The text message arrived just as I was coordinating a catering delivery for one of Richard's investor meetings—a task I handled under a pseudonym to avoid any paper trail back to me. The phone, my personal one, buzzed with a name that always made my stomach clench: Serena.
Sister dear, I'm in town! A little bird told me Richard is about to close a massive deal. We simply MUST celebrate. Richard has already agreed. 8 pm at Celeste. Don't be late. xoxo
I read the message twice. Every word was a carefully crafted needle. The sickly sweet "sister dear," the casual mention of inside business information, the fact that she had arranged it with my husband before even speaking to me. Serena didn't do casual visits; she performed calculated incursions. My half-sister, the legitimate, celebrated daughter of my father while I was the product of his scandalous first marriage, had spent her entire life trying to prove she was more of a Thorne than I was.
And Celeste. Of course. The trendiest, most obnoxiously expensive restaurant in the city, a place where people went to be seen. A place where my simple "Jane" persona would stick out like a weed in a rose garden.
When Richard came home that evening, he was already loosening his tie, a sure sign of a good day. "Guess who's in town?" he asked, as if it were a delightful surprise.
"Serena," I said, my voice flat. "She texted."
"Great, isn't it? It'll be fun to celebrate. The deal is all but signed." He breezed past me toward the bedroom to change. "Wear that blue dress I like."
The blue dress was simple, modest, and deliberately plain. It was the perfect attire for the woman he wanted me to be.
Two hours later, I was sitting in the low, ambient light of Celeste, feeling like a ghost at a feast. The air was thick with the scent of money and expensive perfume. Richard and Serena were already at the table, laughing over a bottle of champagne that cost more than our monthly grocery bill. They looked like a photograph from a magazine—the handsome, rising CEO and the stunning socialite, both sharp and gleaming and utterly belonging. When I approached, Serena rose and enveloped me in a hug that felt like an appraisal, her perfectly manicured nails digging slightly into my arms.
"Jane! There you are!" she exclaimed, her voice loud enough for the nearby tables to hear. She pulled back, her eyes scanning my simple dress, my bare face, my plain hair. "Oh, honey. That's… so practical. It's truly refreshing to see someone who doesn't care about silly things like labels."
It was a classic Serena attack: a compliment wrapped around a razor blade.
"It's comfortable," I replied, taking my seat.
"I'm sure it is," she said, her smile not reaching her cold, assessing eyes. She turned her attention to Richard, placing a hand on his arm. "So, tell me everything, Richard. I want to hear all about how you're taking the world by storm. You must be a saint, building an empire from scratch with… well, with so little help on the home front."
The implication hung in the air, as thick and suffocating as the designer perfume. The "help" she was referring to was the Thorne family name, the connections, the immense wealth I had walked away from to be with Richard. To her, my choice wasn't a sacrifice for love; it was an act of insanity.
"Serena," Richard said, but there was no heat in his voice. Just amusement.
I decided to defend the one thing I had. "Richard is a brilliant strategist," I said quietly, looking at my husband. "And I'm proud to be his partner. We're a team."
Serena let out a laugh, a sharp, brittle sound like ice cracking. "Oh, darling, of course you are. A team." Her gaze flickered between us, and in that moment, I saw it—a flash of shared understanding between her and Richard, a secret language I wasn't privy to. It was as if they were the team, and I was merely a mascot.
This was my chance. I looked at Richard, waiting for him to defend me, to defend us. To tell Serena that my support was invaluable, that I was more than what I appeared to be.
He just smiled, a placating, gentle smile, and patted my hand as if I were a child. "Now, now, Serena. Be nice," he said, his voice soft. He wasn't talking to her like she was out of line; he was talking to her like they were co-conspirators. "Jane doesn't understand our world. She's happy in her own way, and that's what matters, isn't it?"
The words hit me with the force of a physical blow. Our world. He had separated us. He had put me in a box labeled "other," a simple, happy creature who couldn't possibly comprehend the complex world he and Serena inhabited. He hadn't defended me; he had explained me away. He had sided with her.
The rest of the dinner passed in a blur. I retreated into the silent, watchful persona of Jane Doe, pushing food around my plate, offering small, meaningless smiles when spoken to. I watched them, Richard and Serena. I saw the way he leaned in when she spoke, the way his eyes lit up at her sharp, witty jokes, the easy, familiar way she touched his arm. They moved in perfect sync, two sharks gliding through water. And I was just floating, an anomaly in their sleek, predatory world.
In the car on the way home, the silence was a heavy blanket. Richard, entirely oblivious to the chasm that had just opened between us, was humming along to the radio.
"That was fun," he said, reaching over and squeezing my knee. "Serena can be a handful, but her heart's in the right place. She's always looked out for you."
I didn't answer. I turned my head to look out the window, watching the glittering city lights slide across the glass. In my reflection, I saw a pale, washed-out woman with a stranger's face. The fragile hope I had clung to that morning felt like a fool's dream. It had been replaced by a single, cold, terrifying thought that settled in my gut like a stone.
He had never been on my team at all.