Unmasking My A-List Husband

For five years, I was secretly married to one of the biggest movie stars alive.

Nobody knew.

On set, he held his first love. Kissed her. I looked away and pretended I hadn't seen.

On my own show, I let an A-list co-star lean in close and take my hand. His face iced over.

Then I lost the baby, mid-shoot, on camera, and I called my husband sobbing.

He was across the country, watching his first love accept an award. He let it ring out.

The comments got to me first.

Commenters: [Knocked up, no ring. What a slut.]

Then he said it. Out loud. Where everyone could hear.

"The baby was mine."

Five years, and that was the night I stopped being the woman he kept hidden behind him.

Here's the punchline, though.

By the time he finally claimed me, I didn't want him anymore.

Chapter 1

On my birthday, I checked myself into surgery. Alone.

My husband was across town at the time, picking out a birthday cake for his first love.

He's one of the most famous actors in the country. We'd been married five years.

Nobody knew.

The doctor stopped me at the doors to the OR. "Ms. Hale. No family coming?"

"I can do this myself," I said.

"It isn't a small procedure. Someone should be here for you."

I smiled and said nothing.

What was I going to tell him. That my husband was busy. That right now he was somewhere in the city choosing a cake, and it wasn't for me.

Two nurses drifted past, heads together, whispering.

"Adrian Rhodes and Vanessa Lane got caught on a date, did you hear?"

"They were each other's first loves, you know. After everything, back to square one. God, that's romantic. They have to get married."

Adrian.

I hadn't seen his face in a long time.

I pressed a hand flat to my chest, dropped my eyes, and let them wheel me in.

Three hours. It went fine.

When I woke up, the sky had gone black.

I turned my phone on. The first missed call on the screen was his.

I picked up.

"Addie!" Vanessa's voice came bright and easy down the line. "Adrian says it's your birthday. Happy birthday! He just bought me the most amazing cake, there's half of it left, and I told him to bring you the rest. Don't be offended, okay? It's just so late, there's nowhere left for me to grab you a proper gift"

The phone rustled. Adrian took it back.

"Stop being annoying," he said. "You never shut up."

He said it to her.

Vanessa huffed, delighted. "See, I knew you'd start lecturing me. You always did, back when we were together." A little laugh. "Except you're not my boyfriend anymore."

He laughed too. Low. I knew that laugh. I used to think it was mine.

Someone in the background egged them on. "Man, you're only half human when Nessa's around. Just get back together already"

My stomach turned over. The incision under my ribs pulled hard enough to make my eyes sting.

I hung up before the tears could land.

He called back once. I killed it. Then I powered the phone off.

I lasted three days in that hospital bed before I dragged myself up and went back to work.

I'm a series regular on a farmhouse reality show called Slow Living. You don't skip a taping. They dock your pay.

This week we had guest stars. Two of them, apparently. A rumored couple. Big numbers online.

The guy called ahead. His voice came through scrambled, filtered, impossible to place.

"I'm here to find someone," he said.

"There's a person I haven't seen in a long time. I've missed her."

Ten minutes later, the gate to the little farmhouse yard swung open.

Adrian stood there. Smiling. Soft, the kind of soft I hadn't been on the receiving end of in years.

I froze with an armful of firewood, dust on my face, ash on my hands.

Him. He was the guest.

He hated these shows. He'd told me a hundred times.

He said he came to find someone. Someone he'd missed.

Who. Who did he want to see.

My heartbeat slammed up into my ears, loud enough to swallow the whole yard.

Then a second head popped out from behind him, grinning, waving hello to the crew.

Vanessa.

Oh.

So that was the rumored couple.

Adrian's gaze slid over me, flat and cold, and it didn't stop.

Chapter 2

Besides me, the show had two other regulars.

Gerald Bishop. An industry elder, decades of clout, a contacts list longer than most careers. He hosted. He kept the conversation moving.

Caleb Sinclair. A-list, all cheekbones and shoulders, there to generate headlines and heat.

And then me. Adeline Hale. Washed-up, unremarkable, good for nothing in particular. I did the chores. I cooked. I filled the empty chair at the edge of the frame.

I never understood why a show this big kept a nobody like me on the roster.

Maybe it was the culinary license.

Adrian walked straight over to Gerald, warm as anything. "Mr. Bishop. Been too long."

Vanessa trailed after him and dipped into a little bow. "Mr. Bishop! I've heard so much about you. We're shooting nearby, and the second I heard you were here, Adrian said we absolutely had to come pay our respects."

She cut a glance at me. Tipped up one corner of her mouth. There was a dare sitting in her eyes.

Adrian was clearing a path for her. Making introductions. Spending favors.

When we got married, he told me we had to be careful. Keep our distance in public.

Five years. In front of a camera he never gave me a single word. If we crossed paths at an event, he kept that proud chin up and didn't spare me a look.

He'd never once spent a favor on me. Never owed anyone a thing on my account.

I smiled to myself.

I really did flatter myself, didn't I.

Thinking, for one stupid second, that the person Adrian came to find might be me.

He settled into the yard with Vanessa and Gerald, loose and laughing. I stayed in the kitchen and watched him out of the side of my eye. And somewhere between the cutting board and the stove, the thought arrived, whole and quiet.

I want a divorce.

I chased this man for three years. Signed the papers five years ago and made him mine.

When we were newlyweds I slept with the marriage certificate tucked under my pillow. I'd wake up laughing from some dream and rub my eyes just to be sure the man asleep beside me was really him.

The girl I was back then couldn't have imagined that one day I'd be the one to leave first.

Then again, in whatever Adrian and I had, the choice was always his to make.

I carried the food out. Vanessa peered into her bowl and made a small sound.

"I don't do cilantro."

She thought about it, then picked out everything she didn't like and dropped it into Adrian's bowl, piece by piece.

He gave her a flat, long-suffering look. She stuck out her tongue and pulled a face at him.

Gerald grinned. "That rumor about you two's real, isn't it. Young love. Sweetest thing."

"It's fake," Adrian said. Didn't even look up.

Vanessa's face did something quick and small before she laughed, big and careless, and turned to Gerald.

"Don't get the wrong idea, Mr. Bishop. Adrian and I are just buddies. When we dated, honestly? He took care of me way too well. I'd have gone soft and useless if I'd stayed. I had to cut myself loose and learn to stand on my own two feet."

The whole yard laughed.

"So what's your type, then?" Gerald asked.

Vanessa ticked it off on her fingers. "Tall. Handsome. Steady. Reads books. Looks good in glasses. Black shirt, grey trousers."

Adrian huffed a small laugh.

He was wearing glasses today. A black shirt. Grey trousers.

Gerald laughed too and shook his head at her. "You're a funny little thing, aren't you."

I must have been too quiet, because he turned to me next.

"Addie. Your phone lock screen is Adrian, isn't it? Your idol finally shows up in the flesh and you go shy on us? Not one word?"

My knife stopped on the board.

I looked up.

Adrian was watching me, the ghost of a smile on his mouth, not quite landing.

Chapter 3

Vanessa piped up out of nowhere and turned her phone around for the table to see.

"Addie, you use Adrian as your lock screen too? So do I!" She beamed. "I snapped this one on set. If you like it, I'll send it to you."

In the photo, Adrian was asleep. Vanessa had leaned in close over him, close enough that it looked like they were stealing a kiss.

I smiled, calm as still water. "You two match."

Then I looked back down and kept eating.

Adrian's brow ticked up. His eyes grazed the two of us. He picked up his bowl, took a sip of wine, and looked distinctly unhappy about something.

After lunch the director killed the cameras and called a break.

I'd been on my feet all morning, and the incision under my ribs had started to pull.

I slipped inside and dug out my painkillers. Before I could get one down, Vanessa's manager appeared in the doorway.

She folded her arms and informed me I was going to go make Vanessa a salad. Now.

"Nessa didn't eat well at lunch. Go make her a salad and bring it over."

Vanessa had been too busy stealing the spotlight to eat. Shocking.

I lifted my water to my mouth and smiled, cold. "She's hungry, she can order in. I'm not here to babysit anyone's bad habits."

The manager's hand cracked across mine. Hot water went all down my front.

She dropped her voice to a warning. "Watch your tone. Cooking for Nessa is a courtesy. Do you have any idea what she's worth? Once she marries Adrian Rhodes, there'll be a line out the door to kiss her ring. We hand you a little face and you throw it back? Enjoy getting blackballed."

The anger shot straight up into my throat.

I flicked my wrist and threw what was left in the cup into her face.

Vanessa heard the commotion and came running, already pulling tissues, dabbing at her manager's cheeks.

"Addie. Did we do something to upset you? Let's just talk it through. We're all educated women here. There's really no need to get physical."

Adrian strolled in behind her, unhurried, and pushed the door shut, sealing the gawkers out in the yard.

I laughed.

"You didn't eat well at lunch," I said to Vanessa. "So you want me to go make you a salad. Right now. I just cooked for five people. By myself. And now I'm supposed to plate up for you on the side, too?" I tilted my head. "Am I your mother?"

She opened her mouth.

"Oh, and I hear you're marrying the great Adrian Rhodes any day now, and you're planning to have me blackballed." I set the cup down. "Go on. Tell me. How exactly do we talk this through nicely."

Here's the thing. I'd never wanted to waste breath on Vanessa. Two women clawing at each other over a man is, in my book, the dullest thing on the menu.

But she kept coming back for more. At a certain point, not shutting it down starts to look like a character flaw.

Vanessa hadn't expected my mouth to move that fast. She stalled. Her eyes flicked to Adrian, quick.

Then she stepped in to take my arm, all wide-eyed and wounded. "Addie, it's just a misunderstanding, don't work yourself up"

She was wearing a faint gardenia scent.

I knew that perfume. Rare. Expensive. Adrian bought it once.

Back then, I'd thought it was a surprise for me. I was quietly happy about it for days.

Turns out I'd flattered myself. Again.

My face pulled into a frown before I could stop it. I put a hand up between us.

"Do me a favor and back up. You smell awful. You're making me sick."

Vanessa's face froze. Her mouth twitched into something like a smile, and she took two steps back.

Adrian's expression went cold. He just looked at me, and his voice came out flat.

"Adeline. That was out of line. Apologize."

Chapter 4

I opened my mouth. Before a single word made it out, the tears came first.

Pathetic, Adeline. What are you crying for.

Adrian went still. He reached for my face, like he meant to wipe them away.

I ducked his hand and slapped him across the mouth.

"Don't you fucking touch me," I got out, throat closing around the words. "You make me sick."

Vanessa and her manager froze. Then it registered, and they settled in to watch, eyes lit like it was the good part of a movie.

In this business, who lays a hand on Adrian Rhodes? You look up a man's reach before you swing at him.

His head had turned with the hit. His jaw worked, slow.

My wound tore. It felt like a knife going in and being dragged back out, and I folded over it.

Hands shaking, I got the painkillers out and dry-swallowed one.

Adrian took the packet out of my fingers before I could react. His face went black as he read the label.

He didn't say a word about the slap. He only asked, "Painkillers? Where does it hurt?"

I was the color of the wall. I braced on the table leg, got myself up, and started edging toward the cot.

"None of your business. Go find Vanessa. Get out."

He caught me by the arm. His eyes were frightening.

"Who told you to drag yourself to work like this? What, am I too fucking broke to keep you fed?"

"Two options. You come home with me quietly. Or I carry you, and you come home with me quietly."

Carry me? Here? Please.

The man had spent years perfecting his distance. He wasn't about to court a scandal over me.

I threw his hand off and spelled it out for him, one word at a time. "You. Get. Lost"

I didn't finish. The floor dropped, and Adrian hauled me over his shoulder like a bandit making off with someone's bride.

The second we cleared the doorway, every head in the yard turned. My heart climbed into my throat.

I covered my face and kicked.

He smacked me on the backside. "Keep it up," he snapped, "and I swear I'll drop you in a ditch."

He dumped me into the car. All the manhandling had done its work. My wound had split open again.

Blood was seeping through my shirt.

His face changed. He reached over and pulled the fabric aside, and there it was. The two-inch line on my chest, the skin around it still bruised purple.

"Adrian, what is wrong with you"

I went for his face again. He caught my wrist without effort, glaring, but when he spoke his voice had dropped all the way down.

"Can you please. Just be okay."

"I call, you don't answer. You pull a disappearing act on me."

"You had surgery. Why wouldn't you tell me. You decided I was dead? Is that it, Adeline."

His teeth were clenched. Like it hurt him to look at me.

Sure it did.

I put my shirt back on, mouth curved cold, folded myself into the seat, and shut my eyes.

Two weeks earlier, they'd found something in my breast. Big enough that it had to come out and go under a microscope.

I booked the surgery. Then I sat there with the phone in my hand, and I called Adrian.

He picked up right as it was about to time out. His voice was low. "Mm. What is it."

One syllable. That "Mm" was the whole marriage, start to finish.

My throat locked. The tears came down without asking.

I didn't even know how to say it. That there might be something growing in me. That it might be cancer. That I might be dying.

"I'm sick"

I got that far.

Then, in the background: "Adrian. If you don't come over here right now, I am going to be genuinely upset."

Vanessa.

He laughed. Turned his head away from her, back to the phone. "Hang tight. I'll call you back."

The line went dead in my ear.

I sat there looking at the dark screen, and my hand went slack around it.

Chapter 5

Midnight came and went. He never called back.

Adrian. Why is it always me, the one left waiting.

Adrian. I'm done waiting.

After they'd closed the wound, he drove me home himself. His phone rang the whole way. In the end he just shut it off.

I lay down and turned to face the wall.

"Go on," I said, even. "You're busy."

The company I used to starve for didn't seem to matter much anymore.

"Sleep," he said.

A pause.

"From now on, I won't hang up on you again."

The apartment answered with silence. He tucked the corner of the blanket in around me, stood, and left.

I really was tired. I slept until nine the next night.

When I woke, he was still there.

He was leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window, hands in his pockets, a cigarette hanging off his mouth. That loose, no-good look of his that nobody else got to see.

The lights were off. In the grey, the ember flared and dimmed, flared and dimmed.

"Hungry? I made you some soup."

He came toward me and pinched the cigarette out on the way.

I closed my hands into fists, slowly, and finally worked up the nerve to say the thing I'd been holding.

"Let's get a divorce."

His foot stalled mid-step. Then he laughed, lazy, like I'd told him a decent joke.

"On what grounds?" he asked.

It came straight out of me. "I hate you."

He crossed the room. Tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and left his palm resting against my cheek.

"Adeline. When we got married, we said it. In sickness, in health, till death. No leaving."

"We weren't afraid of dying. You think a little hate scares me?"

"So. Wife."

"Your grounds don't hold."

We had a screaming fight that night. Or, I did. He just stood there and took it.

I didn't understand what he wanted from me. If the love was gone, why keep us both on the rack. Why not let go.

The next morning I texted the Slow Living director to apologize.

He was very gracious. He told me I didn't need to come in for tapings anymore.

"Adeline. I didn't know what you were to Mr. Rhodes. Forgive us if we ever fell short. He mentioned you haven't been well lately. He'd like you to rest up."

I sat on the anger and called Adrian.

He picked up on the first ring. Like he'd been sitting there waiting for it.

I asked him who gave him the right to touch my career.

"I make the money. You spend it," he said. "What's wrong with that?"

I laughed, cold. "Adrian. I want a divorce. Don't embarrass yourself. It won't get you anywhere. We can do this in court if we have to."

He laughed right back at me. "You're welcome to try."

Over the next two weeks, my jobs fell away one by one. Nobody would touch me.

He was disciplining me. The way you'd discipline a disobedient little dog.

I didn't buy it. I chased down every gig I could find, and every time I got the same sentence back: "So sorry, Ms. Hale."

The divorce went the same way. Every lawyer I signed backed out inside two days. Nobody would take the case.

You're laughing somewhere, aren't you, Adrian. Watching me flail around like a clown. Is that the fun in it for you.

You don't love me.

You just can't stand the sight of someone fighting back.

Chapter 6

On day ten of the cold war, Gilded called me in for the final audition.

I rolled around on my bed like a kid.

The film was stacked. Top director, top cast, half of it foreign money. Which was probably the exact reason Adrian couldn't get his hands on it.

I let myself feel good about that. For once, in this war of ours, it felt like I'd taken a little ground.

Then I got to the audition and ran into Vanessa.

She greeted me like we were old friends. "Addie! Are you up for the female lead too? You're such a good actress. Go easy on me in there, okay?"

Her manager smiled, oily. "Ms. Hale's obviously not here for the lead. The lead doesn't need acting chops. It needs a name. And relax, Nessa, Mr. Rhodes already said just focus on your performance. The role's yours. Don't worry about a thing."

I shut my script. Decided I could spare a minute to teach Vanessa something about the world.

"I'm planning to divorce Adrian," I said. "Did you know that?"

Her eyes lit right up.

I let a laugh slip. "He won't agree to it, though."

The light went out of her face, plain as day.

I stood. I had half a head on her. I set a finger against her forehead and backed her up with it, step by step.

"Vanessa. If you can talk Adrian into divorcing me and marrying you, that would be a real talent. Genuinely. Until then?" I tilted my head. "You don't think you look exactly like every other mistress who's a little too pleased with herself?"

She'd gone red to the ears.

"You want to know why I can't be bothered with you? Because it's a step down."

I pulled a sanitizing wipe from the pack, cleaned off my hands, and dropped it in the trash.

Gilded was set in the 1920s. Old money, old estates, a golden-boy painter and the women he ruined himself over.

Caleb played the young heir to the family fortune.

The role I was reading for came into the house when the heir was eighteen. A famous stage actress the family had taken in, older than him, worldly, the kind of beautiful that gets a boy into trouble. Behind the high walls of that estate they fell into something they weren't allowed to have. Wrong for the years between them, wrong for who she was, wrong every way that counted.

She was his first love. His first everything.

Small part. But she burned on the page.

I was waiting in the wings when someone leaned in close to my ear and called me, low and coaxing.

"Muse."

My stomach dropped. I turned. It was Caleb Sinclair.

I'd heard he had the male lead.

He's five years younger than me. Back on Slow Living he'd trailed me everywhere, calling me his muse, clingy as a kid who hadn't been weaned. Back then I honestly thought of him as a little brother.

Today he was looking at me with something else behind his eyes.

The way the heir looks at his muse. In the corners where no one's watching. Sweet in the mouth, and underneath it, wanting. Teasing her. Reeling her in.

I pinched my fingers to bring myself back and gave him an easy, careless hello.

He smiled at me, all warmth. "Feeling better, muse? Your face is so red."

It was a line from the script.

Chapter 7

The scene they had us read was the one where the muse fakes an illness to slip out and play.

Caleb ran it with me.

The muse loved the water. She'd gone out to Crescent Lake, on the edge of town, to swim. Whether by design or by accident, the heir happened to be there with his easel.

The water dragged her thin dress against her, drew every line of her, and she became the most exquisite poison the summer had to offer.

He watched her from the bank, and the wanting in his eyes only thickened.

When she'd had her fill she waded to the shore and ducked, guilty as a thief, into the cave where she'd hidden her clothes.

He followed her in. Stepped straight into the snare the little fox had set.

At first she pretended to startle at the sight of him. When he sat down beside her she flushed and edged away, putting a careful gap between them.

He caught her chin. Leaned in, unhurried, half-teasing.

His thumb moved slow along her jaw. He got close enough that his breath caught on her lips, and then he stayed there, not closing the gap, letting the wait do all the work.

He didn't rush the kiss. He just scolded her, soft. "Hiding from me? And where exactly would you go."

"Muse. You've been bad lately."

Caleb was very close now. One hand had curled around the back of my neck, penning me in so I couldn't get away.

The door opened.

Adrian walked in, took the seat beside the director, and smiled. "Sorry. Running late."

His gaze slid over Caleb, cold, and settled on me. He tipped up one corner of his mouth, a cat that had cornered a very stupid mouse.

That was when it landed. He was one of the producers on Gilded.

He'd done this on purpose.

He wanted to sit here and watch me fight him with everything I had, and then flatten me under one finger. He was filing my edges down to nothing.

I sat there, hollowed out, a hole punched clean through my chest and a cold wind whistling through it.

Caleb pinched the back of my neck. His voice dropped, rough, and drifted into my ear.

"Muse. Focus. It's your line to kiss me now."

Wrong.

The audition sides ended there. That was the last beat.

Before I could react, he went on. "Or I could kiss you. That works too."

That line wasn't in the script