Chapter 2

Alex Bennett POV:

The giant screen that usually displayed a tasteful, rotating gallery of modern art now showed my face. But it wasn' t my face from today, poised and controlled. It was my face from twelve years ago, flushed and tear-streaked, my mouth open in a simulated cry of pleasure.

It was a deepfake. A grotesquely convincing one. They had taken a clip from the R-rated indie film that had been my last acting job-a gritty, desperate role that had earned me critical acclaim and industry notice-and seamlessly blended it with hardcore pornography. The audio was a distorted loop of my character's most vulnerable lines, twisted into something obscene.

A collective gasp rippled through the lavishly decorated ballroom. The parents of Beckham' s classmates, New York' s elite, froze with champagne flutes halfway to their mouths. Their polite smiles curdled into masks of disgust and judgment.

I saw it in their eyes, the quick, damning conclusion. That's Alex Bennett. The washed-up actress Justin Barlow inexplicably married. The gold digger. The trash he brought into his pristine world.

I knew, with a certainty that was as cold and sharp as a shard of glass in my gut, who had done this. It had Beckham and Bertram' s cruelty written all over it, guided by the precise, malicious hand of their mother, Carolina. This was their birthday gift to their brother. My public execution.

My phone, clutched in my hand, buzzed with notifications. I didn't need to look. I knew what they were. The clip would be all over the internet in minutes. The headlines would write themselves. The comments would be a sewer of slut-shaming and vitriol, dredging up every lie and half-truth ever printed about me.

Told you she was a whore.

No wonder she can't keep her husband. He's probably disgusted.

She's childless for a reason. What a train wreck.

From across the room, I saw them. My stepsons. Beckham stood with his arms crossed, a smug, triumphant smirk on his face. Bertram, ever the weaker one, was filming the crowd's reaction on his phone, giggling.

"She's going to lose it," I could imagine Bertram whispering. "Wait for it. She's going to scream and cry and make a huge scene."

They were waiting for me to break. They wanted the drama, the validation that they had finally pushed me over the edge.

But just as the first real wave of nausea hit me, Justin appeared. He moved with the swift, brutal efficiency he usually reserved for hostile takeovers. He grabbed the master remote from a panicked event coordinator and slammed his thumb on the power button.

The screen went black.

A suffocating silence fell over the room. Justin' s face was a thundercloud. He spun around, his gaze locking onto his sons. He didn't shout. He didn't have to. He strode over to them, grabbed them both by the arm in a grip that made them wince, and dragged them out of the ballroom without a single word. The heavy doors swung shut behind them, leaving me alone in a sea of hostile eyes.

I needed to get out. I couldn't breathe. I stumbled toward a side door that led to a deserted terrace, my legs shaking. The cold night air was a shock to my lungs. I leaned against the stone balustrade, my knuckles white.

My hands trembled as I pulled a cigarette from the small clutch I carried. I rarely smoked anymore, but tonight, I needed it. I lit it, the small flame dancing in the darkness, and took a long, desperate drag.

The nicotine hit my system, a dirty, chemical calm that momentarily steadied the frantic beating of my heart.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Justin' s voice was sharp, cutting through the quiet. He snatched the cigarette from my lips and crushed it under the heel of his Italian leather shoe.

"Have you lost your mind?" he hissed, his face inches from mine. His breath smelled of expensive whiskey. "You can't smoke. What if you're pregnant?"

His eyes weren't filled with concern for me. They were filled with condemnation. The same look he gave me when I' d had a second glass of wine at dinner last week.

Pregnant.

A strange, hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat. Oh, the irony was thick enough to choke on. Pregnant. A baby. Our baby.

The memory, the one I kept locked in the deepest, darkest vault of my soul, broke free.

It was five years ago. Our first child. A boy. We named him Leo. He was a surprise, a small, miraculous crack in the contractual foundation of our marriage. For two years, I had allowed myself to believe he could be the glue that held us together. He had Justin' s eyes, but my smile. He was perfect.

And then he was gone.

He had just learned to walk, a clumsy, joyful toddler who loved the water. We were at the Barlow summer estate. I was watching him splash in the shallow end of the pool. I turned away for a second-just one single, unforgivable second-to answer a text from my sister.

When I looked back, he wasn' t there.

Panic, cold and absolute, seized me. I screamed his name. Leo. LEO! I ran around the pool, my eyes scanning the crystal blue water, my heart pounding a frantic, terrifying rhythm against my ribs.

Then I saw it. A small, blue sandal floating near the deep end drain.

I found him at the bottom of the pool, his little body still, his hair fanned out like a dark halo. I dove in, the water a shock of cold, and pulled him out. He was so heavy. So limp.

"No, no, no," I chanted, laying him on the hot poolside tiles. I started CPR, my movements frantic, clumsy. I breathed into his tiny, unresponsive mouth, tasting the chlorine and my own salty tears. "Come on, baby, breathe. Breathe for mommy."

"Alex! What are you doing?!" Justin' s voice was a roar. He had been on a business call inside.

He ripped Leo from my arms. I clung to him, a wild animal protecting her young. "Give him back! I can save him!"

SLAP.

The sound cracked through the summer air. His handprint bloomed on my cheek, hot and stinging.

"He's gone, Alex!" Justin shouted, his face contorted with a grief so raw it was terrifying. "He's gone! He's dead! Look at him!"

I fell to my knees, my whole world collapsing into that single, horrifying moment. The sun was so bright. The birds were still chirping. How could the world keep going when my son was gone?

"Please," I begged, crawling toward him, my voice a shredded whisper. "Please, Justin. Let me take him. Just let me have him. We can go away. I'll take him and I'll never ask you for anything again. Please."

He didn't listen. He held Leo's body and just stared down at me, his eyes filled with an accusation that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

He made me watch them take him away. He made me go to the funeral. He made me sit in the front row of the crematorium and watch as the small, white casket disappeared behind a velvet curtain.

A part of my soul burned away with my son that day. I became a ghost in my own life, a hollowed-out shell going through the motions. The doctors called it depression. I called it survival.

I never cried about it again. Not in front of him. Not in front of anyone.

And now, he was talking about another baby.

"Alex?" Justin' s voice softened, a rare occurrence. He saw the look on my face, the same vacant stare I'd had for months after Leo died. He mistook my trauma for shame over the video. "It's okay. I'll handle the boys. I'll handle the press. It will all blow over."

He reached out, trying to pull me into an embrace.

"Don't worry," he murmured, his voice laced with the condescending calm he used to soothe hysterical shareholders. "I'll take care of you."

I flinched away from his touch as the heavy ballroom doors behind us were thrown open, bathing the terrace in a sudden flood of light.