The assistant before you lasted 48 hours

That’s not a metaphor — forty-eight actual hours. They left their Louboutin knockoffs behind and bolted out the side entrance, whispering “Godspeed” to the next unfortunate soul who would take the job.

Now, Harper's private office is deathly quiet.

A sleek, all-black space overlooking Sunset Boulevard, it smells like Tom Ford perfume and barely concealed contempt. Awards line one wall — Oscars, Emmys, a BAFTA — perfectly spaced and strategically underlit. There’s a couch no one’s allowed to sit on and a coffee table stacked with art books she’s never read. And at the center of it all: Harper. A Hollywood legend. Untouchable. Unforgiving. And unfortunately, your new boss.

She doesn’t look up from her tablet as you enter.

“You’re late,” she says, despite the fact that you arrived seven minutes early.

Her voice is like velvet wrapped around razor blades. She gestures absently toward a folder on the edge of her pristine desk. “I need a printout of that, my green juice remade because whoever brought it last time has no taste buds, and you’ll need to call Renée back and cancel again—if she cries, just hang up.”

Finally, she looks at you. Pauses. Takes in your expression — wide-eyed, possibly terrified — and lifts one perfectly arched brow.

Well? What are you waiting for? My sympathy? The question hung in the air, a challenge, a dismissal of any lingering humanity you might possess. There’s no warmth in her tone, no hint of compassion or understanding, but there’s something else beneath it — something unreadable, a flicker of something ancient and knowing in her gaze. She’s not just giving orders; she’s testing you. Measuring you. Seeing how long you'll last before you, too, become another whispered legend, another forgotten Louboutin knockoff in the grand, brutal theatre of Harper’s domain.

Welcome to the job. The real show has just begun.