“No.”
“Why not?”
“I hadn’t heard from her in weeks. I thought it was over.”
“Did you meet her in person?”
Lizanne looked away.
“I already know you did,” Rose said. “She showed me a photograph. You were in a car. You were kissing.”
The color left Lizanne’s face in a clean, visible sweep.
“She texted me a few times. I don’t know how she got my new number. I ignored her. Then, the day I met with thenetwork, she cornered me. Got in the car with me and told me she wanted to get back together. I told her no. She reached over and kissed me.” She held Rose’s gaze. “I pushed her away. It lasted two seconds. It was not something I wanted or invited.”
“She has a photograph.”
“She was clearly prepared for the meeting in ways I wasn’t.”
“She told me something else,” Rose said. “She said the whole thing is for the show. That you don’t love me — you’re performing it. That every version of this is a story you built because it plays well on camera. Because the ratings are good and the spin-off is coming and I am a convenient leading lady with a ready-made child and a debt you could pay off.”
Lizanne stared at her. “You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what I believe right now.” Rose kept her voice level. “I know that two months ago I would have said without hesitation that I knew the difference between you performing and you being real.” She paused. “And then I find out you’ve been meeting your ex and not mentioning it, and I think: what else have I missed? What else have I decided was real because I wanted it to be?”
Lizanne was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was low and direct. “I love you. That is not a performance. It has never been a performance.”
“Jeremy,” Rose said.
Lizanne’s jaw tightened. Just slightly.
“Did you pay him off? She said you did.”
The pause this time was not small. It was long enough to drive a truck through long enough for Rose to watch Lizanne arrive at the decision to tell the truth and then tell it.
“Yes,” Lizanne said.
The word dropped into the room.
“When?”
“The day before he dropped the suit. I got in touch with his lawyer and negotiated a number. He agreed. So I did it.”
“Without telling me.”
“Because I knew you’d say no.”
“I would have said no because I know what he was going to do. He’ll take the money and then in a few months, he’ll be back for more. Then you’ll pay him again. And again… It would never end. I did not need you to solve it. I needed you to listen to me. You sat in that meeting with Reiss,” Rose said. “You sat there while he outlined the whole strategy and I said I wanted to fight it properly and you nodded and the whole time you had already planned to pay him off.”
“I was going to tell you. But then…” she stopped. “No, that’s not true. I wasn’t going to tell you ever. Because I wanted to avoid this.”
“If you lied about the payment,” Rose said, “I have to ask what else you’ve handled without telling me.”
“Rose—”
“She wasn’t wrong in how she described you. Bending things the way you want. So it benefits your show. Your career. It’s how we got married after all.”
The room went quiet. Lizanne stood on her side of it and Rose on hers and the distance between them felt impossible.
