Chapter 2

The hospital discharged me the next afternoon. Julian texted that I should get myself home.

I unlocked the penthouse door and a woman's moan hit me before anything else.

Clothes on the floor. A trash can in the bedroom doorway stuffed with used condoms. Vivienne slid off Julian's lap at her own leisurely pace. She was wearing my silk slip — the lavender one he'd bought me in Paris.

She looked at me and stuck out her tongue, like a child caught stealing cookies.

"Oh, Ms. Harrington, so sorry. We got a little carried away."

Something in my chest tore clean in half. It hurt so much it stopped hurting. I didn't even know I'd moved until my palm cracked across her cheek.

"Did your parents never teach you not to sleep with married men?"

Vivienne's hand flew to her face. Her eyes filled on cue.

Julian was up and across the room before I could react. He shoved me hard. My hip slammed into the dining table. Pain shot up my spine.

His voice could have chipped ice. "Clara. You sound like a fishwife. Do you hear yourself?"

Vivienne buried her face in his chest, sobbing prettily. "Julian, I'm okay, don't blame her — she's just hurting. If it makes her feel better, she can hit me as many times as she needs."

Julian's voice went immediately, horribly soft. "Sweetheart. I told you. No one hurts you on my watch. She slapped you once. Give her back ten."

My stomach dropped. "Julian. Have you lost your mind?"

Vivienne lifted a tear-streaked face. "I don't dare — she's a lawyer, I'm scared she'll sue—"

"I'm right here," he said, stroking her hair. "You have nothing to be afraid of."

Then he seized my arm with enough force that I felt the bone grind. "Vivienne. Hit her back."

I tried to twist free. I couldn't.

Vivienne's smile curled up at the corners. The first slap caught me across the cheekbone.

I saw a boy in a white shirt, eighteen years old, ears turning red as he held out his umbrella. You don't have one, do you? Take mine. I'm Julian. What's your name?

The second slap was harder. My head snapped sideways. I tasted blood.

I saw a back-alley clinic, the year we couldn't afford a baby or a proper procedure. I saw Julian holding me afterward, crying so hard he couldn't form words, whispering I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I swear to God I will never let anyone hurt you again.

The third slap cracked something loose inside me and the tears finally came, mixing with the blood at the corner of my mouth.

I saw the day we'd closed on our first apartment, a real one with windows. Julian had taken my hand in the empty living room and said, Clara. I'm going to love you and only you. For the rest of my life. For every life after this one.

...

Ten slaps. He let me go. My legs folded and I slid down the wall.

Everything we'd ever been to each other had been beaten out of me in under a minute.

Julian's parting shot: "God, look at yourself. You're repulsive."

He tucked Vivienne under his arm and left.

I drew up divorce papers the same night.

I didn't get the chance to serve them. The next morning Julian kicked the door open, crossed the room in four strides and pinned me against the wall by the throat.

"Clara. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

I couldn't speak. He shoved his phone at my face.

Someone in the livestream audience had caught the weird energy with the intern and clipped it. The clip wasn't viral — until someone spliced in cellphone footage of me storming into Sterling Dynamics the same afternoon. Both clips together hit ten million views in an evening.

My loyal audience had gone scorched-earth. They'd doxxed Vivienne and were flaming her in every comment section on the internet.

I lifted my eyes to his. My voice was flat.

"You think I did this?"

"Who else, Clara?" He was shaking. "Vivienne cut her wrists this morning. Do you understand? You want to destroy me? Fine. But you don't touch her."

"It wasn't me—"

He wasn't listening. His pupils were black pinpoints. "Today you go on camera and you clean this up. If anything happens to her I will bury you."

"Clean up what?" I laughed, and the laugh scared me. "She called into my show. She told the world she was sleeping with a married man. What exactly do you want me to lie about?"

He exhaled through his teeth. "We say our marriage collapsed a year ago. That we've been separated. That you're refusing to sign divorce papers out of spite, and that you deliberately baited her on-air."

My palm cracked across his face before I knew I'd decided to do it.

"Absolutely not. What about my career? What about the people who believed in me?"

He left. We didn't speak again that day.

The whole reason we'd kept the marriage private in the first place was that early in his career Julian had been too visible, too threatening to the wrong people — he'd wanted me out of the line of fire. To protect me.

And now he was going to publicly hand the title of wife to someone else.