You’re lying,” Rina shook her head, clueless as to why she still defended Finn. “He wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Do you need some proof?” Kayla was goading her, needing her to do something overly dramatic to pull the attention of everyone in the hall.
But Rina was fast to catch on. “Finn is my ex-husband,” she muttered, seething internally. “It’s none of my business what he does with you or anyone else. You both are out of my life. Stay there.”
Rina made to walk around Kayla, suddenly feeling really exhausted and needing to be out of there before things became any worse. But Kayla was far from done.
“Running away?” She called after Rina. “Are you sure that’s the right thing to do seeing as you are yet to get what you want from Albert?” Kayla turned to him. “She tried to seduce you, right? It’s what she always does. I’d tried to tell her that things don’t work that way but Rina has always been so stuck in her head that she feels the way out of anything is through seduction.”
Kayla said that a little too loud, and suddenly, the hall was flooding with interested gazes and sneers. Kayla had gotten what she wanted.
Attention.
“I didn’t seduce him or anyone else!” Rina tried to fight back as hard as she could. She couldn’t allow this to happen again when she was yet to recover from the last onslaught.
“Albert here has a totally different opinion,” Kayla drawled, as the whispers erupted in the hall, carrying over like buzzing bees to the stage, forcing Rina to listen to the words she had heard before, all over again.
“She’s such a sly fox!”
“I wonder why I was so obsessed with her appearing on my screen all those years.”
“Kayla must have gone through a lot being her friend. I would have disappeared at the first sight of her foul habit.”
“She had the guts to show up here and then go ahead to seduce a panelist. She’ll never learn.”
Rina wished she could disappear on the spot.
Albert roused from his seat, the first action he’d taken since Kayla got there. He motioned his men over to get the documents as well, then sauntered over to the ladies.
“As much as I’d love to watch this exchange, I have a life to get to,” he said. “And think about what I said, Rina. You obviously do not have a future here in the entertainment industry. Try something else with that pretty face of yours. And Kayla, don’t linger for too long if you don’t want to get affected by her drama.”
“But she was my best friend,” Kayla protested, her demeanor suddenly taking a 360, her tone light and laced with worry. “I can’t just leave her like that.”
“You have such a good soul.” Albert touched her shoulders lightly as he headed out of the stage. “I just wish you had been able to influence her before it all became this intense.”
“Me too,” Kayla whispered her wicked smile back on her face the instant Albert turned his back on them. “See? I’m the good friend, whereas you’re the inconsiderate bitch who sleeps around the industry without control. And the narrative would forever be that way.”
From one end of the hall, Zayn watched the exchange with fury washing through him. He saw Rina stagger on the stage, suddenly weakened by everything. Without thinking, he shot a foot forward.