The Making of Mia

by Ilana Fox

  As Mia rounded up the meeting and her editorial team filed out of the room, her eyes caught Joshua’s. She blushed.

  ‘Great meeting,’ Joshua said, and as he walked past Mia to leave he lightly brushed past her breasts. Mia blushed even harder, and Joshua laughed softly to himself. He wouldn’t have to wait much longer, he thought to himself. Mia Blackwood was very nearly his.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ Lucy asked, waving a newspaper at Mia as she rushed into Gloss first thing on Monday morning. Mia was drinking a strong Starbucks latte in her office in the hope that it would wake her up, and she glanced at her features editor wearily. So long as it didn’t involve her, Mia wasn’t interested in whatever exploits the tabloids were banging on about – she had better things to be thinking of. Mia had spent most of the early hours on the phone to Gable, hitting him for his opinion on how she could get away with not losing her virginity to Joshua. Although she loved her fictitious brother, she loathed the time difference between London and Hollywood, as it meant that one of them – usually Mia, because she was the one whose mind raced as soon as she climbed into bed – missed out on sleep because of it.

  Gable had spent nearly four hours on the phone to her that night, and after finding out that Joshua was desperate to sleep with her, he’d concluded that what Mia really needed was a boyfriend. Gable didn’t think Mia would ever be able to forgive herself if she ended up having sex for the first time with the person she hated most.

  ‘What about that William guy?’ Gable had asked as Mia yawned down the phone and watched the sun beginning to rise. The sky above London was a bright pink, and Mia reminded herself that red sky in the morning was the shepherd’s warning. She sighed. Even nature was telling her not to go near Garnet.

  ‘William? When I came back to London, Amelia was desperate for me to “test” my face on someone, so I pretended to interview him,’ she said quietly. ‘He didn’t realise who I was and I don’t think he liked me very much.’ Mia tried not to sound sad. The thought of William’s reaction to the beautiful Mia Blackwood still hurt, and she wondered why William hadn’t recognised her when Amelia eventually had.

  ‘Yeah, but he adored you once, right?’ Gable hadn’t the patience to even try to be subtle. He had a supper coming up and he had to start to think about getting ready for it. ‘Why don’t you just give him a ring and ask him to go for a drink?’

  Mia had laughed down the phone. William was the only person who she had ever loved, the only man who had appreciated her for who she was rather than what she looked like. It had merely been her insecurities about her body that had prevented them from taking their relationship further, but despite Mia now being confident about how she looked she couldn’t see William liking her any time soon. To him she represented ‘shallow London’, his number-one subject of loathing.

  After Mia had hung up she looked at her mobile. It was nearly six in the morning, half an hour before her alarm was supposed to wake her up. Sighing, Mia turned the alarm off and padded into her kitchen to make herself the first of what she estimated would be many coffees.

  As she switched her espresso machine on she stared at her kitchen in amazement. Even though she’d lived in her Garnet penthouse apartment overlooking the Thames for nearly six months, she still couldn’t get over the fact that it was hers for a minimal rent. As well as a doorman, a swimming pool and an insulated media/cinema room on the floor below, Mia’s penthouse had been refurbished to the tune of almost £4 million – with no expense spared on the specification.

  In addition to the pool and cinema, Mia had three big bedrooms – all complete with large en suites and wet rooms where the shower cascaded as though it were hot, tropical rain – a wood-panelled walk-in wardrobe bigger than her first flat, a glass-fronted wine cellar, a humidity-controlled cigar suite (which, Mia had laughed down the phone to Amelia, would come in handy if she knew what she was meant to do with it) and a fingerprint-access strong-room where Mia stored her jewellery, including the diamond and garnet necklace Cartier had sent to congratulate her on her promotion.

  The eat-in kitchen contained shiny red units and brushed-steel appliances, and the dining-room – which was perfect for hosting Mia’s media gatherings – was bedecked in metallics, with delicate gold-leaf wallpaper and a chandelier that glinted over the long silver and glass dining-table.

  In Mia’s main sitting-room there was a grand piano, and the roof terrace – which contained imported Japanese trees and fragrant roses – overlooked the Thames, allowing her a view of Big Ben to the left, and Canary Wharf to the far right.

  Mia thought her penthouse was beautiful, but she spent most of her time in the comparatively tiny television room that contained a large squishy sofa and a medium-size plasma television screen. It was the one room that Mia truly felt comfortable in, because every time she walked through her apartment she felt guilty that she’d stolen the editorship of Gloss from Madeline. It was there that she sat now as she sipped her coffee and looked at a text message that had been sent to her two days ago. If she played it right, Mia thought, she could make amends to Madeline after all.

  ‘Mia, seriously, wake up and check this out!’ Lucy snapped Mia out of her thoughts and flung the copy of the newspaper on to her desk. Mia sighed and put thoughts about her virginity out of her mind as she reached for the paper and saw that rather than it being the Sun, it was the Media Guardian, and that she was on the cover of the supplement. Although she’d done the interview only two weeks before she had forgotten that her profile was coming out, and her stomach fizzed in excitement.

  ‘What do you think?’ Lucy asked excitedly, and Mia stared at her photo on the front of the paper and tried to remain calm. If anything confirmed how far she’d come, it was this; her photo on the country’s leading media supplement, and a double-page feature all about her. The article inside made it clear that Mia was the rising star of 2007, but … but it wasn’t really her on the cover; it was a fabricated woman who had taken the industry by storm in a cloud of deceit, cosmetic surgery and designer clothes.

  Mia stared at the stunning blonde woman on the front of the supplement, and she felt all the excitement drain from her body. Quite without warning she yearned to look like she used to, when she had brown hair, a natural body and face, and a naïve sparkle in her eyes when she thought about her future and everything she could achieve.

  Mia put the newspaper on her desk and slowly ran her fingers over her face, feeling her cheekbone implants, her enlarged lips and her sculpted nose. If she had not had cosmetic surgery, she thought, there was no way she’d have ended up on the front of this supplement, or as Joshua Garnet’s prospective new girlfriend. Doors had only opened for her because of how she looked, and even though she had the talent to make sure her career progressed quickly, what she could do professionally seemed to take second place to the fact she was sexually attractive. In a way, Mia was just as she had been when she was overweight – she was still trying to prove to people that despite how she looked she had the ability to do great things.

  Mia held the supplement up against one of her office walls and considered framing and hanging it as her first piece of PR, but the more she looked at her image grinning back at her, the more a sour taste began to rise in her mouth. Seeing herself like that was a reminder that the world she was in was so shallow that it didn’t allow overweight people to be part of it, and that, rather than trying to take a stand and fight for who she was, she’d buckled under the pressure and changed the way she looked.

  ‘You look great, right?’ Lucy said, and Mia turned to her, startled. She’d forgotten that Lucy was still in her office, and that she’d been watching her reaction. Lucy was staring at her intently, and Mia didn’t like the knowing look on Lucy’s face.

  ‘Right,’ Mia said abruptly, and she reminded herself that she had to play the game – most people would be delighted at such brilliant personal coverage of themselves in the press. Mia forced a bright smile and beamed at Lucy, before turning her g
aze back to the photograph of herself. ‘Do you think my arms look fat, though?’

  Lucy laughed, and then she sat down on the chair on the other side of Mia’s desk. ‘They’re nowhere near as large as they used to be, Jo,’ she said quietly, and Mia froze.

  ‘How long have you known?’ Mia whispered, watching her hands shake so much that she had to put the paper down.

  ‘A while,’ Lucy admitted, and she reached over and touched Mia’s hand. ‘As I got to know you, I realised that even though you looked different you hadn’t changed that much. OK, so you sometimes speak with a hint of an American accent, and you still act like you’re unsure of just how gorgeous you are, but you’re pretty much how you used to be, just a happier, more confident version,’ she remarked.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Mia asked, and she watched Lucy lower her eyes to the floor.

  ‘I didn’t think you would ever forgive me for not standing up for you,’ Lucy said, and both of them remembered that fateful day. ‘I’ve been over that day so many times in my head, and if I could go back in time I would have told Joshua that you were his star writer, but I can’t, and there’s nothing I can do to make it up to you.’

  Mia sighed. ‘I forgave you a long time ago, you know,’ she said, as she remembered how pleased she had been when Lucy got Gloss to pay for her stay in the Shore Club in Miami. ‘And the fact that you’ve known I am Jo all this time and have not said anything … well …’

  Lucy gave Mia a rueful smile. ‘Even now I still feel really bad,’ she said.

  Mia brushed her comment away. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I know how hard it is to stand up and be different in the media, and who knows, if our roles had been reversed maybe I’d have done the same. What matters now, though, is that Joshua doesn’t find out who I am,’ she said, and Lucy stood up to give Mia a hug.

  ‘I’ll never tell,’ she whispered into Mia’s ear, and just then Joshua appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Loving the lesbian action almost as much as I loved the Media Guardian piece,’ he said casually, without saying hello or asking how either of the women were. Lucy left them to it, and Joshua eyed Mia’s tight indigo shirt that was left open to show the top of her breasts, wondering how hard Mia liked her nipples to be pinched. ‘Fancy dinner tonight at my house to celebrate?’

  Mia looked at Joshua and realised that if Lucy knew who she really was, it was possible that it would only be a matter of time before Joshua guessed, too. It was time to crank up her revenge mission, she thought, and it meant making Joshua want her so much he couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

  Mia gave Joshua a coy smile and looked at him from under her eyelashes. ‘Josh, I’d love to, but it’s the UK Magazine Awards tomorrow night,’ she said sweetly, ‘and I need to get some sleep because I plan to be the last person to leave the after-party.’ Joshua struggled to maintain a disinterested expression, but he failed.

  ‘The weekend, then,’ Joshua said.

  Mia nodded. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, and she walked away from him, knowing that Joshua had never experienced a woman playing hard to get before, and that it made him want her even more. Mia grinned as she flipped open her mobile and started writing a text message. Everything was going to plan.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lee Stockhead, editor of Lewd magazine, took one look at Mia walking into the reception area of the UK Magazine Awards and let his mouth drop open.

  ‘Babes,’ he said cockily, leering at Mia’s cleavage, which was popping out of her Christian Dior couture dress, ‘you look hot as hell.’

  Mia shot a goofy grin at Lee, and then quickly reminded herself that she was supposed to be acting demure. She was wearing a strapless pale grey gown that pushed her breasts up to extraordinary heights before dropping to the floor dramatically, and the silk clung to the shape of Mia’s slender body like a second skin. To accessorise, Mia had dressed in the first diamonds she had ever bought herself. A platinum Chopard necklace dripped princess-cut diamonds around her neck, and a matching bracelet dangled from her wrist, making her already slender arms look even slimmer. Mia’s freshly highlighted blonde hair was pinned up at the back of her head, and she had arrogantly kept her make-up simple – she was wearing just a touch of blush and a slick of mascara. Most of the women in the ballroom were in their thirties and Mia could feel their glares pricking at her skin. She was pleased – she wanted them to be jealous of her and her youth.

  ‘Please tell me you’re sitting next to me,’ Lee whined in his cockney accent. Like Mia, at only twenty-eight he was younger than most of the other editors, but Mia felt as though she was a world away from him and his beer, football and tits lifestyle. ‘If I have to sit next to that fucking bore Nigel from Cycling Monthly like I did last year I think I’ll fucking top myself.’ Lee dragged his eyes away from Mia and checked the table plan before letting out a little groan. ‘Fuck’s sake, I am as well. Do you think the organisers hate me or something?’

  Mia said nothing; she’d heard the story about Lee pissing against the ice sculpture the year before and was surprised that he had been allowed back this year, despite his magazine being up for an award.

  ‘You’d better sit on my lap later to cheer me up,’ he said, leaning towards Mia unsteadily. Mia laughed and walked away to check another table plan, noting she was sitting on a table full of Gloss staffers. She let out a sigh of relief. If she had to sit next to Nigel she probably would have bribed the organisers to poison his meal. He was a good editor, but was a bit too obsessed with the Tour de France.

  The UK Magazine Awards was the most important award ceremony in the magazine industry, and true to form the ballroom of the Savoy was decked out accordingly. Swathes of burnished gold hung from the walls, and each circular table, laid with crisp white linen tablecloths, lit up the room with tiny tea-lights in midnight blue. The stage had been set with a podium, and behind it was a table laden with awards, each glittering under the rainbow spotlights. Traditionally dressed serving staff hurried around serving the most important people in the business glasses of champagne, and when the guests weren’t clocking each other’s outfits, they looked at the sumptuous menu in disbelief, feeling their stomachs rumble appreciatively. The UK Magazine Awards’ organisers had outdone themselves this year.

  ‘You look nice,’ Helen said bluntly as Mia approached the Gloss table and sat down next to Lucy. Helena was wearing a gathered silk Chloé halterneck dress that, despite its price tag, managed to make her look slutty rather than sexy.

  ‘You look more than nice,’ Lucy said, hurrying to cover Helena’s overt jealousy. ‘You look terrific. Is that Dior?’

  Mia nodded, and Lucy cast her eyes over Mia’s dress approvingly. ‘It suits you,’ she said. Lucy had kept it simple in a white Armani dress and a single ruby that dangled from a silver chain round her neck. ‘Is Joshua coming this evening?’ she asked Mia innocently, and Mia gazed into Lucy’s eyes before answering. She’d not told Lucy that she was planning on playing with Joshua’s lust for her, but uncannily, Lucy was on the ball yet again.

  ‘Of course,’ Mia said lightly. ‘He’s sitting over there.’ Mia gestured to a table full of what she had nicknamed ‘the suits’ from Garnet Publishing. Joshua was wrapped up in a conversation with Edward Sampson-Brown, the finance director, but when he felt Mia’s gaze on him he looked up and shot her a private, sexual look. Unfortunately both Lucy and Helena spotted it, and Mia quickly changed the subject.

  ‘Who do you think is going to win?’ Mia asked, hoping Lucy would follow the conversation and stick to safe territory. Lucy considered the question.

  ‘Lewd for Magazine of the Year, Cycling Monthly for Fucking Boring Magazine of the Year, and Hannah winning Travel Writer of the Year for us.’ Lucy ran off a list of magazines on her fingers, critiquing each one and explaining why she didn’t think many of the big names – such as Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Heat – were going to win anything. Mia listened quietly while sipping her champagne, and she marvelled
at how astute Lucy was. Perhaps it was time for her to be promoted to deputy editor, she thought, but only if they could poach a decent features editor – such as Holly Morrison – to replace her.

  Mia sighed. She desperately wanted Gloss to win Magazine of the Year, but she knew that they didn’t really stand a chance. When the judging period had started, Gloss had still been the publication that Madeline was ignoring while concentrating on her ovulation charts, and even though Mia had turned it around in the last few months, she knew that the magazines were judged on the whole year and that every single month counted, rather than just the ones that she had been in control of.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Mia agreed. ‘But I do hope Lee stops drinking. Joshua will be fucked off if he makes a scene.’

  Lucy laughed. ‘Lee thinks he’s the new James Brown, and he will do whatever it takes to piss off Loaded and FHM. If making a scene at an awards ceremony gets him and the magazine in the “Bizarre” and “ A.M.” columns tomorrow, you can count on him doing something. I’d put fifty pounds on Lee pretending to fuck one of those ice sculptures,’ Lucy said, nodding at one of the many ice-carved angels that twinkled in the light.