Marriage Built on a Facade

Two years into the divorce proceedings, I ran into Richard at our high school reunion.

My first love was standing outside the venue's restrooms, blocking my path.

Still dragging things out with Marcel? he asked. If you don't mind, let me represent you.

I smiled and nodded, not offering a refusal.

Richard was undeniably brilliant. He managed to secure half of Marcel's assets for me.

But on the day we were supposed to sign the final papers, I overheard their conversation through the cracked office door.

"You're quite the genius, Richard. Using your position as her attorney to steal evidence and hide assets," Marcel's tone dripped with mockery.

"Do you think Kristen is going to lose her mind when she finds out I'm actually on your side, and that this fifty percent is just the tip of the iceberg?"

Richard's voice was like ice. "I am not on your side."

"I am doing all of this for Maya's happiness. If you ever dare to hurt her, I will make you pay ten times over!"

Maya. Maya Ford. The secretary Marcel had been having an affair with.

My knuckles turned white as I gripped the door handle, my chest aching as if a knife had been twisted into it.

All those comments at the reunion about how perfect we looked together, all the nostalgic regret over our past... it was all a cruel joke.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open and walked in.

Both men turned to look at me simultaneously, not a trace of guilt on their faces.

"Kristen, sit over here."

Richard spoke first, waving me over.

With their conversation still echoing in my ears, I tightened my grip on my purse strap and walked toward him.

Richard pulled out a handkerchief, thoughtfully wiping a few raindrops off my jacket.

"I should have picked you up, but my car broke down halfway there. Did you get caught in the storm?"

I shook my head. He explained himself while pulling out a chair for me.

During our four years in college, Richard had taken care of me with this exact same meticulous devotion.

In the six months since we reconnected over this lawsuit, his attention had only intensified.

Our mutual friends constantly teased him. "Richard, you're going to spoil her rotten."

"This is true love, waiting for her before the ink is even dry on the divorce."

Others laughed at him, calling him a sucker. They brought up the ancient history of our messy breakup, saying Richard was a lapdog who had forgotten the sting of the whip.

But Richard ignored them all. He would cover my ears.

"I already lost you once. I am absolutely not letting you slip away a second time."

I actually thought he was still holding onto our past. I thought he genuinely wanted to try again.

Now I realized how incredibly pathetic and delusional I had been.

The warmth in his eyes was nothing but a custom-made honey trap.

Looking at the chair he pulled out, I set my purse down and leaned slightly toward him.

"Walk me through the finalized documents."

Richard nodded, highlighting the key points on the pages, his signature clean, crisp cologne washing over me as he leaned in.

I tilted my head, listening intently, occasionally leaning close to whisper something with a smile.

Marcel slouched lazily in his chair, his eyes narrowed, a glint of sharp scrutiny in his gaze.

"Your legal representation comes with quite the premium service package, Richard."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were sleeping with my soon-to-be ex-wife!"

Marcel's sarcastic remarks cut through the air.

He was clearly pissed.

The two of us looked entirely too intimate. Even the brief exchanges of eye contact between Richard and me were getting under his skin.

No one responded. I just quietly looked at the two men sitting across from and beside me.

"I'm sorry I'm late."

A sweet voice drifted in as the heavy mahogany door swung open.

It was Maya.

This time, the two men didn't just turn their heads; they both stood up.

"Maya, what are you doing here?"

Marcel quickly walked over to her, wrapping his arm around her waist without a shred of hesitation.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Richard's fists clench tight.

"I was worried about you..."

"And this is a huge moment in your life. I felt like I needed to be here with you."

Halfway through her sentence, Maya turned her gaze to me.

I smirked, looking down to play with my wedding ring, pretending I hadn't noticed her at all.

"Who is this pathetic, star-crossed lover act for? Do you think you're the last woman who's going to end up in Marcel's bed?"

The moment the words left my mouth, Marcel's eyes darkened, the smug smile completely vanishing from his face.

"Kristen, there's no need to be so incredibly vicious."

"I know you can't bear the thought of divorcing me, which is why you've dragged this lawsuit out for two years. What, getting cold feet at the finish line?"

I let out a cold, sharp laugh, raising my eyes to look at the perfectly victimized expression on Maya's face.

"I won't be having any regrets today."

"Marcel, didn't you always obsess over my first love? Well, here he is."

I gestured to Richard, who was sitting just one seat away from me.

"You're Kristen's first love?"

"The one she dated for four years? The one she had that dramatic, life-shattering breakup with?"

Marcel fired off the questions rapidly, his gaze fixed on Richard, suddenly shifting. His tone was laced with a deep, bitter resentment.

Richard stiffened, shooting me a look of pure confusion.

I shrugged and smiled. "We've been married for five years, and he has always been a thorn in your side. But I know how to keep a secret. You dug around for five years and found absolutely nothing."

Richard blinked, his eyes darting briefly toward Maya before he finally nodded.

"A pleasure, Marcel."

Marcel's face turned an ugly shade of purple, his eyes darting frantically between Richard and me.

"Stop staring. You're not going to figure it out by glaring at us."

"Just sign the papers so your true love doesn't have to keep playing the role of the dirty little secret."

I leaned over, grabbed the thick stack of documents from Richard, and signed my name on every single line without hesitation.

This divorce had been dragging on for two years. We had reached the mediation stage at least three or four times. And every single time, right at the precipice, I backed out.

It wasn't because I loved Marcel. It was because I refused to lose to a woman like Maya.

The first time I saw Maya was in Marcel's office.

She was fresh out of college, looking for a job. A high ponytail, a flannel shirt, canvas sneakersshe radiated a raw, unpolished youthfulness.

The second I laid eyes on her, I thought of Richard.

When Richard was a freshman, he had that exact same earnest, unrefined look, as if he hadn't quite figured out how to exist in a city like New York.

But I had fallen hopelessly, irrationally in love with him. I chased him relentlessly for three months.

Finally, he agreed, his face dark with frustration. "Kristen, you're like a piece of gum stuck to my shoe. It's so annoying."

"One year, Kristen. We date for exactly one year, and then we break up."

We ended up dating for four years.

I was the one who initiated the breakup, right before graduation, the day before his birthday.

Richard knelt in the pouring rain outside my dorm, begging me for an entire night. I stayed hidden in my room, never taking a single step downstairs.

The whole campus called me heartless. They said Richard had been played by a rich girl and tossed aside when she got bored.

After we broke up, I never saw him again.

So when I saw Maya, my heart inexplicably softened.

Marcel flipped through the resumes in front of me, his finger stopping on Maya's.

"You've seen this one. HR says she's solid, but I think she looks too incredibly plain. I'm looking for an executive assistant, not a charity case."

Marcel's mouth was brutal. He grew up obsessed with flashy, superficial things. He only liked beautiful people.

Like me. He had liked me since we were kids. Mostly because I was beautiful, and because I completely ignored him.

That was exactly why, when my family's company collapsed and everyone else ran for the hills, Marcel stepped up and offered to marry me.

I put my hand over Marcel's, stopping him from flipping to the next page. "Hire her. I think she's great."

"She looks genuine, and her skills are solid. It's not a bad idea to mold someone from the ground up."

To make me happy, Marcel hired Maya.

Back then, the novelty of our marriage hadn't worn off for Marcel. When he wasn't at the office, he was practically glued to my side.

After every time we slept together, he would relentlessly interrogate me.

"What was your college boyfriend's name?"

"How far did you guys go? Did he ever bring you here?"

"Am I better in bed, or was he?"

"Kristen, do you still love him?"

Marcel was unbelievably immature.

From the day we eloped, a seed of insecurity had been planted deep in his mind. Everything he saw reminded him of Richard; everything he did was a competition with a ghost.

But I never said a word about him.

The next time I saw Maya, she was wearing a designer tweed suit, sitting just outside Marcel's private office.

The heavy makeup made her look older, sophisticated, and striking. You couldn't help but look twice.

"Miss Davis."

"Mr. Stark is still in a meeting. You'll have to wait out here."

In this entire building, everyone called me Mrs. Stark. She was the only one who called me Miss Davis.

In the entire executive suite, no one would ever dare block my path. She was the only one who told me to take a seat and wait.

I stared at the faint red marks on her neck and the incredibly expensive necklace resting against her collarbone.

"You must be exceptionally good at your job, Maya."

"You've been at Stark Corp for less than six months, and you're already buying six-figure jewelry."

"It was a gift."

Maya's delicate face instantly flushed crimson.

In that exact moment, I knew she was sleeping with Marcel.

That necklace was something I had bought to hit a purchase quota for a Birkin bag. It had been sitting untouched in my jewelry box for months.

A few days ago, Marcel had asked me for it. I assumed he was giving it to a client's wife. He gave it to Maya.

Since we got married, Marcel hadn't returned to his old playboy ways. He had actually stayed faithfully by my side for two years.

Doing the math, I suppose his patience had simply run out.

A man like him was never going to settle down for anyone.

This marriage was nothing more than a strategic alliance for me, a tool to keep my family's legacy from entirely collapsing.

So I wasn't heartbroken. My only concern was how to maintain this hollow marriage, or, failing that, how to extract as much of the Stark fortune as possible in the divorce.

I just hadn't expected the other woman to be Maya, the girl he initially couldn't stand.

And unfortunately for me, Maya wasn't content playing the quiet mistress.

While she was texting me graphic photos and videos of them together, I was navigating a Stark family dinner, flawlessly playing the perfect wife.

I was expertly deflecting his parents' demands for a grandchild while simultaneously figuring out how to handle her.

[Miss Davis, I'm pregnant with Marcel's baby.]

[Marcel and I are truly in love. Please, let him go.]

I ignored the messages. I pretended none of it was happening.

But I never expected Marcel to come home blackout drunk that night and confess everything.

"Maya is pregnant. The baby is mine."

"I want her to have it."

I stared blankly at Marcel sitting across from me. My mouth opened and closed, my hand instinctively resting over my own stomach, giving a violent twitch.

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"I am. I'm going to make room for her."

Marcel looked at me in pure disbelief. Perhaps he hadn't expected me to agree so easily.

But the brief flash of joy vanished instantly. He grabbed my wrist, his voice rising in an angry accusation.

"Kristen, have you ever actually loved me?"

"Are you still hung up on that damn college boyfriend?!"

"I have an affair, ask for a divorce, and tell you I'm moving my pregnant mistress into this house, and you don't even care!"

I watched Marcel throw his tantrum. I watched him smash an entire cabinet of expensive liquor.

I let him pin me down and take whatever he wanted from me, without a single ounce of resistance.

"Kristen, could you just... even a little bit. Could you just love me a little bit?"

I didn't say a word.

After that, Marcel rarely came home. He started bringing Maya to high-profile events.

When I wasn't there, Marcel would intercept drinks for her, hold her umbrella, and drive her to and from the office. They played the perfect, deeply-in-love couple.

The tabloids went wild. Every single time, I stepped in, paying exorbitant sums to kill the stories and scrub the internet.

I sat comfortably on my throne as Mrs. Stark, cleaning up Marcel's messes. But Maya couldn't handle the waiting.

Or rather, her baby couldn't wait.

"Miss Davis, when are you going to agree to the divorce?"

"I refuse to let my child be born a bastard."

I stirred my coffee, finding the whole situation almost tragically funny. "Getting a kid a birth certificate is incredibly easy. Marcel can make one phone call."

"You are way too naive, Maya. Dissolving a high-society marriage involves an immense amount of capital and corporate interests. It isn't that simple."

"Think about it. Do you really believe the Stark family is going to welcome a mistress and an illegitimate child through the front door?"

"Furthermore, I'm not the one refusing to divorce. Your precious Marcel is the one dragging his feet."

Maybe my words cut a little too close to the bone.

That very night, Maya attempted suicide.

She lost the baby.

Marcel rushed home, his eyes bloodshot with rage. He pinned me to the wall by my throat, nearly choking the life out of me.

"Kristen, who told you to go see her!"

"Do you have any idea she almost died?! Because of your vicious little speech, she lost our child!"

"Do you want a divorce that badly, Kristen?"

"Fine! We'll get a divorce!"

I found out later that Maya slitting her wrists to force the divorce was what actually caused the miscarriage.

She told Marcel I had tracked her down and threatened her.

Her single tearful sentence, "I love you so much," locked down Marcel's heart.

Her other sentence, "Kristen never loved you," completely severed the final thread between Marcel and me.

"Maya was never actually pregnant."

"She's just a gold digger trying to secure the bag. She staged the whole tragedy."

"Mrs. Stark is way too forgiving. If it were me, I'd drag the divorce out for years just to make that cheating bastard and his mistress absolutely miserable!"

When those rumors finally reached my ears, my hand froze right as I was about to sign the divorce papers.

"I'm not signing this."

"Marcel, you are at fault here. I want you to leave this marriage with absolutely nothing."

And so, the legal battle dragged on for two agonizing years.

It dragged on so long that Richard eventually walked back into my life.

Honestly, I didn't care how much of the Stark money I walked away with. I just wanted to make Maya's life a living hell.

But Richard's sudden reappearance, the elaborate trap he set... it suddenly made the whole thing feel incredibly tedious and exhausting.

I didn't even have the energy to care about their secret relationship anymore.

"Just sign it."

I pushed the documents across the table toward Marcel.

But Marcel just sat there, his pen hovering over the paper. Maya watched him with frantic anxiety, looking as if she wanted to snatch the pen and sign it for him.

"Marcel, I have an OBGYN appointment this afternoon," Maya murmured, keeping her head bowed, her voice soft and coaxing.

She was pregnant again.

Marcel's pen stopped entirely. He couldn't bring himself to press the ink to the page.

After a long, suffocating silence, he tossed the pen aside. "We're not signing this today."

"I'll take you to the doctor."

Maya hadn't realized her little nudge would completely derail the plan. She grabbed his arm. "I'm not in a rush! Let's just finish the paperwork first."

Marcel froze, shooting a dark glare at me and Richard.

"I'm not signing it."

"Kristen, you're just waiting for this divorce so you can run back to him, aren't you?"

"Let me tell you something. Keep dreaming!"

Marcel turned on his heel and stormed out of the conference room without a backward glance.

Maya shot Richard a frantic, tear-filled look before chasing after him.

Before I could even process what had happened, Richard rushed out after them. "I'll go find out what he's thinking."

The sheer panic on his face looked like it was for my benefit, but I knew the truth. He was worried about Maya.

Sure enough, just around the corner, Maya was buried in Richard's chest, sobbing.

"Richard, what do I do?"

"What am I supposed to do now?..."

Richard gently rubbed her back, whispering soothingly before asking, "You told me Kristen was the one refusing to finalize the divorce, but based on what just happened, it's way more complicated than that."

"You need to find the right moment to figure out exactly what Marcel's end game is."

"Maya, you know I've got you."

"As long as it gets you the life you want, I will handle everything."

...