Page 17 of Now Their Starlet

“A charity gala. Perfect, don’t you think?” Gina says, shoving the dress towards me.

I let out a tired sigh, standing from my bed.

Gina just stands there expectantly. Damn, I guess I really don’t get any privacy.

I’m used to changing in front of people. It happens a lot in dressing rooms for modeling gigs, but this is different. There’s something strange about being a grown woman with your mother hovering over you like she doesn’t trust your ability to dress yourself, especially when I can practically feel her assessing gaze as I slip the dress up and over my hips and slide the straps over my shoulders.

The moment I reach behind myself awkwardly to try to zip up the dress, and it catches, I brace myself.

Gina makes a sound of disapproval, gripping my shoulders and spinning me around. Her delicate, almost claw-like fingers are cold as she presses her knuckles into the skin of my back tugging the dress closed.

“Suck in,” Gina snipes.

A retort is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it down, taking a deep breath in and breathing it out slowly, flexing my abdominal muscles.

Gina jerks at the zipper. “Harder.”

I do it, because what the hell else am I supposed to do? Everything in that closet is a similar size to this dress.

When she finally gets the zipper up, the dress is harsh and restricting. The fabric is structured enough that it almost serves as a makeshift waist trainer, keeping me all cinched in, in what I know Gina will call the right places, but all that really means is that I can’t take a deep breath.

And the worst part? The dress is made of an itchy canvas that holds its shape really well, but feels terrible against my skin. I have to bite back a frustrated scream that I know will probably sound more like a pathetic whimper.

“At least you fit,” Gina huffs, her arms crossed over her chest as she runs an assessing gaze over my form when I spin slowly to face her. “I don’t know what the hell you were eating with that male omega,” she says, spitting Beck’s designation like a slur, “but you should’ve known better than to let yourself go this much, Andromeda. Then this wouldn’t be so painful.”

“I didn’t⁠—”

“Hush,” she snaps, and my words die on my tongue. “We don’t want to keep the alphas waiting, now do we?”

She spins on her heel, turning her back to me.

“Mom, why are you doing this?” I finally ask. Even though my voice is soft, some of the frustration that’s been a constant companion over the past week and a half bubbles over.

“It’s for your own good, dear. Everything I do is for your own good,” she says, waving her hand as if dismissing my question entirely.

“That’s not an answer,” I bite out, reaching out to grab her wrist. Underneath the fabric of her high-necked blouse, she feels breakable. Almost pathetically so. It infuriates me, the fact that someone like her can have full control over every aspect of my life now. “I’m an adult. I should be allowed to make my own decisions. I have my own life. I can’t—I don’t know how you expect me to just be okay with this. This bullshit conservatorship is ridiculous, Mom, and you know it!”

The glare she cuts towards me is so cold it immediately takes the winds of outrage from my sails.

“You’ve shown you’re incapable of making the right decisions,” Gina says, her voice low. “So I have to step in and protect you from yourself.”

“Tell yourself that all you want, but it’s not true,” I say, my jaw working. My hand is shaking around her wrist, a sign of the fury I’m barely managing to keep leashed.

“Be careful, Andromeda,” Gina says, eyeing where I’m still holding her wrist. “You wouldn’t want to do anything to make the courts think you’re more mentally unstable than you already are, hm?”

I drop her wrist like it’s burned me, my chest heaving.

Gina will use everything and anything at her disposal to make sure I stay under her thumb. I can’t play into things. Not when I’m as helpless as I am.

“Now then, I’m sure you’ve learned to behave after your time in here. Are you ready to go?” Gina asks with a sniff, resting her hand on the doorknob.

“Yeah,” I mumble, keeping my gaze aimed at the floor.

She opens the door, not even casting me a second glance. She just expects me to follow her. And I do. Because what other choice do I have?

It’s not like I’m going to willingly stay in this God forsaken room any longer than I have to.

At the top of the landing, there’s another alpha wearing the same uniform as the two who dragged me to my room. Great. No running, I guess.