Chap­ter 33 was a turn­ing point, one that unfold­ed with a pre­ci­sion only pos­si­ble in Hol­ly­wood. For over two years, Rex and I main­tained the illu­sion of mar­riage, liv­ing in a lav­ish home in the hills, star­ring in films togeth­er, and play­ing the roles our careers demand­ed. Our lives were struc­tured like a well-rehearsed performance—separate morn­ing rou­tines, shared car rides to the set, and care­ful­ly chore­o­graphed pub­lic appear­ances. The cam­eras flashed as we held hands upon arrival, play­ing the part of devot­ed spous­es, only to retreat to our own cor­ners once the show was over.

Despite the per­fect­ly curat­ed façade, we both led lives out­side our script­ed mar­riage. My evenings were often spent with Har­ry or a select few from Para­mount, some­times even on dis­creet dates with men I trust­ed to keep my secrets. My affairs were fleet­ing, nev­er any­thing worth risk­ing my rep­u­ta­tion over—just momen­tary indul­gences that meant noth­ing in the grand scheme of things. I assumed Rex played the same game, that he too sought out dis­trac­tions with­out ever let­ting them jeop­ar­dize our care­ful­ly con­trolled nar­ra­tive.

But then, one morn­ing, every­thing changed. Rex came into the kitchen as I sipped my cof­fee, wait­ing for Har­ry to pick me up for ten­nis. There was some­thing about the way he moved, the way he hes­i­tat­ed before speak­ing, that made Luisa qui­et­ly excuse her­self. And then, in the still­ness of the moment, he con­fessed some­thing I nev­er saw com­ing: “I’m in love.” The words felt for­eign com­ing from him, almost absurd, yet the cer­tain­ty in his voice made them impos­si­ble to ignore.

“In love?” I asked, strug­gling to hide my sur­prise.

He chuck­led at my dis­be­lief. “It doesn’t make sense to me either. But it’s real.”

“Who is she?” I pressed, still try­ing to make sense of his con­fes­sion.

“Joy. Joy Nathan,” he admit­ted, his expres­sion soft­en­ing as he spoke her name.

The rev­e­la­tion sent a rip­ple through the care­ful­ly con­struct­ed arrange­ment we had built. Rex had always been detached, indulging in mean­ing­less flings, but this was dif­fer­ent. He was no longer sat­is­fied with fleet­ing affairs—he want­ed a real rela­tion­ship, some­thing authen­tic, some­thing last­ing. And, as if that wasn’t enough of a shock, he fol­lowed it with an even big­ger bomb­shell: “She’s preg­nant.”

My mind imme­di­ate­ly began cal­cu­lat­ing dam­age con­trol. The pub­lic nar­ra­tive had to be han­dled with pre­ci­sion, espe­cial­ly with our lat­est film, Car­oli­na Sun­set, set to pre­miere. “We’ll spin it,” I said, think­ing quick­ly. “The stress of film­ing, the emo­tion­al toll of play­ing a crum­bling couple—it tore us apart in real life, too.” It was the per­fect angle. Peo­ple loved tales of poet­ic down­fall, of love lost to ambi­tion.

But there was anoth­er obsta­cle: time. Rex need­ed to be mar­ried before Joy gave birth, and that meant we had to move fast. “We’ll say that we fell out of love, that we lived sep­a­rate lives,” Rex sug­gest­ed. But I knew bet­ter. A nar­ra­tive like that could hurt our careers, mak­ing us seem cold, disconnected—unworthy of the roman­tic leads we played on screen.

I need­ed an angle that would pro­tect us both while fuel­ing the public’s fas­ci­na­tion. And then it hit me: “We’ll say we had affairs,” I said, my mind rac­ing ahead of my words. “You with Joy. Me with Har­ry.” It was a per­fect illusion—scandalous enough to sell tick­ets, yet bal­anced in a way that soft­ened the blow for both of us. If the pub­lic thought we had both strayed, it would neu­tral­ize any resent­ment toward Joy and make the whole ordeal seem inevitable.

Rex hes­i­tat­ed for only a moment before nod­ding. “It’s not a bad plan.”

“It makes both of us look bad,” I admit­ted.

“But it’ll sell tick­ets,” Har­ry chimed in as he entered the room, imme­di­ate­ly catch­ing up on the con­ver­sa­tion.

The plan was set into motion, but Har­ry, ever the real­ist, saw the flaw before I did. “Peo­ple in town won’t believe it,” he warned me lat­er that day. “Not us. They know me. They know who I real­ly am.” He wasn’t wrong. Too many peo­ple in Hol­ly­wood had seen through the cha­rade of straight men mar­ry­ing for appear­ances. “We need proof,” I said. “Unde­ni­able evi­dence.”

And that’s how we found our­selves plan­ning a staged scan­dal. A night in the hills, just seclud­ed enough to look pri­vate but open enough to be caught by eager pho­tog­ra­phers. “We’ll make it look like we got caught in the act,” Har­ry sug­gest­ed. “But who do we trust to tip off the press?” The answer came to me in an instant, though I wished it hadn’t.

I picked up the phone and dialed a num­ber I hadn’t called in years. “Ruby, it’s Eve­lyn. I need a favor,” I said with­out hes­i­ta­tion.

She laughed on the oth­er end. “Well, that’s a first.”

I laid out the plan, instruct­ing her to leak the sto­ry about me and Har­ry to the tabloids. But then, unex­pect­ed­ly, she threw me off bal­ance. “So, is Rex about to be sin­gle?” she asked, a know­ing edge to her voice.

I hes­i­tat­ed. “Haven’t you had enough of my left­overs?”

“Don pur­sued me,” she coun­tered, and sud­den­ly, I under­stood. I under­stood the unspo­ken his­to­ry, the hurt hid­den beneath her sharp words. And then it dawned on me—she knew what I had gone through with Don. And she had gone through it, too.

“Did he—” I start­ed, my voice soft­er.

“It was noth­ing I couldn’t cov­er up,” she said, her words laced with false pride. It broke some­thing in me, hear­ing her say it so casu­al­ly, as if she had con­vinced her­self it was just anoth­er part of the game we played to sur­vive.

“Come by for din­ner some­time,” I offered, know­ing we’d nev­er actu­al­ly do it.

“Let’s not pre­tend we’re the type to be friends, Eve­lyn,” she said, and for the first time, I respect­ed her hon­esty.

As I hung up the phone, the plan was set. The illu­sion would be com­plete. By the next morn­ing, the world would know about my “affair” with Har­ry, and soon enough, Rex would be free to mar­ry Joy. We had rewrit­ten the script once again, turn­ing real life into the kind of sto­ry only Hol­ly­wood could man­u­fac­ture.