I looked down and gave a thin smile. "I don't think you were all that happy about me becoming a mother, were you?"

Leon's brow tightened and his expression went colder than before. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I held his gaze.

Leon looked away, impatient.

"Scarlett. You know I hate being misunderstood. And I hate explaining myself even more."

I kept staring at him, stubborn as a tree in a storm. He glanced down at my stomach. "I've been busy this week. I won't be able to come by. Don't worry, I'll send someone to look after you."

After he left, the room felt hollow.

My stomach felt hollow too.

I turned and stared out the window. A life, small as a bird, had flown away without a trace. Not even a shadow left behind.

The next day, Leon didn't come and there was no call either.

I went to the follow-up appointment alone.

On my way out, I rounded a corner and nearly walked into Leon and his sister Iris. Their voices carried before I could see them.

"Leon, I know you married Scarlett because she was good to Rosalie."

"There are women all over New York who'd kill to be good to that girl, but you chose Scarlett. You must love her. Can you please just stop shutting her out? Talk to her. Work it out."

Leon sounded impatient.

"I needed someone to take care of Rosalie. Any woman would've done. Scarlett just happened to be prettier than the others."

"You're here to help look after her. Stay out of my marriage."

My knees gave. I grabbed the wall to keep from falling.

I'd always told myself Leon showed love differently, quietly and through actions. That the coldness was just who he was. I'd believed he loved me.

I was just the prettier option. That was all.

A passing nurse touched my shoulder. "Do you need help getting back to your room?"

Leon and Iris turned at the sound.

Leon glanced at me, then tilted his chin toward Iris without a word. "She's yours." He walked away.

Iris took my arm, searching my face, clearly worried.

"Scarlett, don't take it to heart. You know how he is."

"Giselle's been coming around all week, telling everyone you faked the fall to frame Rosalie. He's in a bad mood. He doesn't say it, but he does love you. I know he does."

She squeezed my arm. "Three months ago, for your anniversary, he flew back from Mexico just to be there. He dropped everything."

I stopped.

I'd been certain he wouldn't make it back. But he'd shown up at the door, dust still on his coat, and said the job was done and he'd suddenly wanted to see me. Maybe because the trouble had dragged on for so long that solving it left him wired, or whatever the reason, that night he'd been different. Reckless. He refused to take any precautions and indulged himself for once.

I still remembered clearly the moment he nipped my earlobe and breathed my name in a trembling voice.

I'd thought the baby came from that, from something real, something that night made real.

Now I wished he'd never come home at all.

I was in the hospital for a week.

Leon vanished without a word or a call.

My body felt scraped hollow, and I stopped caring whether Giselle was using Rosalie as an excuse to get close to him. I was too tired for that.

I went home to an empty house.

Rosalie was on the couch working a Rubik's cube. She looked up when I walked in, and something lit in her eyes.

"Scarlett, look."

She grabbed a gift box and held it up eagerly.

I looked away without a word.

Her body went still and the light in her eyes died. She slowly hid the box behind her back.

She was perceptive, the kind of child who could read a face like a page in a book.

I walked past her and went to my room.

I didn't think I could be around her the same way I used to be anymore.

That afternoon, Giselle let herself in.

She dropped an empty suitcase on the living room floor and started loading it.

One of the housekeepers stepped forward, flustered. "Miss Giselle, what are you doing?"

Giselle flinched at the word Miss, then turned vicious.

"I'm taking Rosalie to stay with me for a while."

"I've seen plenty of women try to use a child to climb. But a woman who hurts my child? Never. A person's heart doesn't always match their looks. I had to stay on guard. Tell Leon, if he wants to see his daughter, he can come to me."

Rosalie glanced at her, pressed her lips together, and spun the Rubik's cube faster.

The housekeeper looked up at me on the landing, desperate.

"Ma'am, the Don said Rosalie isn't to leave with Miss Giselle. Could you please speak with her? Tell her you'll take care of Rosalie just like before?"

Rosalie stopped moving. She looked up at me.

For a moment, maybe I imagined it, she seemed to want me to keep her here.

"Let Giselle take her."

"I need some time alone. I'm not up to being around Rosalie right now."

A second later, the Rubik's cube hit the floor.

Rosalie clutched the gift box to her chest. Her small frame trembled.

Giselle picked up the box and smiled. "Is this for me?"

Rosalie's long lashes fluttered. She looked at me once, then shook her head.

Giselle's smile turned ugly. She fixed me with a cold look.

"You've got her wrapped around your finger. But don't forget, she's Leon's daughter. She'll always be in his world."

"If you don't want to see her, the easiest solution is to divorce Leon."

I leaned against the railing above and looked down at her.

"You keep pushing for a divorce. Hoping Leon will take you back?"

She jabbed a finger up at me. "What nonsense are you talking about!"

Giselle was Don Vitali's daughter, but she was shallow and reckless, picking fights with Leon in front of people. As Leon once said, she never did learn her place. Their marriage barely lasted three years.

Rosalie jumped off the couch without looking at either of them and walked to the door.

"Stop fighting. Let's just go."

They left.

The housekeeper sighed.

"That gift, Rosalie's been carrying it around for days. Waiting for you to come home so she could give it to you first thing. We still don't know what's in it."

A few days passed. Leon didn't come home.

Back at the office, I didn't see him either.

I worked PR for his company. No one knew I was his wife.

The secret marriage was Giselle's idea. When she found out we were getting married, she threw a fit, saying a woman who spent her days in low-cut dresses working the social circuit had no business being the Donna of the Santoro family. It would embarrass everyone.

It was petty and jealous and completely unhinged, but Leon actually listened.

He said we'd go public when the time was right.

The right time never came.

At some point, I stopped expecting it.

On lunch break, the girls in PR were gossiping.

"Did you hear? The Don might be getting back together with Giselle."

"I know! They took Rosalie to Disney together. The pictures are adorable."

I stared out the glass wall at the sky, heavy and grey like a song that only goes one way.

"Scarlett, look, don't they look perfect together?"

A coworker pushed her phone in my face.

It was Giselle's Facebook. Posted today, several photos. Rosalie in the middle, Leon and Giselle on either side, all three cheeks pressed together. Behind them was a castle and a fairy-tale blue sky. A perfect little family.

In the screen, they were complete. Outside the screen, I was the extra that didn't belong.

The girls cooed around me.

"Honestly, only someone like Giselle deserves a man like the Don."

"God, I'd give anything to marry a man like him."

"Dream on. Women like us don't get to be Cinderella."

A coworker slung her arm around my shoulder and grinned.

"Right, Scarlett? Men like the Don are princes, but we're not the lucky girls who get the glass slipper."

The last message in my thread with Leon was from before I lost the baby. Over two weeks. Neither of us had reached out once. If I didn't make the first move, he never would.

I didn't know if other marriages were like this.

I just knew I was tired of one that only ran in one direction.

I looked at the phone in my coworker's hand, at the three smiling faces in the photo, and said calmly, "You're right. We're not Cinderella."

I decided to ask Leon for a divorce.