to do it by believing in her own talent.
The studio had turned it into a teen rom-com that had bombed so spectacularly it had taken Morgan and his new wife, Claudia, years to get another film in production.
Sweet, sweet karma.
“That film was so stupid,” Lena said with a sneer. “Anyway, Claudia warned me about you. You get your hooks into men so they’ll take you places. She says you’re going to try to sleep with Jared.”
Kori bit back a laugh. “Not at all. I have a relationship with his brother and I’m perfectly happy there. The idea of stepping into the spotlight gives me hives.”
Lena looked her over and obviously found her wanting. “The press would tear you up. Do you understand what they would do to you? Even if you could get into Jared’s bed, you would be the fat chick he was banging.”
“Absolutely,” she agreed. Anyone over a size zero was the fat chick in Hollywood. “More importantly though, I’m not interested in sleeping with Jared. I’m happy with Kai.”
“She also told me you lie. Apparently you were Morgan’s assistant but you tried to get into bed with him, too. You thought you could control him with sex. Do you even look at yourself in the mirror? Jared doesn’t want you. He’s only being nice to you because you work for his brother. I don’t believe you and he have anything going on. He’s not as hot as Jared but he’s attractive. He’s never going to be with you.”
This was so sad. “Okay, let me tell you all the ways you’re going wrong here. First, I’m mostly bored by this dialogue. I can turn on a Real Housewives episode and hear this crap. At least flip a table or something.”
“What?” Lena’s eyes went wide.
She was likely used to running off lots of women with her rapid fire but deadly dull dialogue. Like that was the first time someone had told Kori she wasn’t attractive enough. She’d lived in LA for years. She’d been told a thousand times she wasn’t smart enough, attractive enough, thin enough. If she’d believed any of it she would never have gotten a film made.
“I’m going to give you some advice. Here’s the key, when you’re trying to intimidate someone, you have to make them believe you’re the tiniest bit batshit crazy. This ‘you’re not pretty’ crap is only going to work on girls who just got off the bus. For real women, you have to dig deeper. You have to scare them. Like you’ll do something really bad. I’ll give you an example. Lena, if you don’t get out of my face in the next two minutes, I’ll make sure Jared never speaks to you again. You see, I have some actual leverage. He wants a relationship with his brother and I can give that to him. You’re a piece of crap in last year’s Pradas, and he can pick up another one of you in the lobby of any production office. So maybe you should turn around and walk out of here and the next time we see each other, you’ll smile and be polite because I can have your job in two minutes.”
It was an empty threat. She would never once do that. She wouldn’t come between the brothers like that.
“You wouldn’t. You couldn’t do that,” Lena sputtered.
“See, now we’re having a smack down. It’s so low to go after a woman’s looks. She gets that from every side. You have to go after her intelligence or her job, or sometimes you can score points by sounding like a crazy bitch. That prostitution-whore stuff can throw a girl off because she’s trying to figure out what the hell you just said. Like if I called you a skanky ho-bag who’s one step above assistant crack whore, you would try to figure out if I was calling you a slut or a prostitute. Mix it up. It throws people off.”
“You’re a bitch,” Lena said, proving she couldn’t even do comebacks well.
Kori sighed. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. And now I’m bored again. Scurry off, sad woman. I’m sure you’ve got something to do with your time.”
Some people couldn’t learn. It took the right amount of intelligence and pure quick wit to be able to truly insult someone.
The door opened and Lena gasped.
“You should probably leave now,” a familiar voice said.
Shit. Kai was here. Kai had heard her. Oh, shit. How the hell was she going to explain what she’d said? She heard