The Girl behind the Throne (Editing)

Chapter 6

I tugged on my dress; making sure that my outfit was perfect even going as far as to check my reflection in the glass door of the penthouse lift, the sounds of Sloane's merry making party travelling through the lift shaft.

I had found a loophole in the 'I can't believe you wore that' theme, and come as Posh Spice from the Spice Girls. While hardly a huge fashion faux-pa, I had backcombed my long dark hair, and turned up the ends so that it looked like a long bob. I wore a shiny metallic boob-tube mini dress, which I had created by cutting the straps off an old dress and wrapping it with a shiny golden over laying material. My make up was classic early 2000's, which translated to being kind of awful.

As the lift opened, the penthouse was on full display, there were people dressed up as flappers, as famous film characters, I had spotted at least four dumb and dumbers', and a couple of spice girls.

Sloane was in the middle of a crowd, as per usual, dressed in the infamous Jennifer Lopez sea green dress which opened in a deep, deep v until it tied, just below her belly button. She shrieked with glee when she saw me, leaving her adoring crowd to come and throw her arms around my shoulders.

'I always knew you were Posh darling.' She said, her husky voice carrying over the sounds of the booming music.

'Sloane, you look amazing.' I replied, now that she was closer, I could see that if the dress wasn't the exact dress that J-Lo had worn, that Sloane had paid a dressmaker to recreate it down to a tee. I hoped it was the former, the last thing I needed as a designer, was to get my favourite advertisement, the beautiful and vivacious, Sloane Parker to wear someone else's clothes.

'Not as good as you.' She replied assuredly, and my confidence grew, Sloane was so brilliantly reassuring that one's confidence grew tenfold in her company. She handed me a drink, taken from a tray that shiftless men were handing out, and I took a quick slug. The burn running down my throat, into my stomach nearly choked me, and I coughed like mad for at least two minutes straight, while Sloane patted my back in disrupted pattern.

I saw a familiar arrogant face through the crowd, and I swung my head up quickly to look at Sloane, who was tracking the same person through the swarm of people.

'Is Liam here?' I asked; my voice breaking and squeaking thanks to that terrible drink, Sloane had given me.

Sloane took another deep slug out of her cup and looked down at me, her expression fluctuating between extreme pity and amusement.

'Wait until you see what Celia dressed up as.' Sloane promised, and pointed into the crowd of people dancing in the middle of her huge living room, in front of where the DJ was set up.

I looked through the crowd, noting Liam, dressed up in a black shirt opened to the waist, with a heavy cross hanging on his chest. He has close clipped his light brown hair and was dancing with Celia, who appeared to be dressed as Posh Spice too.

I let out an indignant yelp. How dare they, Liam knew that Posh Spice was my ultimate celebrity wannabe from childhood. I narrowed my eyes, taking in Celia's outfit in greater detail. Her dress, dark wig and high, strappy heels all looked expensive, even in the dark flashing light of the party, but the look as a whole didn't work.

'You look much, much better girl.' Sloane assured, as if she had been reading my mind, even going so far as to stop a random party goer and shout, 'Which Posh is better?' and pointing between Celia and I. My confidence grew again when the party goer pointed at me with a definitive thumb up, before wandering off through the crowd.

Sloane yelled something at me, but I couldn't hear her, and she tried again. With another shake of my head, she grabbed my hand and towed me out of the huge living room and into the large kitchen which was filled with people talking and kissing, but which was markedly quieter.