“I have the leverage,” Pat said, sitting down in the living room where Lizanne had managed to drag herself. “You were right about the fake fiancé. But it’s deeper than just a ploy. Rose Delaney is drowning. She has a mountain of personal debt—credit card balances that would make a CFO faint, one huge loan to a creditor on a line of credit with her name and some guy called Jeremy Planter. Apparently, the kid’s father. She’s been robbing Peter to pay Paul for years. She’s one bad month away from being a very pretty homeless person.”
Lizanne rubbed her eyes, her head throbbing with the rhythm of a heavy drum. “And her past?”
“Her history is perfect,” Pat continued. “She had two serious relationships aside from this Planter guy. Both women.She fits the narrative we need for the show perfectly. She’s lived in the city, she knows how to carry herself, and she’s desperate. She’s a professional liar who happens to actually like women. It’s a match made in Hell.”
Lizanne felt a cold, sharp resolve settle over her. The heartbreak was still there, a dull ache in the background, but it was being pushed aside by the necessity of survival. This wasn’t about love anymore; it was about the empire.
“I say we ask her nicely first if she’d consider it. As a favor to you. To herself, since she’d be getting paid.”
“And if she refuses?”
“Then we threaten to go public,” Pat said simply. “We tell the world that the sweet wedding planner is a con artist who fakes her own life to trick her clients. It would ruin her career and her reputation. She has a kid, Liz. She can’t afford to be a pariah. She’ll do whatever we tell her to do, and she’ll do it with a smile for the cameras.”
Lizanne reached for her phone on the floor. Her fingers were trembling slightly, but her voice—when she spoke—was steady. She didn’t want to explain. She didn’t want to beg. She just needed a pawn.
I need you here tomorrow morning,she typed.We have an urgent matter to discuss regarding your future. Please come by at 8 AM. Do not be late.
She hit send and looked out at the sprawling, glittering lights of the city. The glass palace was empty, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. She would pay Rose enough to wipe out every cent of her debt and secure her child’s future, and in return, Rosewould help Lizanne keep the only thing she had left: the image of a perfect life.
It wasn’t the dream she’d had with Trina, but in Los Angeles, a well-executed lie was often more profitable than the truth. Lizanne took a final sip of the lukewarm mimosa. “Well, Pat,” she whispered to the empty room. “Let’s see how much a soul costs.”
Chapter 12
Rose
Rose slowed as she turned onto Lizanne’s street, counting at least thirty paparazzi clustered outside the gate, their lenses pointed at her car before she’d even pulled up to the intercom. Someone shouted something she couldn’t make out. Another one pressed close to her window, and she jerked back instinctively.
She lowered the window an inch. “I’m expected,” she told the security panel.
The gate opened and she pulled through, watching in her rearview mirror as the photographers surged forward before the gate closed them out. One of them shouted something about Lizanne. She parked and sat for a moment.
Mel met her at the door. Before she’d taken three steps inside, Pat appeared from the side hallway, moving fast.
“Rose.” Pat took her arm just above the elbow, steering her toward the living room. Her grip was firm. “Good of you to come so quickly. I do hope this will be the beginning of a very successful collaboration.”
Rose looked at her. “We’ve already been collaborating.”
“Mm.” Pat smiled, which Rose had not seen her do before, and which she found unsettling. “Do sit down. Can Mel get you anything?”
“A Pepsi Max would be great.” She sat. “Pat. What’s going on?”
“Lizanne will be right with you.”
Pat disappeared. Rose looked around the living room — the piano, the photographs, the single framed picture of Trina that was still on the shelf. She pulled out her phone and opened her notifications.
She’d gotten through two headlines before she heard footsteps on the stairs.
Lizanne looked terrible. She’d lost weight — visible even across the room, in the way her collarbone sat too sharp above the open buttons of her shirt.
Her second thought, arriving immediately after the first and with considerably more inconvenience, was that Lizanne also looked extraordinary. White button-down, silver buttons catching the light. Dark jeans. Hair freshly blown out, makeup immaculate. She had assembled herself into someone who looked like nothing was wrong, and the effort of that was more revealing than if she’d come downstairs in sweats.
Rose stood. “Are you okay?”
Lizanne crossed to the armchair across from her and sat. “No,” she said. “But I’m managing.” She folded one leg over the other. “Have you seen the coverage today?”
“I was doing the school run.”
“Pat will catch you up on the details. The short version is that Trina and I are over.” She said it the way someone said a thing they’d already said many times that morning, worn down to its bare shape. “She’s been seeing someone else. That part is everywhere. What isn’t everywhere yet is the story we’re putting out.”
