God damn it, anyway!”
Emily Wells took the chocolate croissant that she’d taken just one bite of and threw it across the kitchen into the trash. Emily slumped down in her chair at the butcher-black table, looking at her “permissible” breakfast—green tea, dry toast, and a nectarine. She’d known even as she took a big bite of that croissant that she couldn’t eat it. She didn’t dare.
“F**k,” she muttered attacking the toast with utter loathing. “It’s my fault the f*****g camera adds 20 pounds? It’s my fault that the producers want me to be ‘sexy, not zaftig.’ F**k them, too.”
She sighed as she drank her tea. After all, a lot of actresses would kill to be in her shoes; having created the smart, funny character of Detective Sheila Sherlock on Broadway, she’d been hired to recreate the character for a major motion picture, filming here in London. Emily knew she wasn’t a box office name—not yet, anyway—and she also knew the producers could have replaced her in a second with Charlize Theron or Cameron Diaz, even Jennifer Anniston if they’d wanted to add ten years to Sheila’s age. So Emily knew she was lucky, and she was thrilled to be doing the movie, but she damned well wasn’t thrilled by the studio’s order that she lose 25 pounds in three weeks, right before she reported to wardrobe for the first costume fittings. She wasn’t sure she could coax 25 pounds off her voluptuous form, and apparently the film’s producers were worried too, because in addition to the nutritionist from Hell who was now planning every bite she ate, the studio was sending over a mobile personal trainer to work with Emily in the townhouse the studio had rented for her, every day from now until weigh-in day.
Emily glanced at the clock and swore again. The trainer was supposed to be here in 30 minutes. She abandoned her unappealing breakfast and hurried from the kitchen and up the stairs to her bedroom to see if she could find anything to wear that was even remotely workout clothes.
