Translation of Love - By Alice Montalvo-Tribue Page 0,72

his face.

“Good morning, Mrs. Garza,” I say as she glares my way. She looks back to Victor and speaks to him.

“I came to talk to you. It seems we have an urgent situation that I need to make you aware of Victor.”

I take this as my cue to get the hell out of there. “I’ll just leave you two alone. I’ll go dry my hair.”

“Actually, Elizabeth, this concerns you. You might want to stay.” I freeze, planted to my spot by the window. The look on her face is telling me that whatever she’s about to say isn’t going to be good. “Can I borrow your laptop?” she asks her son.

“Um, yeah Ma, sure.” He moves to the nightstand, picks up his laptop and puts it on the table in front of his mom. “What’s this all about?”

“It seems that your girlfriend isn’t quite as innocent as she likes for everyone to believe.” She’s speaking to Victor but her eyes are glaring at me. I come unstuck and walk over to stand by Victor’s side. He takes my hand and laces his fingers through mine.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Garza but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What I’m talking about is that as my son’s manager, I keep track of everything that is written and said about him. And since you are in his life, I now have to keep track of anything that might be written or said about you.”

“Ma! Seriously?! What could possibly have been said about Ellie that’s so terrible that you had to come to our room first thing in the morning?”

She looks like she’s enjoying making us squirm. She has an “I told you so” look on her face that’s directed at her son. I know that she’s warned him about me. She thinks I’m nothing more than a gold digger.

“It’s not what’s been said. A video has leaked that shows your girlfriend in a very compromising situation. His body goes tight and he turns to look at me.

“Ellie what is she talking about?” he asks softly.

I look up at him and shrug my shoulders. “Baby, I don’t know.” And it’s the truth, I have no idea what she’s taking about.

She laughs and it sounds almost like a cackle. “That’s funny. You don’t know what I’m talking about?” She turns back to the laptop, opens up an email message and a video pops up on screen. “Then what is this?”

I look at the video and instantly I can feel the bile rising up my throat, I have to fight to push it back down. My chest tightens and I can hear my heart pounding faster as the heat rushes to my cheeks. On the screen is what looks like an amateur video of Brian and I having sex. I can’t speak, I can’t move. I’m stunned and mortified and I have the urge to run away. I feel Victor’s hand drop mine and just like that, our connection is lost.

“I’ve got people working on making sure this doesn’t hit the internet. We need to stop it before it goes viral but I’m not sure if it will work. We are going to have to have a meeting and prepare a statement in case we can’t control the damage.” She turns to Victor. “This has gone on long enough. You need to be prepared to end this now and cut your losses before she destroys your career.”

He shuts the laptop and turns to his mother. “Ma, get out.”

“Excuse me? We need to handle this now, Victor.”

I can tell he’s losing his control. “I need to be alone with Ellie for a minute, Ma.”

“You don’t need to listen to anything she has to say. We have to handle this on our end so that we minimize the damage.”

“Ma, get out!” he shouts.

She jerks and takes a step back, looking as though she’s been slapped in the face. She stares at him for a minute. “Call me when you’re done,” she says as she turns and walks away.

The sound of the door slamming makes me jump. I feel dizzy, like I might pass out at any moment. Not only did I never agree to making a video like that, but now it may be out on the internet for the world to see and worst of all, Victor has seen it. His head is bowed down toward the ground, hands at his hips. I know he can’t even look at me. “You made a sex tape?” he says, barely