He Spent a Year Paying a Doctor to Write Down a Fragile, Unstable Version of Me That Didn’t Exist — So When He Finally Set Me Aside, the Whole World Would Believe I’d Simply Come Apart on My Own

I had been cast.

Somewhere, years ago, a team of people had looked at his image problem — the hidden girlfriend, the secret child, the heartthrob who could not be seen to be taken — and decided the solution was a wholesome, scandal-free, ordinary young woman for him to publicly adore.

And they had found me, at my gallery job, with my clean background and my open heart, and they had aimed him at me, and I had never once suspected that the great romance of my life was a business plan I was the last to read.

Christian crossed to the bed then and took my hand, the way he always had when I was frightened, with that exact practiced tenderness.