Chapter 29 Because you’re not spineless

Chapter 29 Because you’re not spineless
“Are you media trained?” It was one of the men who had been on the couch when I arrived. 
His name was Blake and he was the owner of the biggest PR agency in the city and apparently was paid by the hour, an information that Nicholas had drily provided when I’d told him that I’d a PR team already. 
Also, the other people in suit worked for him and no, they were not creeps, just his top employees who get a little too immersed in their jobs. 
“No.” I said.
“We’d have to fix that. But baby steps. At least today, all you have to handle is a press conference,” he said. 
Baby steps and Press conferences should not belong in one breath.
The press conference was a bomb that Nicholas had casually thrown at me after seeing me dressed in this vintage piece that weighed more than some iron dressers. He had murmured that I looked media ready, asked if I had any prior engagement by 2 and if I did, I should cancel them since I’d be having a press conference. 
If I manage not to end up making a big fool of myself in front of all the reporters that Silas, his assistant was currently discussing with, then I was going to have a serious chat with Nicholas.
The intent of the conversation would be to educate him on the importance of discussions.
You know the art where he actually told me about the press conference before he made me come to his office under false pretense of a casual conversation?
“Trust me, we are only going to let reporters that have been vetted into the room. We have done this before,” Elle, another PR agent, informed me pitifully. “It’d be great.”
I was sweating bullets, scared out of my mind while I braced myself to walk into a room full of reporters and somehow pull off answering their questions without hyperventilating. 
I was wondering for the umpteenth time today what I was thinking asking a mad man for help. 
So what if he was the only person to show me kindness in my last life, he was not the same man in this life!
As if my thoughts summoned him, he came into the room where I was seated trying not to look at the door and give in to my instinctive urge to bolt.
He nodded at Elle who had stayed behind to offer pep talk at intervals and she smiled kindly at me one last time before leaving.
Nicholas' hands were in his pocket as he walked towards me. “Your dress is the only one in the world. The earrings in your ear, those studs cost more than five million dollars, that dainty pendant, cost two times that. Shoes, don’t even ask.” He stopped in front of me. “Why do you think I put you in such an ensemble?”
I blinked at him. “Hope you’d not ask me to pay for any of these mindless extravagances?” I asked instead.
“You can’t afford it.” He simply said. Then took a seat beside me. “But you’d pay for it, not just in cash,”
I glanced at him. “What do you hope to get from helping me?”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit late to ask that?” He said with a cocked brow. “Don’t worry I’m not a philanthropist, I’d let you know what I want.”
“And if I can’t give it to you?”
“You will.” He said so confidently, I believed it too.
After a beat of silence, I asked. “Why did you make me wear this?” 
“I’ve two reasons.” He said. “Firstly, nobody wants to hear you bore them with how your relationship with your fiancé will not affect your job and how you both parted peacefully. Too boring. They prefer to paint you as this ruthless villain. It makes for better gossip, drama…” he paused to look at me. 
“So we’d make them focus on something else. You’d trend but for something else. The cost of Iris’ dress, shoes, earrings… some of the things you have on are custom made and those that are not, well they’d be sold out in minutes.”
He lifted his hand to touch a strand of my hair.
“Opal,” he murmured. “That’s what you’d become. Precious. You see, people like us get hated regardless of what we do… because what exactly did we do to deserve our last name, the wealth we are born into, the cars we drive? They love to hate us. So we’d take advantage of that and get them talking.”
I heard my breath hitch when he leaned into me. “Oh how they’d talk… but that’d also make them forget. They’d obsess and then they’d forget Collin. They’d stare at your picture and long to be you. They’d be jealous, envious, but also they’d love. Revere.” He stood up. “I’d undo Scarlett’s hard work the moment you step in front of those cameras, all I’m asking is that you dare to stand.”
He made for the door.
“What’s the second reason?” I asked.
He looked over his shoulder. “To remind you what you’re worth. Billions of dollars. And people like us? We don’t crack under pressure. We become gold. Press conference?” He scoffed. “You’d nail it.”
“I will?” He sounded so sure, so firm. I couldn’t help but believe it.
“Yes,” he smiled and my breath stuttered. “Because you’re not spineless.”