She turned to Joel with a calm demeanor, not needing the look of panic mixed with a tinge of understanding he flashed her way. Still, he put out his hands to block the first scrunched-up paper that made its way from the crowd, skittering around the runway. Joel looked at Rina with concern in his eyes. When they had made plans for the revelation of the identity of the anonymous model, he hadn’t factored in the reaction of the crowd, even though he’d known Rina was a tad worried about it.
The next paper came, hitting Joel’s arm that he had put out protectively in front of Rina, but the third wasn’t that unlucky. It hit her square in the chest, and she took a step backward, propelled more by the situation than the sheet of paper.
“I didn’t think about this,” Joel muttered to her, as more items got tossed to the runway, from broken pens to books. When an egg got tossed in from nowhere, Zayn got up on his feet at once, his eyes roaming the crowd, searching for where that had come from. But it was hard to see through the rioting crowd, requesting for different things all at once.
“I’m so disappointed in O. S. N!” A person barked from the crowd, while others nodded in agreement. “My daughter had better make other plans of purchasing her prom dress because we are sure as hell not going back there!”
“And Rina Powers of all people,” someone else muttered, venom dripping from her tone. “That bitch who we all knew was sleeping around with young actors just to get them roles. Such filth.”
“Do you think she slept with Joel Osteen too to get her way into modeling?” A tiny voice asked from behind Zayn. He couldn’t help the irritation that washed through him on the spot, his hands folding into fists by his side. Zayn’s breath picked up its pace, and he flashed an angry look at the person who had spoken, mentally damning all consequences as long as he got back at him.
But suddenly, William appeared in front of him and touched his shoulders. In that split second, it was a great thing that his righthand man had appeared. Zayn wasn’t the person to react that way in public, but he hadn’t been able to control his actions for that second. All he’d wanted to do was to fight for Rina, to let the person who had spoken understand or not that Rina wasn’t that kind of person.
William nodded slightly, almost unnoticeable, meant only for Zayn’s eyes. He nodded too in acknowledgment and turned to Claire McGregor, blocking out the rest of the crowd as they shouted in protest as to the identity of the country’s sensation. They were disappointed that Rina Powers was the model they had all gone crazy about on the internet all the while, and it irked them. They threw all sorts of accusations against Joel and Rina, that they had connived to deceive the public, that Rina had slept her way into O. S. N fashion house.
“I have to leave now,” Zayn said to Claire. “I will call you as soon as I can.”
She opened her mouth to say something but decided against it almost immediately, and shook her head as if dispelling the thought. “I will communicate with your secretary,” she said, her accent coming to the fore. “I should be leaving the country later tonight, but you can always get in touch with me.”
“Of course.” Zayn took her hands in his, even though his mind was up there on the runway with Rina. “Thank you for coming along today. And I’m sorry about how this turned out.”
She nodded, but Zayn barely waited to see that as he dashed in the direction of the door, the crowd parting, despite their seeming preoccupation with Rina and her sudden revelation. He was perturbed about the incident and wondered how Rina would feel with all the backlash she was receiving. He was more bothered because she had voiced out the possibility of this happening, but he hadn’t given it as much thought as he should have.
“Get some of my men to bring Rina to safety,” he barked as he retrieved his phone from his pocket, sending a quick message to one of his men to get him another car. “And not one hair from her head should be out of place unless you want to have to answer to me.” Zayn meant every bit of those words.
“Where should I take her to?” William asked. There was the unsaid sentence, of how Rina wouldn’t agree to go over to his mansion because she would always insist on doing things without Zayn’s interference. And Zayn didn’t think he was going to be fine knowing fully well that the revelation of her identity hadn’t gone as planned, and he wasn’t with her.
“Her cottage,” Zayn replied curtly. “Use this car.”
William nodded at once, and ran with the rest of the men backstage, leaving Zayn standing with just one man in the parking lot. From the corner of his vision, he saw Kayla and Finn laughing about something. Zayn didn’t want to cause a scene that way so he took a few steps forward, leaving their sight. A limousine appeared a few seconds later, and his driver rushed out, running to get the passenger’s door open.
Too angry to give the driver any attention, Zayn got into the car, and grabbed a bottle of white wine, and a glass, corking it open and downing it all in one gulp. He settled into the seats, and took a deep breath, tugging at the scarf around his neck.
“Fuck!” He muttered to himself, willing his racing pulse to be calm. He took a deep breath, feeling his fury wash away, replaced by an eerie calm. Zayn hated that there was no one to blame for this, but the public. It was one of the few times he felt he wasn’t in control, and nothing about it was appealing.
“Sir?” The driver called, lowering the visor.
“Ms. Power’s cottage.”