Superficial (DE)

Forty-five.

"I am loving this," Yune said, grabbing a few strands of Cerise's hair as he circled behind her. "I'm so happy you let them do this color on you— this is your color,"

Cerise looked up into the vanity mirror smiling softly, trying not to move too much as a member of her glam team powdered parts of her face. "You think so?" She asked, looking back at her reflection still trying to decide if she liked this honey brown look or not.

It was spontaneous, super spontaneous. She hadn't even been in the building ten minutes before her hairstylist was practically begging to change her hair color for the shoot because he had a "vision". Cerise had never dyed her hair before, she'd never had anything done to it besides a blowout, her signature.

"Yes," Yune answered, replying to a message on his phone before looking back up at her in the mirror. "We have three looks and three hours to get them done— and quickly,"

"That doesn't seem like much time," Cerise said, disguising her nerves with a giggle.

This was her first real shoot, and as nervous as she was, it felt good to be distracted from the shit show going on in her life at the moment. She wasn't Cerise the criminal defense attorney anymore, not Michael Harvey's protégée but Harper's Bazaar's newest face. The one the modeling industry had been going crazy over.

"Simon is a busy man, we're lucky to get three hours of his time," Yune replied. "Though he should be lucky to be working with you," he winked before disappearing out of the dressing room.

Cerise let out a long drawn breath, grabbing her ginger tea off the vanity and pulling her feet up into her seat, taking a sip. Brandon brewed her a pot before leaving that morning, sending her on her way with a canteen and a container of cut up fruit as according to him, the ginger helped with nausea. It was the second cup she'd had that morning and so far it had been working.

She was nearing two months into her pregnancy but her stomach was still toned and flat like a washboard, thankfully, though she wondered how long it would be this way. Cerise worried how it would affect her contract with the agency, or if they'd give her leave, or possibly continue to work with her anyway.

Cerise was still struggling to find a connection with her pregnancy. Some days she was excited and her heart was warm, some days she felt terrible for bringing a life into such chaos and some days she was terrified she wouldn't be a good mom.

"This is the color I was most excited for," her hair stylist said, rolling a rack of bikinis into her dressing room and plucking the olive green one with gold accents off the rack. "This is going to look amazing with your hair and skin color."

Her heart felt as if it was going to beat a hole through her chest as she walked out onto set in a bathrobe, a shimmering pool in the backyard of mansion in the Hamptons. She didn't expect so many people to be present, all with different jobs all to cater to her for the next three hours. Cerise was confident in her looks and her shape, but the thought of un-robing in nothing but a skimpy bikini in front of so many strangers almost made her catatonic.

"Cerise darling, you look beautiful," Simon greeted, kissing both of her cheeks. "Now drop the robe and let's get started," he clapped.

After a few shots Cerise began to warm up, submerged in the cool blue water of the pool up to her thin waist, using the props set out for her shoot— an array of fruit on a beach towel. She picked up a piece of watermelon and took a bite for the camera, the juices dripping and rolling down her oiled breasts.

"And that's a wrap people," Yune clapped at the end of her three hours.

The three hours had gone by so fast she didn't want it to end, excited to get out of the pool and see the raw shots before edits. A member of the set crew helped her out of the pool and draped her robe around her shoulders as she headed back over to the tent where Simon was positioned behind his camera.