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I was well aware that Asha saw me as nothing but an insignificant eighteen-year-old piece of fluff who’d married for money. I’d made the mistake of deferring to her early on, as I’d been told that her job was, in essence, to manage me, and that I should listen to her. After the wedding I’d changed my strategy with her. I stopped putting up with all of her shit in silence. I didn’t have the power to fire her, but I also didn’t have to bear her insults quietly.

So far, standing up for myself and speaking my mind had given me no consequences from her higher ups, which was fortunate, because I had no plans to stop.

“Before we get to the schedule,” Asha began imperiously, completely ignoring our rude exchange, which was typical, “let me go over yourcall backs and bookings. You got the Stuart Weitzman job. Congratulations.” She said every word with utter disdain. “That will be very high profile. They tell me this will be an extensive amount of work for you starting as early as next week. You also received an offer to do the YSL fragrance campaign, but I’m still working with them on the schedule for that. It consists of a long video which shoots in Paris, and they want you for an entire week. That will be tricky but it’s being worked out.”

I didn’t see why it mattered if I was gone for a week, since I never saw my husband anyway, but I didn’t say anything. This was the arrangement I’d agreed to.

“You booked four more runway shows,” Asha continued, “and the offers are already coming in for fashion week, and let me tell you, that’s going to be a messy affair. I’ll clear it all with Mr. Castelo. What else? Oh yes. About the lingerie campaign you were offered. Your husband and the VS people finally came to an agreement. A limited one. You can take the job, but he sees each garment before you model it. They agreed to let him give the thumbs up or down, which was unexpected, but there you are.”

Vincent, my driver, walked into the room just then, nodded his head at me and sat down without a word.

“As for today,” Asha continued searching through her notes, not so much as sparing him a glance, “at noon sharp you have a luncheon with your mother-in-law and the board for the Castelo Foundation. That will last several hours. Next on the list is a photo shoot at four. You’ll have to go there directly from lunch. You’ll need to come home and change for a gala tonight. Your in-laws will be attending. Try not to embarrass them.”

“Is that everything?” I asked. I already knew that all of the free time left after that schedule would be spent either eating or working with my personal trainer.

“Since you don’t have anything until noon, I’ve scheduled you for two hours with your trainer starting at six forty-five. I see you already showered, but you’ll just have to shower again when you’re done. Hair and makeup will be here at nine thirty to prep you for the luncheon.”

I just nodded. I’d expected as much as soon as I’d seen that I’d been allotted significant windows of free time.

I left to get dressed, hoping that was the end of my morning interaction with Asha.

No such luck. She followed me into my closet. “The paparazzi will be at your gym, so make sure you’re presentable.”

I’d assumed as much. My workout was a very public affair. If you had a shiny new wife that worked her ass off at the gym on a daily basis, why not make the best of it and show her off?

Paparazzi set up camp at the entrance to my swanky health club, taking pictures of me coming and going.

Sometimes that was the extent of it, and other times they were allowed to take shots of my actual workout through the window, as though I was an unaware subject and they were my voyeurs.

I treated it as any modeling job, using my best angles to make sure the photos would at least be flattering.

“I don’t know if you saw the . . . rather distasteful photos they published of you two days ago. The ones featuring your . . . derriere.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course I’d seen them. They’d caught me in the middle of a grueling round of dirty dogs and taken full advantage. I’d assumed the whole thing was staged, as everything in my life was.

“Your husband was rather . . . agitated by those, so he would prefer it if you could refrain from doing that specific exercise in front of the ground level windows.”

“Do you think that was my idea? Reggie tells me how and where to train, and I do it. Take this up with him and whoever keeps calling the paparazzi every time I leave the house.”

“I believe your husband has already done so, but in case he missed any details, you should have a mind toward displaying yourself in a more ladylike fashion at all times.”

Asha relaying my husband’s messages to me was nothing new. We never communicated directly.

It was almost laughable. I didn’t even have his phone number. Our people communicated for us.

“You want me to work out in a ladylike fashion?” I asked, an edge to my tone. “That’s not a thing, Asha.”

She turned bright red with temper. “I don’t understand,” she spit out furiously, “how he could have found someone without one ounce of decorum or class. What he saw that made him choose a low-born slut like you I’ll never understand.” She was nearly foaming at the mouth by the end of her tirade.

Ah. There she was. She tried her best to stay frostily composed, but this was the hateful bitch who’d trained me to be the perfect, soulless, mail-order bride. “You should know better than anyone that I’m not a slut,” I told her calmly. “You were in the room when I was examined for a hymen.”

“A hymen that you sold like a common slut.”

“I doubt common sluts get paid as much as I did,” I told her deadpan, purely for the purpose of riling her further. She wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was I, so I figured I may as well make the best of it and give as good as I got.

I made a shooing motion with my hand. “Now move along. This expensive slut would like some privacy while she gets dressed.”

“As if you care,” she shot back as she moved away. “I’ve seen you at those vulgar modeling jobs of yours, changing like common riffraff for anyone to see.”