Prologue
My lungs balloon painfully in my chest.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
The last spasms of life rack my body as my mouth fights to contain the scream in my throat. My limbs thrash as my eyes search the murky dark waters for anything to grasp on to.
This is it.
And I never saw it coming.
The bitch fooled me, and the knowledge of that chills my veins even more than the glacially cold waters.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
I blink away the shadows as the waters mix with my tears. My future has been extinguished. Now, what’s left of me will be found in a heap of forgotten trash in the heart of the city.
Darkness. Drowning. Dying.
I sob, wishing for the warmth of Dean’s arms around me just one last time.
And then my world fades to black.
Chapter One
A few months ago…
Brunch with a view at @ThePoloLounge then cocktails at @ThePalm later! #blessed
My fingers speed across the screen as I type out the caption and then hit post on the Instagram photo. It’s a closely cropped shot of my mimosa. The two-carat canary diamond ring Dean gifted me for our last anniversary is centered in the shot, glittering from my ring finger as I hold the stem of the champagne flute. The morning sun casts a halo effect of golden perfection in the background, and I know my followers will love it. I love my life—or at least, the one my followers think I have. To them, I am Mia Starr, Hollywood Hills native, and living the life they’ve always dreamed of. Being chic and fabulous is my brand, even if it isn’t exactly true-to-life.
The truth is, my lifeisperfectmostof the time.
I have a great house; it’s just not in Beverly Hills. I have a wonderful, faceless husband who has made my wildest dreams come true. From the gutter to the red carpet, that’s the narrative I present when I log in each day. People love an underdog story.
I scroll my newsfeed, countless smiling faces peering back at me, all fake teeth and fake diamonds and living their ownversion of happily-ever-after. I know, on some level, I’m tricking them. But aren’t we all? Social media presents the perfect opportunity to live the life you’ve always dreamed of, at least in the eyes of the ones who matter. To them, Mia Starr has everything. In real life, Shae Halston is a struggling train wreck with enough family baggage to fill a jetliner and more debt than a developing nation.
Dean is in the high-end real estate business, and while he’s made a great career for himself, our life in California is only getting more expensive. It doesn’t help that my job doesn’t really profit—I’m successful as far as influencers go. I’m approaching 100,000 followers on Instagram—my favorite social media app—but monetizing my following has been difficult, to say the least. I have a flourishing website, but selling pdf files and cheap custom-designed jewelry doesn’t exactly pay the bills. It’s Dean’s business deals that provide the life I’ve always dreamed of. Recently, advertisers have taken notice and are eager to send me free products to gush to my followers about. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, they pay me a small commission on every sale. But overall, Mia Starr is a brand, not a person. She’s a facade, and I’m not even the face.
I began this venture out of boredom, sharing restaurant and product reviews with what’s become known as my characteristic wit. I represent the good life to people, and so I leaned in. I grew to more than 25,000 followers in a few short months, and it was then I realized that to continue to scale, I’d need a face for Mia Starr. I didn’t want to share my own face; the family I’d worked so hard to escape would be at my doorstep in a moment if they knew I was the brains behind the brand that was constantly recommended on their social feeds. Plus, I liked being someone new. Shae Halston had baggage. Mia Starr is a star in the making. Glamorous, poised, elegant, everything I’d spent so much time envying.
When Dean suggested we use a modeling agency to find the perfect face to represent Mia, I agreed eagerly, only a little embarrassed I hadn’t thought of the idea myself. Within twenty-four hours, we were sifting through headshots and discussing which platinum blonde would help me grow what had become a quickly expanding social media brand. Choosing a blonde made sense. I could be in some of the photos. My blond waves would be easily interchangeable with the model’s in obscure shots at the beach or from behind at elegant restaurants and trendy clubs—but the full-face photos were always a model. It seemed so simple at the time, and when Jesika Layman’s sparkling blue eyes shone from her headshot that first day, we knew she was the one.
Dean hummed that she looked like me, the same dip in her nose and similar full pink lips. I knew he was trying to flatter me, but I liked being flattered. We hired Jesika on the spot for a custom photo shoot with the agency’s preferred photographer. Within two weeks, I had a file in my inbox with dozens of shots from the photo shoot, some taken outside in the sunshine, some poolside, others at chic outdoor eateries, sparkling champagne in hand as she laughed at someone off-camera.
She was perfect. She was me, but better. She was my Mia.
Chapter Two
Soaking up the sun!I caption the video on my profile, adding a sun emoji as an afterthought before uploading it to my private profile story. My followers love when I include them in moments from my daily life, and I artfully position the video to avoid the run-down El Segundo Beach sign that’s just out of the shot. The wild inconsistency between the perfection of Hollywood and the dilapidation of El Segundo, with its crumbling sidewalks and rusted street signs, is like a metaphor for my life. Like a persistent weed growing between the cement slabs of the boulevard, I refuse to be snuffed out. Talent and charm have gotten me this far, but only dogged determination will take me further.
The cab driver slows at a stop sign before turning onto the street that will deliver me to the condo Dean and I live in. Normally, we live in the recently renovated homes that dot the Hollywood Hills or the mountains of Malibu before Dean sells them to the highest bidder—but real estate has slowed the last few months, and Dean is struggling to compete in a market where even the fixer-uppers are priced in the multimillions. He’s resorted to turning to bank loans to fund the last fewprojects. But affording the posh furnishings and luxury details his clients expect are eating up our profit quicker than it used to, so the bank isn’t willing to extend him the same line of credit they once did. I’m not worried. Dean is a hustler and always has been; it’s just one of the things I love about him. I know we’ll weather this temporary storm in our finances, but that’s why I’m so focused on taking Mia to the next level. This needs to work out for us. Otherwise, we’ll be moving out of El Segundo and be forced farther away from the coast—and the California coast is my brand.
I can’t afford the cab rides to Beverly Hills every day, so I’ve resorted to biweekly trips where I spend all day snapping photos and taking videos for behind-the-scenes stories and then doling them out over the course of the next two weeks, as if I’m spending every day floating around the chicest LA hot spots. It’s not ideal, but so far, my followers haven’t noticed that anything is off. That’s the thing about social media. You can be whoever you want with a little extra filtering and some motivation. I’ve even taken to shopping the luxury stores on Robertson, snapping photos as I try on designer heels or handbags as if I’m buying the items, when really, it’s just glorified window-shopping. When Dean and I actually go out for dinner, I’ve been known to buy a thousand-dollar designer dress and tuck the tags inside the zipper for the night before returning it the following morning.
It hasn’t always been this way. When Dean and I were dating and his houses were turning a multimillion-dollar profit, he bought me enough dresses to fill our walk-in closet, but I can’t be photographed in the same dress twice. Practical fashion isn’t my brand. Sophisticated luxury is.
The cab slows, and the driver frowns when I slide my credit card into the card reader. I know he’d rather I pay in cash, but cash is at a premium for us at the moment, and my line of creditis quickly dwindling. I’ve taken to reaching out to potential advertisers and offering a discount on my typical commission in an effort to lure them into sending me more products to sample.
