The studio smelled like some cheap coffee, hot lights, and the faint chemical bite of hairspray. Lina stood in the corner in nothing but a sports bra and high-waisted leggings that clung to her like a second skin,her arms crossed over her chest, while a makeup artist dabbed concealer under her eyes.
The girl was barely nineteen, her name tag reading "Kiki" and she kept stealing glances at her.
"You're new, right?" Kiki asked, her voice low so the rest of the crew wouldn't hear. "First big catalogue gig?"
"Something like that," Lina said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Inside, her brain was spinning on plans.
In her first life, she'd watched Lucien close million-dollar deals with the same calm mask she wore now. She'd learned the trick early: pretend the nerves belong to someone else.
Kiki leaned in, while brush still moving. "Mike's a dick when he's hungover, but if you give him attitude back, he actually respects you, he just doesn't like softies. Just make sure you don't cry. He really hates criers."
Lina's lips twitched. "Not planning on it."
Across the room, the brand rep, a sharp-suited woman in her thirties named Valerie flipped through yesterday's test shots on a tablet. She paused on one of Lina staring straight into the lens, green eyes daring the camera to look away. Valerie's brows lifted. She murmured something to Carla, who nodded once, cigarette already between her fingers even though the building had No Smoking signs everywhere. Lina was used to her smoking by now.
Lina let her gaze drift to the tall windows. Outside, grey morning light bled over the city. Somewhere in that concrete jungle, Lucien was probably in a board meeting, barking orders, pretending the house hadn't gone quiet the second she left. She wondered if he'd noticed the lilies yet. If he'd thrown them out or left them to rot on purpose.
She didn't care.
Or she told herself she didn't.
The director clapped his hands. "All right, fresh meat first. Green-eyes, you're up. Let's see if yesterday was a fluke."
Lina stepped onto the seamless white backdrop. The lights were brutal, burning her eyes hot, unforgiving. Mike adjusted his camera, muttering under his breath. "Chin up, shoulders back. No, not like a damn statue move like you're actually alive."
She remembered the exact way the supermodels in 2018 would tilt their hips, the micro-expressions that sold clothes instead of just wearing them. She gave him a slow, deliberate shift of weight, let her eyes go heavy-lidded, then snapped them wide as if she'd just been dared. The shutter clicked like gunfire.
Mike lowered the camera after ten frames. "Again. Harder."
She did it again. And again. Each time sharper, each time remembering she used to watch fashion week coverage alone in the mansion while Lucien was with Elena, at the office or anywhere that wasn't with her. She'd studied it like a language she was never allowed to speak.
By the third setup, Lina in a cropped hoodie, mid-jump, her hair flying, she was sweating under the lights and smiling for real. The kind of smile that came from knowing you were finally in point.
Valerie stepped closer, with her arms folded. "You've done this before."
"Not like this," Lina answered.
Valerie studied her for a beat longer. "We're shooting the hero campaign in two weeks. It is a bigger budget. If you don't fuck up today, I'm putting you on the shortlist."
Carla appeared at her elbow like smoke. "Told you she was worth the risk."
Lina didn't let the victory show on her face. She just nodded once, professionally, and went back to work.
They broke for lunch at one. She grabbed a bottle of water and a protein bar from the craft table and found a quiet corner near the fire exit. Her phone buzzed from an unknown number. She almost ignored it, then answered.
"Lina Cole?" A smooth male voice, too polished. "This is Marcus Hale from Elite Image Management. Carla Reed forwarded your test shots. We don't usually poach from baby agencies, but… you're interesting. Would you mind meeting for coffee tomorrow? My treat."
She swallowed hard. Almost not believing what she was hearing. Elite Image would represent three Oscar winners and two Victoria's Secret Angels by 2020. In her first life, she'd read about them in the gossip columns while folding Aaron's laundry.
"Tomorrow works," she said, keeping her tone even. "Text me the address."
She hung up and let out a long breath that shook at the edges. One step. Just one goddamn step.
What she didn't know was that three floors above the studio, in an empty conference room he'd rented for the morning under a fake name, Lucien Cole's investigator stood at the window with a pair of binoculars and a burner phone pressed to his ear.
"She's good," the private investigator reported, voice tinny. "Better than good. Brand rep is already talking about a hero campaign. A manager from Elite just called her and she took the meeting."
Lucien's jaw flexed. He watched the tiny figure on his phone screen through the glass, his wife, no, his soon-to-be-ex-wife laughing at something the makeup girl said. The sound didn't reach him, but he could imagine it. Low, a little rusty, like she hadn't used it in years.
He remembered the way she used to laugh for him in the beginning. Her laught was cheerful and hopeful. Then quieter, year by year, until it disappeared completely.
"Send the shoot photos," he said. "All of them, also the video from the monitor feed."
"Already done, sir."
Lucien ended the call. The screen went dark, but he kept staring at it. The divorce papers sat on the desk behind him, his signature as vigorous and as clear as it could be.
He hadn't filed his copy, hadn't even told his lawyers yet, he did not plan to either. Three years, he'd told her. Three years to prove she could survive without the Cole name.
He'd meant it as a challenge.
Now it felt like a noose tightening around his own throat.
The thought of her out there with men like Marcus Hale circling, eyes on that face, that body, that new steel in her spine, made something dark and ugly uncoil in his chest. He'd never been possessive of her before. Not really, he'd never have to. She'd been convenient and submissive. The wife who never asked questions and always understood.
Until she didn't.
Until she walked out with one suitcase and left without looking back
He poured two fingers of whiskey from the bottle he'd taken from his wine cabinet and drank it neat. The burn felt hot.
Down on the studio floor, Lina wiped sweat from her collarbone and caught her reflection in a silver panel. For a second, she looked like the woman who'd died alone in that nursing home bed. Then she squared her shoulders and the ghost vanished.
She was twenty-three again and she had time, she had knowledge and a daughter who hadn't been born yet to protect this time around.
And if Lucien Cole thought she'd come crawling back after three years, he was going to learn exactly how wrong a man could be.
The afternoon session ran long. By six, she was exhausted, thighs burning from the poses, but the brand rep had pulled her aside twice to adjust lighting "just for her angles." Carla was already talking about bumping her rate for the next job.
Lina changed back into her street clothes in the tiny bathroom. Her jeans, plain white tee, scuffed sneakers she'd bought at a thrift store on the way here. She looked nothing like Mrs Cole. She looked like someone who might actually make it.
She stepped out into the cooling evening. The city smelled of rain on asphalt and street food carts. Her phone buzzed again, it was Carla confirming the Elite meeting details.
She smiled at the screen and returned her phone back in her bag.
Then she felt a prickle on the back of her neck. The same one she used to get in the mansion when Lucien would watch her from the doorway, thinking she didn't notice.
She turned slowly, scanning the sidewalk. Nothing. Just strangers hurrying home, umbrellas popping open as the sky threatened more rain.
She shook it off as being paranoid. But across the street, parked in the shadow of a black SUV with tinted windows, Lucien lowered the binoculars and watched her walk away. The streetlights caught the shine of her dark hair, and the determined set of her jaw.
He didn't follow her, he just placed the binoculars on his laps, and picked his phone to make a call. He dialled the investigator again.
"Double the team. I want eyes on her twenty-four seven. If any man so much as looks at her too long, I want his name, his address, and how many bones I'd have to break before he learns manners."
He ended the call before the man could answer.
A whiskey bottle sat empty on the bottle placer beside him.
Lucien Cole leaned back, his eyes on the empty sidewalk where his wife had just disappeared into the crowd, and for the first time in his privileged, controlled life, he felt something that tasted dangerously like fear.
Not that she would fail.
But that she might actually succeed without him.
And that the man who had never chosen her… might have just lost the only thing he didn't know he wanted until it was gone. And he Lucien never loses.