Hello everyone! Alongside my Perfection Incarnate story I have been developing a couple of other ideas and I think the time has come to post a few of them. Don't you worry your pretty little heads though, I am far from done with Perfection Incarnate and will be updating all of these stories equally. Here's a chapter to set the scene for this one and I really hope you like it! Feedback is welcome as always and I hope you enjoy!
I must have looked at myself in the mirror at least ten times. My bed was covered with rejected jackets and I couldn't help but wish my mum hadn't went to work so early. Who knew that getting dressed could be so stressful? Jon was standing in the doorway, cup of coffee in hand, an amused look on his face.
"What are they called again?" He asked as I modelled another blazer. This was the one.
"Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood." I responded, looking for my sketchpads to put them into my bag. I ran through a quick checklist in my head to make sure I had everything.
"So which one do you have a crush on?" I shot him a look. "Seeing as you're going to all this trouble."
"Neither! They're married – to each other!" I laughed.
"Ohh…" Jon nodded, going for a change in conversation. "You'll do fine Clary. How many people did you get the job over again?"
"About 100." The thought made me nervous – what if I failed? What if I didn't live up to whatever it was they had seen in me?
"See! You'll be great. Now get going, you'll not want to be late." Grabbing my bag and my phone, I gave Jon a quick cuddle before heading out to the car. Throwing my bag on the passenger seat, I hopped into the driver's seat steadying myself, a few quick positive words. I quickly tied my hair back before getting the car running and starting my way over to Magnus and Alec's. The drive through the grounds themselves seemed to take longer than the rest of the drive, nerves heightened the entire time. I'd met Magnus during the interviews but not Alec, even though the position was as Alec's PA. I checked the time when I reached the driveway – I still had ten minutes to spare. It was now or never. Grabbing my things, I put my phone away in my bag and headed up towards the house. It was massively intimidating. The door was answered really quickly by none other than Alec himself. He was dressed quite casually smart, a suit jacket with jeans. He looked at me neutrally.
"Clarissa, I assume?" He asked, holding the door.
"Yes, Mr Lightwood." I tried to act confidently.
"Please." He laughed, his demeanour rapidly changing. "Call me Alec. Come inside my dear, lots to do." I followed Alec through the house and into his personal study. He offered me a seat, taking the one opposite.
"So, tell me a little bit about yourself." He was resting his head on his palms, looking at me curiously.
"Well you have my cv and my personal det-"I started.
"I want to hear it from you Clarissa, please." He smiled. "Indulge me."
"Well, I live with my mum and my brother. My mum works in an office and my brother is in school on a football scholarship. I love art and part of the reason I took this job was to save up to go to art school whilst being amongst icons in the industry. I wasn't sure I'd get it actually, I haven't exactly got loads of experience but there you go. Sorry, I'm babbling." I smiled, blushing.
"Lesson number one Clarissa, never put yourself down. Now, onto the job. I'm sure you're aware of the duties but I'd like to go over them again anyhow. First off we have all the dull stuff. The phonecalls, the appointments, emails and dealing with clients. You're a smart girl from what I've heard, I doubt you'll have much trouble. Then we have the more difficult aspects. As our job is in the sphere of creativity, creativity can strike at any time and I need you to be here when it does, within reason. That's why I employed you, specifically. I like creative people and I like having them around me. Then finally we get to the fun stuff – exhibitions, galleries, events – you'll be invited to them all. I think that's it for now. Let's get you acquainted with the house, shall we?"
"Let's go." I smiled, following Alec from the room.
Once the tour was over and done with, Alec and I came to rest in the lounge. Rest being the opportune word as the house was huge!
"This is your work phone." Alec handed me a cell phone that was a lot better than my actual one. "And this is your personal laptop."
"I can't – " I started.
"You can and you will. You need a high spec laptop to keep up with everything Clarissa. It's easier for note-taking." He smiled. "Everyone's number that you will need are already logged into the phone including my family. They ring often and sometimes pointlessly. Brush up on your excuse making and I'll love you forever." He winked.
The first half of the day consisted of scheduling the week ahead, booking in Alec's clients and introducing myself to them. It all went without a hitch. It was lunchtime when 'Isabelle' started calling.
"Haus of Malec. Alec's line. Clarissa speaking – how can I help?"
"Uh hi – Clarissa. This is Alec's sister, is Alec there?" I looked up at Alec who was on making pasta and mouthed 'Isabelle'. He shook his head.
"Sorry Isabelle. Alec's with a client at the moment – could I take a message?" Isabelle groaned.
"Tell him I'll be coming around later, he can't avoid me forever." Once she had hung up, I repeated the message to Alec prompting a similar groan. Magnus entered the room a few moments later, wrapping his arms around Alec.
"How's our newest addition to the Haus getting on?" Magnus asked, smiling.
"Coming on leaps and bounds." Alec smiled at me, as Magnus pecked his cheek lightly.
"Remember you have that meeting with that up and coming artist later – try not to scare him off." Magnus winked, backing out of the room.
"Nice and easy first meeting to get your teeth sunk into." Alec commented, eating his pasta out of the pan.
"Who is it with?" I asked, pulling out my diary so that I could note it.
"Verlac, I think is his name." Alec said. "He'll be here at 1." There was a knock at the door at exactly 1 o clock. I pulled the door open to reveal a dark haired man dressed in a luxury suit.
"Mr Verlac?" I asked.
"The one and only." He smiled, pushing his hands into his jacket.
"Please come through. Mr Lightwood is waiting in the lounge." I closed the door behind him, leading him through to the lounge. Alec stood up to exchange pleasantries before they sat opposite one another.
"Is that your natural hair colour?" He asked me randomly as I was opening up my laptop.
"Uh – yeah." I smiled, taken off guard. Alec seemed amused.
"How fascinating. Sorry Alec – where were we?"
I kept my head buried in my laptop the entire meeting, mainly to avoid the odd look from Mr Verlac. Once the meeting was over, Alec and Mr Verlac exchanged phone numbers promising to meet again later in the week. I led him over to the door to show him out.
"Thanks for stopping by Mr Verlac – we hope to see you later in the week."
"Please – call me Sebastian. Mr Verlac is what my accountant calls me. See you soon." He smirked before heading back to his rather expensive looking car.
I was absolutely exhausted when I got home an hour later than I should have. Dropping my shoes on the floor, I padded through to the kitchen to hunt out some food. Jon was standing in the kitchen the hob filled with pots and pans.
"What's going on in here?" I asked, removing my jacket.
"You just sit over there and be quiet." Jon smiled, indicating to the table. Footsteps on the stairs alerted me to my mother's presence.
"Clary!" She embraced me. "How did it go?" My mum was in her comfy clothes as she sat down at the table next to me.
"It went." I laughed. Jon tutted.
"Stop putting yourself down! Look – I made your favourite!" Jon came over to the table, placing down food for the three of us. Just as we were mid-conversation, my work phone started ringing. I apologised, excused myself and grabbed my phone, heading to the bottom of the stairs.
"Mr Lightwood's PA speaking, how can I help?" I hit myself mentally for not checking the ID first.
"Hello Clarissa – just me." It was Alec. Boy, did I feel like an idiot. "If you're not too busy, could you perhaps come back over in an hour?" I agreed. "Fantastic. Bring an overnight bag if you'd like. See you soon."
"I have to go back to work in an hour." I told my mum and Jon when I re-entered the room.
"Think about the money Clary." Jon smiled. After dinner, I quickly rounded up an overnight bag before freshening myself up. Alec was quick to answer the door when I knocked, leading me straight towards the studio. He was now dressed in a pair of jogging bottoms and a loose fitting t-shirt.
"Remember what I said about creativity?" He said when we arrived.
"I'm guessing it struck."
"Bingo."
It turned out that Alec had had the perfect idea for the Verlac project and Magnus had went out of town. The Verlac project required dresses and lots of them for a modelling shoot based around the seven deadly sins.
"I'm thinking we separate colours out for each different sin. Make sure that you can recognise the differences immediately. Each photograph you see, vastly different from the one you saw beforehand." Alec babbled, sketching with a pen. Still in my clothes from earlier, I was having a difficult time getting comfortable. "Did you bring PJs?" Alec muttered, still sketching. "Change into them if you like." I headed into the bathroom, changing my clothes quickly. "Hopefully we can have at least two designs done for Mr Verlac coming back. Here – pick a sin – do a design or two and we'll feedback."
I chose gluttony and kept to pink bubblegum tones, making the dress extremely ruffled so that it puffed out from the waist. Each fold was filled with sweets of all different varieties. I designed a matching headband and started annotating. Alec didn't' speak for a whole hour.
"Ready to feedback?" He finally asked, his hair tousled.
"Yeah – I chose gluttony – just in case you don't get it." As soon as I got a look at Alec's picture it was obvious that he had chosen envy. The green jumped from the page. The dress was tightly wrapped around the models body, a snake-like clasp at the waist. The dress had slight imperfections that highlighted the idea of envy.
"This is really –"
"Fantastic." Alec finished. "I think we have our working designs for these two already – I can't believe it." I allowed myself to smile. It was only the first day but already this job was perfect. "Do you want to design another initial idea each or are you tired?"
"We'll do another. I think it'll impress Mr Verlac if we have four initial ideas so early on."
"Great minds."
An hour or so later, we were feeding back again. Alec had picked pride. The dress was blue and had sheer material that covered the throat, shoulders and arms. Every inch of the sheer material was covered jewels, of different sizes and shapes. A large bow decorated the hair of the model. My design was that of lust. I chose alarm red and went for a floor-length design. It was very figure-hugging and had a cut out section near the cleavage that was low but tasteful. The hair would be gelled back from the face.
"I can't believe it. Four designs in as many hours. Go and have yourself a good night's sleep. You deserve it. We'll reconvene at 10 o clock and I'll send Mr Verlac a message to let him know where we are. Thank you for all of your help tonight – I'll show you to your room."
"My room?"
"We always keep a room spare for our PA's, for this very purpose." The room was lovely and larger than my own at home. I quickly fell asleep that night and slept peacefully until my alarm at 8:30am. After a shower and a quick change of clothes, I set out in search of Alec. I came across a random man first. He was very arty looking with long dark curly hair that was tied at the base of his neck.
"Hello – are you here for an appointment?" He asked me.
"No." I laughed. "I'm Mr Lightwood's PA." A look of realisation dawned upon his face.
"Oh what a pleasure to meet you. I'm Jordan – Magnus' PA."
"Clary." I smiled, shaking his hand. "Have you seen Alec?"
"Last I saw him he was in the lounge – welcome to the Haus Clary, it's lovely to have you here."
Alec was going over our designs in the lounge, annotating and looking at fabrics on his laptop.
"Good morning." I smiled, perching myself on the sofa and opening my own laptop.
"Good morning, I was wondering if you would do me a favour this morning Clarissa." Alec said before running me through the collage boards he wanted making up for each of the dresses before Mr Verlac came back at 3:00pm. He told me I was welcome to use Jordan for help as Magnus himself wasn't back until 4pm. I left the lounge my arms laden with papers, so much that I had to balance them underneath my chin. I didn't even make it to the bottom of the stairs with them as someone crashed straight into me, sending me sprawling amongst the papers on the floor.
Thank you for reading my first chapter! Not a whole load of action but I hope you enjoyed it anyway! All of my love, until the next time! ~Sapph
