White Diamonds / l.h ✔️

4

~Hera's POV~

To my surprise, many people seemed to be reacting rather positively to Luke and I's "relationship."

By the next morning, there were already several articles that were reporting on our revealed love. I'd gotten many comments on my picture of Luke, both from my followers and Luke's, about how they were happy for us. Of course, though, I'd also gotten many comments and messages from people who were definitely not happy about us "dating." I'd never seen so many people send hate just because someone was dating a person that they looked up to or simply thought was attractive. Luke had also posted a photo of me and tagged me in it, his comments a thousand times nicer than mine were.

I rubbed my eyes as I laid in bed, looking through my comments still and replying to people. The nice people, anyways. People who left hate just got their comments deleted. I wasn't going to feed into their negativity and, to me, the best option was always to delete it. I'd been laying here for maybe three hours now, just looking through my comments on the post and replying to comments, deleting comments as well.

Suddenly, though, the pop up of a call coming through stopped me from what I was doing and I frowned. Ember was calling me, no surprise there. I had expected for her to call me, wanting to talk to me about how things had gone yesterday. That was what she did after every interview, dinner, meeting, or anything else it was that I had to attend. And to Ember, this was simply another one of those things. But it wasn't to me. Although this wasn't something I wanted, I still knew it was a thing that seemed to be necessary. This was an important thing that I had to do correctly to pull off.

A deep sigh left me as I answered the phone, running a hand through my dark brown hair as I sat up. "Hello, Em." I greeted into the phone, leaning back against my headboard. "Hello, Hera." She greeted back quickly, the tone of her voice easily telling me that she wasn't calling me just so we could chit chat. "Now, how did you two do? How did you get along?" She asked immediately, wanting to know everything. I leaned my head back against the tufted headboard and sighed. "It was fine, Ember. I don't know what you're expecting me to tell you. It was just lunch." I sighed, rolling my eyes slightly.

Ember huffed through the phone. "Well, I know it went fine. Everyone's talking about you two. But I wanted to know the details. I need to know how you two get along, if there's anything that's wrong." She elaborated, causing me to hum in thought.

Obviously I could've told her about how uncomfortable it was or about how he had been very short with me, but I didn't want her to think that either one of those things were a problem of some sort because, to me, they really weren't. It was probably just like that because he and I didn't really know each other yet. Those things would probably go away within time. I didn't want her to think there was anything wrong, so I decided to just keep quiet about that.

"No," I said after a second. "Nothing wrong." I assured, biting my lip. "He and I got along...fine." I shrugged, peering down at my blankets as I softly played with the edges of them. "Just...fine?" Ember echoed, sounding a little bit suspicious, like that was a problem. "Well, it was sort of weird to go on a date with someone I've never even met before, but that's it. There was just some awkwardness." I explained, biting my lip.

She chuckled into the phone. "Oh, okay." She sighed, relieved that that was all I had to report back. "Honestly, Hera, that's probably just coming from you. I've met Luke before and, although he's a little bit reserved and whatnot, he is very professional. I doubt he was the one feeling awkward. You're lucky you got someone who's used to having fake relationships or you'd probably be screwed." She said, causing me to pout. However, I didn't disagree because I knew she was probably right. Although I liked talking to people, there were times when my social skills still failed me, and it seemed like Luke was definitely one person that they failed around.

"And speaking of Luke," She spoke suddenly, causing me to lean my head back against the headboard even more. "You and him have another date Saturday night. Do you have his phone number?" She asked. I paused, realizing that I did not. "No. I forgot to get it." I sighed, but she just dismissed it. "That's okay. You can get it on your date. He'll be at your house at seven PM." She said, and I lightly hummed in acknowledgement.

"But anyways," Ember started, switching the topic away from my date with Luke the day before. "You have another bikini shoot on Friday, okay? You need to be there at two PM, I'll text you the address. If you want, you can show up in your own makeup or you can go without any and they'll do it for you." She briefed me, talking in her manager voice, I liked to call it. She always put on this mature, stern voice when she was talking about serious business. "Got it." I responded simply, peering at myself in the mirror across from my bed, atop my dresser. "The photo shoot you did last month is being released tomorrow, too. Just so you know. You can post pics of it. I'll send them to you." She added, and I again hummed in acknowledgment. "That'd be great, Em. Thanks." I said softly, a small smile on my face.

"I think that's everything that I needed to tell you, though. You're free to spend the rest of your day as you like." She said, letting out a giggle. "Even if that means laying in bed like the lazy bum you are." She teased.

I couldn't help but to smile, rolling my eyes. "That sounds like a good way to spend the day to me."

**

When I woke on Friday morning, I remembered that I had a dumb photo shoot that I had to do, specifically the bikini one.

I got out of bed and quickly headed into my bathroom, taking my shower before I got out and dried off. When my body was dry and I was ready, I hung my towel and headed out of the bathroom and to my vanity, beginning to do my makeup. I knew Ember said that I could just go there without makeup on, but I was fine with doing my makeup before I went there. That was what I did for every photo shoot and if they ended up adding more or taking it off, that was fine. But I rarely had them mess with my makeup if I went in with it already done, so I tried to always go in with it done up. The only time I wouldn't was if the photo shoot was focusing on my face specifically and not my body.

Like I usually did, I applied thin yet sharp eyeliner on my lids and swiped mascara on my already long lashes after I had my base done. My cheeks were lightly coated with blush, highlight on the tip of my nose. I had my brows done to perfection and then put on a pinky nude lipstick before I was finished.

Next, I put on a pair of underwear and decided to go braless, entering my closet to get dressed. I ended up pulling on a pair of black spandex shorts under the long, black blazer coat I had on, my cleavage visible. Then, I grabbed a pair of fishnet tights that had sparkly rhinestones on them, slipping my feet into a pair of black heels. Now that I was dressed, I brushed my hair out and decided to just leave it as it was, just in case the photographer wanted to style it. When I was fully ready, I left my house and started the drive to the address that Ember messaged me yesterday, which was only about twenty minutes away by car.

When I arrived, I was immediately ushered in to get changed into a cute light pink bikini and then they sat me in a chair to curl my hair. I sat there patiently while the woman behind me curled my hair, brushing it out afterwards to loosen them up a little.

After about twenty minutes, they were ushering me onto the set that they had, which was set up to look like I was on a beach. Surprisingly, the shoot was only about an hour long, but I got to take home the bikinis that I wore, which was cool, I suppose. When the shoot was finally over, I left the building and got into my car, dressed in the clothes I'd arrived in. Instead of driving home, I drove to the cafe that Sydney and I had agreed to meet at yesterday, walking in. I immediately attracted gazed in my outfit, but when they caught my gaze, they'd look away. People always did that to me now.

Spotting Sydney, I went over and joined her at her table, giving her a smile as I sat. She beamed and smacked her hand on the table. "You didn't tell me you were dating Luke hemmings!" She giggled, causing me to blink in surprise. I hadn't expected that from her. "Um," I mumbled, staring at her. I'd considered telling her the truth, but I decided against it. Ember forbid me and Luke from doing that. In this one case, I agreed with her. "Yeah. We've just been seeing how it goes, so it was on the down-low for a while."

Sydney giggled. "Tell me how he is in bed." She whispered, causing me to choke on my breath, surprised. "Syd!" I blushed.

Her laugh rang through the air in response, making it clear she was joking. It was a good thing, too. I couldn't tell her how he was if I had no idea.