During the interview, the reporter leaned in. "Robert's new film has a lot of intimate scenes with his co-star. What are your thoughts on that?" I offered a placid smile. "How sweet for them." The reporter blinked, momentarily thrown. "Does that affect your relationship? I mean, he’s famous for never doing love scenes." "No, it doesn't." "Why not?" "Because we're divorced." The interview exploded. And so did my phone. Robert’s voice, tight with fury, crackled through the speaker. "When the hell did we get divorced? Why am I the last to know?" I knocked on his hotel room door, divorce papers in hand. "Right now." 1 #RobertHannahSplit #RobertAndLily #LilyTheHomewrecker The interview went viral, dominating the top three trending spots. My phone was a vibrating, ringing brick of chaos. I switched it to Do Not Disturb and leaned back in the seat of the town car, trying to breathe. On the tablet beside me, a behind-the-scenes clip played on a loop: Robert and his co-star, Lily May, in a kiss so intense it practically steamed up the camera. My manager, Jen, stared at me, aghast. "You're divorced? Since when?" I kept it simple. "He cheated." Understanding dawned in Jen's eyes. She switched off the tablet, plunging the car into a silence broken only by my ragged breathing. She sighed, wanting to comfort me but not knowing how. "You and Robert have been together for seven years. Everyone knows you're the golden couple of Hollywood. Are you sure this isn't some kind of misunderstanding?" I said nothing, just lowered the window and let the cold night air whip against my face, drying the tears that threatened to spill over. Just last night, I’d received a tip with photos: Robert and Lily, checking into a hotel. I’d shattered. I cried until my body ached and convulsed. Then I called my lawyer and had him draw up the papers overnight. It’s precisely because it was seven years that the betrayal was so absolute, so unforgivable. 2 Arriving at the hotel, I finally answered Robert’s call. His voice was a frantic, strained mess on the other end. "Hannah, what the hell are you doing? When did we get divorced? How come I don't know about it?" He only ever used my full name when he was truly furious. The last time was when I’d thrown a glass of red wine in Lily May’s face. "Right now," I said, and knocked. The door swung open. Robert stood there, phone still pressed to his ear, his eyes locking with mine. He was shirtless, a towel slung low on his hips, revealing a chiseled abdomen and the faint, almost imperceptible scratch marks on his arms. "What are you doing here?" I ignored him, pushing past into the suite and slapping the divorce papers onto the coffee table. "Sign them." Robert picked them up, flipped through them with disdain, and tossed them onto the sofa. A bitter, incredulous laugh escaped him as he raked a hand through his hair. "Because of a few scenes with Lily? That's part of the job, you know that." He stepped closer, his voice softening into a weary plea. "Ellie, I'm exhausted. Can you please stop being so unreasonable?" "Robert." I dropped my gaze, taking a deep breath. "No intimate scenes. That was the rule we agreed on when we got married." Robert's possessiveness over me was legendary. He’d either turn down scripts with kissing scenes for me or bully directors into rewriting them. Once, an actor, caught up in the moment, improvised and kissed my cheek on camera. The next day, that actor was replaced, his career vanishing overnight. Robert Thorne had always been a controlling, obsessive monster. But now, for another woman, he had broken his own sacred rule. He’d given Lily a privilege he’d denied everyone else. That was all the proof I needed. A dark look flashed across his face before he masked it with a smile. He closed the distance between us, his arms circling my waist as he nibbled on my earlobe. "This was a one-time thing. It won't happen again, okay?" His voice dropped to a low, warning purr. "And I don't want to hear the word 'divorce' again. Understood?" I was about to shove him away when a sweet, feminine voice drifted from the other room. "Robert, honey, I think the shower is broken…" Lily May appeared in the doorway. "Oh! Hannah, what are you doing here?" She was wearing a slinky slip dress that barely covered anything, her long hair damp and clinging to her back, revealing a constellation of fresh love bites on her neck. She noticed my gaze and tugged at the hem of her dress, a futile gesture that only highlighted her guilt. Her cheeks were flushed as she bit her lip, the picture of shy innocence. "Hannah, it's not what it looks like between Robert and me…" Robert's first instinct was to grab his suit jacket from the sofa and cover her. My first instinct was faster. I whipped out my phone and snapped a series of photos. "Sign the papers," I said, my voice cold as ice, "or these go public." I let a cruel smile touch my lips. "Let's see… 'Hollywood's Golden Boy in Steamy Hotel Tryst with Ingénue Co-Star.' That title has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" He let out an impatient hiss. "She got drunk at the wrap party last night. It wasn't safe for her to go home alone, so I brought her here. Nothing happened." I ignored his pathetic excuse. "You have three seconds." "Three." "Two…" He snatched the papers from the sofa, scribbled his signature with angry strokes, and threw them at me. "There. Are you happy now? Is this little game of yours over?" I nodded, clutching the signed agreement, and turned to leave. His voice stopped me at the door, laced with a weary, wounded tone. "Ellie, you never used to be like this." "When did you become so difficult?" My footsteps faltered. That's exactly what he'd said the first time I met Lily May. 3 Lily was a new actress signed by our agency. She bore a striking resemblance to me, so much so that online tabloids had dubbed her "Baby Hannah." At first, Robert was indignant. He’d hold me and whine, "Baby Hannah? Don't be ridiculous. My wife is one of a kind. That girl can't hold a candle to a single strand of your hair." He was constantly complaining about her riding my coattails. When Lily copied my style, he’d call it a cheap imitation. When she mimicked my makeup, he’d call it tacky and pathetic. But he never noticed how often her name started creeping into our conversations. An "unimportant person" who was suddenly, constantly, there. Even at dinner, he’d bring her up with a pretense of disgust. "Lily hates cilantro too. What a poser." But how would he know she hated cilantro unless he'd eaten with her? My anger snapped. I threw my chopsticks down on the table. "Can you stop? Is it impossible for you to go five minutes without mentioning Lily May?" I stared at him, my heart pounding. "Robert, are you falling for her?" He immediately swore his loyalty, deleting her number from his phone right in front of me. A few days later, at an industry gala, a sleazy producer started pressuring Lily to drink. In front of everyone, Robert smashed a bottle over the man's head. He completely ignored me, standing there pale and shocked, and wrapped a protective arm around Lily's shoulders, his face a thunderous mask. "The talent at my agency," he snarled, "does not do 'favors'." I went to the restroom to splash cold water on my face. When I came back, Robert was standing there with Lily, whose cheek was red and swollen. His voice was sharp with displeasure. "Take it out on me if you're angry. Why did you have to hit her?" "Hannah," he’d said, his voice dripping with disappointment, "when did you become so difficult?" He didn't come home that night. After a few days of cold war, he showed up with a one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry from a European auction, a peace offering. "Don't be mad, baby," he’d murmured, fastening the necklace around my neck. "It’s just… seeing her like that, it reminded me of you, all those years ago, when you were forced to drink. I just lost my head." He couldn't protect the me from seven years ago, so he had to protect the Lily of today. He took time off work to stay home with me, showering me with attention. I smiled and played along, and he thought the chapter was closed. What he didn't know was that I had found Lily's private social media account. An account that documented, in loving detail, the three-day trip they had just taken together to the coast. 4 The way Robert and I met felt like something out of a movie. Back then, I was a nobody, a struggling extra scrounging for work in L.A. He was the rebellious heir to a fortune, defying his family to chase his Hollywood dream. His parents, determined to teach him a lesson, had cut him off completely, even pulling strings to make his life harder. I first saw him on a street corner after midnight. I’d just wrapped a night shoot and was squatting by the curb, eating a hot dog. I felt a pair of intense eyes on me and looked up to see two green orbs glowing from the darkness of an alley. I bought him a hot dog. We sat there, side-by-side on the curb, as he told me he was a fellow dreamer, here to make it in the movies. We talked all night, convinced we were soulmates. After that, we met on that corner every night, sharing stories about our miserable days as extras. Inevitably, we fell for each other. We moved into a tiny, cramped apartment together. We made love on a rickety metal bed in a room that always smelled of grease and mildew, clinging to each other as if our lives depended on it. For three years, we chased the same dream, guarding each other’s backs, clawing our way up together. The night Robert won the award for Best Newcomer, everything changed. His parents finally acknowledged his success, and he confessed the truth: he was the heir to the Thorne empire. I was heartbroken by the deception. I locked him out, refusing to see him. To earn my forgiveness, he stood outside in a torrential downpour all night, collapsing with a fever the next morning. The moment he woke up in the hospital, he tried to rip out his IV to come find me. My heart melted. He gave me a fairy-tale wedding and went public with our relationship at the peak of his rising fame, giving me the world. Everyone called me Cinderella. Over time, I think even Robert started to believe it. He slowly forgot those three desperate, confusing, painful years we spent in that suffocating, 200-square-foot room. 5 Leaving the hotel, I finally looked at my phone. The hashtag calling Lily a homewrecker had already been scrubbed from the internet. Robert had posted a clarification: [Not divorced. The wife is just throwing a tantrum. Currently in the process of winning her back.] The comment section was a mix of people praising his "devotion" and a flood of hate directed at me. [An intimate scene is not a big deal. Hannah’s jealousy is terrifying. Robert has been a saint for her on screen for years. Her controlling nature screams insecurity.] [Honestly, Hannah is so classless. She should just be grateful she has a rich, famous husband. An actor has to act, why does he have to walk on eggshells around her? You can take the girl out of the gutter, but you can't take the gutter out of the girl.] [My heart breaks for our sweet Lily. A poor girl with no connections gets a big break because of her talent, and she gets bullied like this by the jealous wife. It's disgusting.] [Just an outsider's opinion, but doesn't Lily seem like a much better match for Robert?] [OMG YES! THANK YOU FOR SAYING IT! If Lily does end up with him, it’s Hannah’s own fault for not being good enough to keep her man. Useless!] Normally, Robert would have had his team delete comments like these in seconds. This time, I supposed it was part of my punishment. Not only did he leave them up, he even liked a few. Jen was on the phone, scrambling to get our PR team to do damage control. I was too tired to care. I fell asleep in the back of the car. When I woke up, it was nearly midnight. My phone was flooded with dozens of unread messages. As I started to scroll through them, a call came in. It was Robert. "Ellie, where are you? Why didn't you come home?" I stayed silent. After a few seconds, I could hear his heavy breathing on the other end. He sighed. "Ellie, you don't really think that piece of paper means we're actually divorced, do you?" His voice was low, condescending. "I was just playing along. Now be a good girl and come home." He was right. Divorcing a Thorne wasn't that simple. In his eyes, that legally binding document was just a prop in my little drama. He saw this whole thing as him indulging a pet throwing a tantrum. "Robert," I said, my voice calm and even. "You don't really think there's an 'us' after this, do you?" The papers might not be enough on their own, but they were a declaration of war. It was over between us. Even if it ended in blood, I was getting this divorce. A cold chuckle came through the phone. "Ellie," he said, his tone languid and dripping with menace, "don't joke like that. You know exactly what happens when you make me angry." I could hear the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of his fingers on a table, a dull, ominous beat in the silence of the night. He was truly angry now. A slow smile spread across my face. "I can't wait to see," I whispered, and hung up before he could respond. My reflection stared back at me from the dark window—hair a mess, face etched with fatigue. This was the last night I would ever waste my energy on a rotten man and a dead relationship. I knew the disgusting, underhanded tactics Robert would resort to when he was angry. But I wasn't afraid. I would not back down. I would be the one left standing at the end of this war. I had to be. 6 Robert's warning shot came quickly. I was set to star in a major historical drama, a role I had fought hard for. A week before filming, I was replaced. By Lily May. With Lily’s recent surge in popularity, her resemblance to me, and the immense pressure from Robert, the director didn’t dare object. On the first day of shooting, Robert showed up. As a key investor, he was treated like a king. An assistant held a parasol over his head while another aimed a personal fan at him, a fresh Starbucks cup always within reach. During a break, Lily cozied up to him, chattering animatedly about her "process." Robert just gave her vague, distracted replies, his dark gaze fixed on me across the crowded set. I ignored him, studying my script under the shade of a prop balcony. My young assistant fanned me, whispering, "Isn't Mr. Thorne here to see you, Hannah? Why aren't you sitting with him? You're not still trying to hide your marriage, are you?" There was an empty chair next to Robert. My assistant didn't know the whole story; she just assumed he was here for a surprise visit. I knew he was offering me an olive branch, a chance to crawl back. But if he was truly sorry, would he be letting Lily hang all over him like that? And besides, he had stolen my role. Using my career to threaten me was a low blow. Unforgivable. Sensing my irritation, Robert waved over an assistant. "Lily loves that brand of plum juice," he announced loudly. "Get some for the entire crew." The crew members immediately began fawning over them, cooing about what a great couple they made. Lily blushed prettily, darting a triumphant little glance in my direction. "Oh, you guys, stop," she giggled. "You'll make Hannah uncomfortable." Only then did everyone remember that I, the actual wife, was still present. A blanket of awkward silence fell over the set. 7 The atmosphere was thick with tension. It reached its breaking point when we started filming the next scene. In it, the heroine discovers that the female villain (my new role) has been plotting against her all along. The confrontation culminates in a resounding slap. It was supposed to be a major payoff moment for the audience, and the script explicitly called for it to be real and hard. I slipped into character, my eyes spitting venom at Lily. "So you know it was me," I sneered. "What are you going to do about—" Before I could finish my line, Lily’s hand flew, cracking across my face with such force that I stumbled backward. My cheek instantly started to burn and swell. Lily’s eyes welled up with tears, her hand flying to her mouth. "Oh, Hannah, I'm so sorry!" she cried, her lower lip trembling. "Your performance was just so powerful, I got lost in the moment…" The director yelled, "Cut!" My assistant rushed over with an ice pack, shooting daggers at Lily. "If you were so 'in the moment,' why didn't you finish the scene?" I didn't say anything. I just covered the swelling with a thick layer of powder and told the director I was ready to go again. Over the next hour, Lily slapped me six more times. She forgot her lines. She wasn't "feeling the emotion." She improvised new blocking. Each mistake earned her another chance to strike me. I could taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth. I swallowed it down, the bitter saliva burning a hole in my chest. And through it all, Lily kept up her pathetic act. "I'm so sorry, Hannah," she'd whimper. "I know you're a true professional. I'm just so new to this. I need you to guide me through it a few more times to really get there." The director just laughed nervously. In his eyes, I was the investor's wife, and Lily was the investor's rumored mistress. He couldn't afford to offend either of us until he knew who the real favorite was. "Right, well, maybe we should move on to the next scene for now. We can rework this one a bit." Robert, who had been silent this whole time, cleared his throat. His eyes met mine, a challenging glint in them. I knew what he was doing. He was waiting for me to break. To look at him. To beg. I turned my gaze back to the director. "Let's keep going." The director shot a nervous glance at Robert's thunderous expression. "Well, perhaps… perhaps we could fake the slap for this take? Use a camera trick?" After a few tense seconds of silence, Robert spoke, his voice dangerously smooth. "No need." The director breathed a sigh of relief, about to call action, when Robert added, "No need for camera tricks. Hannah is such a dedicated artist. I'm sure she would find such unprofessional methods beneath her." His words put me in a cage. I suddenly remembered a rumor I’d heard a few weeks ago. Lily had been slapped for real by an actress on another set and had cried her eyes out. Robert had stormed into the actress's dressing room with Lily in tow, held the woman down, and made her let Lily slap her back. He had said something similar to me once. Years ago, a director had slapped me, claiming I wasn't "giving him enough emotion." That night, Robert had gently pressed a warm cloth to my face, his voice a furious whisper. "Don't worry, Ellie. Soon, I'll be powerful enough to let you slap him back." And he had. He didn't just get me that slap back; he made sure that director never worked in this town again. The memory sent a sharp, twisting pain through my gut. I pressed a hand to my heart, taking a few deep breaths. It's okay, Hannah. You never needed him to fight your battles anyway. You can get that slap back on your own. It was just a matter of time. Just like now. After Lily used "forgetting her lines" as an excuse to slap me one last time, she called for another take. Just then, the sharp, rhythmic click of high heels echoed through the silent set. A cold, imperious voice drawled: "And which back-alley nobody did you find to play my leading lady?"
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