“Are you going to her place tonight?” I whip the second pen at his head.
“It’s not your business.”
“I-I thought we had an understanding? If I overlooked your slutty ways?—”
“Don’t start this, Shae. Please. You have your own life, I have mine. We’ve been living separately for a while. This just finalizes it.”
I’m fuming at the audacity of his trying to talk me down after everything we’ve been through. Although, he’s right. I can’t fault him for leaving me for another woman. It’s the same thing he did to his first wife. Dean isn’t the kind of man that gets along alone very well—of course he had someone else lined up to take my place.
“I can’t believe I let you fool me for this long. I should have left when I found the hotel receipts for the weekend in Santa Barbara. I should have left and taken you for everything then?—”
His laugh is meant to infuriate me. He shakes his head. “There was no everything. Not even then. You’ve been burning through my profits as quickly as I can make them, to support Mia.”
“I can’t believe I fell for a snake like you,” I seethe, grasping the only thing within my reach, a stupid glass-and-gold award Dean won for being the top seller at the first real estate agency he worked with when he moved to Los Angeles. I chuck it as hard as I can at his head, and he ducks, narrowly missing the edge of the plaque before it shatters the window behind his head and lands with a thunk on the street below.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Shae Miller.” I cringe when he uses my maiden name. The name I’ve been trying to kill since the day we met.
“Watch me.” I swipe a coffee table book of Malibu beach homes from the desk and chuck it at him. He shields his face with his forearm, and the hardcover drops to the floor, spine splitting. He’s on me then, clutching both of my wrists andshoving me against the broken window. My heart jackhammers inside my chest as I realize he could end me here. He’s towering over me, using all his strength to keep my petite form from attacking him. I’d kill him right now if I thought I could get away with it. My mind flashes to how I’ll explain this to my followers. Divorce doesn't fit into the narrative of Mia’s life.
“Fuck with me, and I will ruin you where it counts, Shae.”
“Drop dead,” I boil.
His eyes round and his nostrils flare before he cocks his arm back and slaps me hard across the face. Tears sting my eyes, and I can feel a sharp tingle where his palm will leave a mark on my cheek.
“I’ll expose Mia as a fraud to your followers, Shae. If you so much as whisper a word in my direction again, I’ll expose you to everyone.”
Fury instantly possesses me. The kind of fury that makes me a stranger in my own skin. The calm that usually inhabits me takes flight, and in its place, unbridled malevolence fills every throbbing fiber of my frame. “You wouldn’t.”
We worked so hard to build Mia Starr. He could tear me down with a few finger swipes. But would he?
As if he can read my mind, he says, “I would in a fucking heartbeat.”
And suddenly, years of love are forgotten in the hatred of a single moment.
Chapter Three
My bloodstream vibrates with red wine as I swipe aimlessly through my newsfeed. While chic shots of faraway places and designer attire would normally distract me, now they’re only working the sadness deeper into my muscles. My body aches with the profound sense of loss I’m feeling. I know Dean isn’t a good man, but I thought he was good for me. I thought we were good together. Love is like that sometimes. I was never looking for a knight in shining armor; I was only looking for someone to fill the cracks that webbed across my heart from years of neglect. I know I’ll be fine. I know I’ll overcome the bump in the road that is my ruined marriage. But I’m not sure Mia will. My entire persona is predicated on wealth and luxury, the life Dean and I built together. I can still visit high-end designers and snap try-on photos, but it will be harder, so much harder. Dean’s access to the real estate world afforded him invites to luxury mansions and chic private lounges where I could sip champagne and pretend that my life is perfect.
Now, pretending will take much more planning.
I type Jesika Layman’s name into my search bar, and herprofile pops up instantly. She’s the top name in my search. I don’t follow her, because that would clue my followers in to the face behind the facade, but I do check out her profile at least weekly. From New York to London to Ibiza, she has the life I’ve been pretending to have. While I know the reality of a working model isn’t as glamorous as it seems, it’s leaps and bounds more glam than mine.
Her most recent picture is tagged at the Polo Lounge, and I balk. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if we ran into each other in real life. She’s never seen me and wouldn’t recognize the features of my plain Jane face. The thought occurs to me that maybe she has been recognized as Mia Starr, though. I frown, figuring she would chalk it up to a case of a doppelgänger and then move on with her day. Or maybe she knows she’s the face of a personal brand. But Dean and I paid top dollar for the photo shoot and photos, and we even had her and the agency sign a nondisclosure regarding how the photos would be used. It must be weird. Being a model makes her a professional at becoming someone else. A familiar face without an identity. A beautiful liar.
I slide down her profile to the last week of photos, and I notice a pattern. She’s in LA right now—that much is obvious because she’s quick to tag herself wherever she goes—but she’s also visiting locations Dean liked to take me to. My heart thrums wildly as I continue to scroll until I reach a well-posed photo of her on the beach with a mystery man.
Sunsets with my baby are my favorite! xo
I pinch the screen with my fingers and zoom in on the arm that’s causally wrapped around her shoulders. One hand—clearly a man’s—is in the shot, the thick knuckles dusted with dark hair and one gleaming platinum ring.
I gasp in disbelief.
I know that ring. The intricate web of filigree thatwraps around the gem mounted in the center would be recognizable anywhere. It’s the ring Dean received from the Los Angeles Board of Realtors when he outsold everyone else at his agency his first year working for them. He profited nearly half a billion for the company that first year, his smooth-talking charm sealing countless deals as he hustled his way through Malibu, Santa Monica, and the Hollywood Hills.
The year we met.
I hated that ring and teased him about it endlessly. It’s gaudy and ostentatious and, for me, only represented his dedication to making the company rich and not us. His commission was abysmal that year because he was a freshman agent, and it was because of that that I convinced him to strike out on his own and build his own company. He was born with natural charm, and after that first year, he’d garnered enough networking connections to turn all of his hard work into sales. I believed in him, I still do, and after months of my convincing, he finally submitted his resignation to the company and started his own real estate agency. He was the singular agent, with me at his side to help seal the deals, but the stars never aligned for us. The agency seemed dead on arrival, and while we had a few good years, we struggled to keep the company afloat even in the best of times. The truth of it was, that despite all of Dean’s charm, neither of us had a head for finances and business management. I can’t help but feel regret now, wondering where we’d be if he'd stayed with the company that had brought him so much success initially. I should have kept my mouth shut on the matter, because opening my mouth had hastened the end of us. And that ring gave me a wicked sense of PTSD as a result.
