A week before my wedding, the man I had loved for five years paid a stranger to destroy my face.
I did not know that when I left my final dress fitting in downtown Indianapolis.
I was thinking about flowers.
White peonies, specifically.
Christian hated roses because he thought they were too predictable for photographs, and after five years with one of the most recognizable singers in America, I had learned that almost everything in our lives eventually became a photograph.
The restaurant where we had our first date.
The apartment where he proposed.
The hospital entrance after my first miscarriage.
Even grief had somehow become part of Christian Prescott’s public image.
That afternoon, I stepped onto the sidewalk carrying a garment bag and heard someone call my name.
“Genevieve?”
I turned.
The man looked ordinary.
Baseball cap. Dark jacket. Phone in one hand.
He smiled nervously.
“My daughter loves Christian. Could I get a picture?”
I almost smiled.
That was the last normal moment of my life.
His other hand came out of his jacket.
There was a bottle.
Then liquid hit the right side of my face.
Pain exploded across my skin.
I screamed.
The garment bag slipped from my hands. Someone shouted for an ambulance. I remember dropping to my knees and covering my face even though touching it made everything worse.
People gathered.
Someone poured water over me.
Someone else kept saying, “Stay with us.”
Then the pavement rushed toward my eyes.
Darkness swallowed everything.
When consciousness returned, the first thing I noticed was the smell.
Antiseptic.
Plastic.
Clean sheets.
Hospitals had a smell I knew too well.
Three miscarriages had taught me that.
For a few confused seconds, I believed I had lost another baby.
Then pain burned beneath the bandages wrapped around my head, cheek, and jaw.
Memory returned.
The man.
The bottle.
My scream.
I tried to move.
A monitor changed rhythm beside me.
So I stopped.
Voices came from near the window.
I recognized the first one immediately.
Gabriel Mercer.
Christian’s manager.
Gabriel had managed Christian since before I met him. He was the man who handled canceled shows, furious sponsors, screaming fans, security emergencies, and every disaster Christian created behind closed doors.
Usually, Gabriel sounded impossible to shock.
That night, his voice was shaking.
“You could have broken up with her.”
Silence.
Then Christian answered.
“You know it wasn’t that simple.”
My heart seemed to stop beneath the hospital blanket.
I kept my eyes closed.
Gabriel spoke again.
“You could have canceled the wedding. You could have admitted you were in love with Sabrina. You could have done anything except this.”
I forgot the pain in my face.
Sabrina.
I knew the name.
Sabrina Cole had been one of Christian’s backup singers during his second national tour.
Beautiful. Red-haired. Effortlessly confident.
Christian had once told me she had moved to Nashville.
Apparently, she had moved much closer than that.
Christian sighed.
“If I dumped Genevieve seven days before the wedding, every journalist in America would start searching for the reason. They’d find Sabrina.”
“So?”
“So my contracts collapse.”
His voice was calm.
That frightened me more than shouting would have.
“My audience believes in us, Gabriel. The loyal fiancé. The devoted couple. The woman who stayed beside me before the awards, before the stadium tours, before the money. Genevieve is part of the brand.”
Part of the brand.
Five years.
Three pregnancies.
A wedding dress hanging in a boutique.
And I was part of a brand.
Gabriel whispered, “You paid someone to attack her.”
Christian did not deny it.
My fingers curled under the blanket.
“I paid someone to make sure she couldn’t appear at the wedding.”
“Look at her.”
“I have.”
“She may be scarred for life.”
Another silence.
Then Christian said the sentence that killed whatever love I had left for him.
“If she is, that actually makes things easier.”
Gabriel sounded as though he had been struck.
“What?”
“I’ll take care of her. Publicly.”
Christian stepped closer to my bed. I could hear his shoes.
“I’ll get sympathy. She’ll get a house, nurses, whatever treatment she needs. And after something like this, where exactly is she going to go?”
My throat tightened.
He continued.
“She’ll be terrified of cameras. She’ll depend on me. People will praise me for staying.”
Gabriel cursed under his breath.
“You’re insane.”
“No. I’m protecting everything we built.”
Everything we built.
I remembered sleeping in cheap motels while Christian played half-empty clubs.
I remembered loaning him money when his first record deal collapsed.
I remembered editing his website at two in the morning because he could not afford a publicist.
When success finally arrived, he used to hold my face between his hands and say, “You’re the only person who loved me when I was nobody.”
Now he had paid somebody to destroy that face.
Gabriel’s next question came slowly.
“What about Genevieve wanting children?”
My entire body became still.
Christian gave a small laugh.
“She won’t be having any.”
“What does that mean?”
“I handled it years ago.”
The monitor beside me began beating faster.
I forced myself to breathe slowly.
Gabriel noticed nothing.
“Handled what?”
“Dr. Lawson helped.”
My stomach turned.
Dr. Charles Lawson.
My gynecologist.
The physician Christian had insisted I see after my first miscarriage.
The man who had prescribed supplements and hormone treatments.
The doctor who had looked me directly in the eyes after my third loss and said, “Sometimes these things happen without an explanation.”
Christian continued speaking.
“Lawson adjusted her treatments. Changed doses when necessary. Made sure pregnancy wouldn’t become a permanent complication.”
Gabriel’s voice cracked.
“Permanent complication?”
“You know what I mean.”
I remembered my first pregnancy.
Christian had cried when I showed him the positive test.
At least, I thought he had.
He had dropped to his knees, kissed my stomach, and told me we were going to be a family.
Six weeks later, I began bleeding.
During my second pregnancy, Christian became obsessive about my medication.
“Doctor’s orders,” he would say, placing the pills beside my breakfast.
After the third miscarriage, I told him I could not try again.
He held me while I sobbed.
He whispered, “None of this is your fault.”
I nearly screamed from the bed.
Instead, I stayed still.
Because Christian was not finished.
“Sabrina wants Leo to stop living like a secret,” he said.
Gabriel did not answer.
My mind seized on one word.
Leo.
“Who is Leo?” Gabriel finally asked.
Christian lowered his voice.
“My son.”
I felt something inside me break.
“How old?”
“Four.”
Four.
Christian and I had been together five years.
The arithmetic required no effort.
Gabriel sounded sick.
“You had a child with Sabrina while Genevieve was trying to get pregnant?”
“I didn’t plan it.”
“And while Genevieve was losing pregnancies—”
“Keep your voice down.”
“You were raising another family?”
“Not raising. Supporting.”
The distinction apparently mattered to him.
Christian explained his plan as though discussing a tour schedule.
He would remain publicly engaged to me until the attack generated enough sympathy.
The wedding might be postponed.
Later, once my condition stabilized, he would marry me because our relationship was worth millions in sponsorships, endorsements, and future documentary deals.
Sabrina would receive her own private ceremony.
Not legally binding.
But symbolic.
A promise.
A secret life.
Eventually Leo would be introduced as the child of a “close family friend” or perhaps, depending on public reaction, Christian would admit paternity and claim it happened during a temporary separation that had never actually existed.
And me?
I would remain beside him.
Scarred.
Childless.
Grateful.
Dependent.
Silent.
Christian had designed my future without ever asking whether I wanted to survive it.
Gabriel finally said, “And the attacker?”
“A car will take him to Detroit tonight. He flies out tomorrow.”
“You’re helping him escape?”
“I’m making sure this ends.”
“You think this ends because he gets on an airplane?”
Christian’s tone hardened.
“It does if you do your job.”
Footsteps moved toward the door.
Then stopped.
Christian returned to the bed.
His hand slid around mine.
The same hand that had held mine during ultrasounds.
The same hand that had placed an engagement ring on my finger.
The same hand that had apparently transferred money to the man who attacked me.
He bent close enough that I felt his breath near my ear.
“Wake up soon, my love.”
His voice was beautiful.
That was part of why America adored him.
“We still have a wedding to plan.”
The door opened.
Closed.
I waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
Then I opened my eyes.
Gabriel stood near the foot of the bed.
He looked as if he had aged ten years.
When he realized I was awake, all the color disappeared from his face.
“Genevieve.”
I raised one finger.
Silence.
His eyes moved toward the hallway.
“You heard?”
I nodded.
Pain shot through my cheek.
Tears finally escaped.
Gabriel moved closer.
“I swear to you, I didn’t know.”
I stared at him.
“I knew about Sabrina,” he admitted. “Not the attack. Not Lawson. Not the pregnancies.”
My voice came out rough.
“Leo?”
His eyes dropped.
“I suspected.”
Another piece of trust disappeared.
“Then you knew enough.”
He accepted that without defending himself.
After a moment, he whispered, “We need the police.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
“Genevieve, Christian tried to—”
“I know what he did.”
My voice trembled, but the words did not.
“If you call the police right now, who controls the story?”
Gabriel looked confused.
“Christian has lawyers. Security. Publicists. Millions of fans. And the attacker is leaving the country.”
I swallowed through the dryness in my throat.
“If Christian realizes I heard him, what happens to me before anyone can prove it?”
Gabriel looked toward the door again.
For the first time, I saw fear in his expression.
Not fear of scandal.
Fear for me.
“What do you want?”
I thought about the man who had attacked me.
Dr. Lawson.
Sabrina.
The child named Leo.
My medical records.
Christian’s money.
His phone.
His manager.
His belief that I was unconscious and helpless.
Then I thought about something my father once told me.
Never interrupt someone while they are making the mistake that will destroy them.
“First,” I whispered, “you help me stay alive.”
Gabriel nodded.
“And then?”
I slowly turned my eyes toward the door Christian had just walked through.
For the first time since the attack, I was no longer thinking about my face.
I was thinking about his.
The face on billboards.
Album covers.
Magazine covers.
A face millions of people believed belonged to a good man.
“Then,” I said, “we let Christian keep talking.”
Because Christian Prescott believed he had destroyed the only thing that gave me power.
He thought my beauty had protected me.
He thought his fame had made him untouchable.
He thought I was still the woman who loved him enough to forgive anything.
He was wrong about all three.
And before that week ended, he was going to learn exactly how dangerous a woman could become when she had nothing left to believe in.
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