5. Bree
— ? —
Bree
The fitting room at Solene’s was all white walls and gold mirrors and a quiet that cost money.
I stood on the small platform in the center, arms slightly raised, while a seamstress named Ramona worked pins into the hem of my gown.
The Grant Foods broadcast was in four days.
National television. My job was to sit next to my husband and smile while he talked about supply chains and shareholder value.
The dress was silver. It photographed well. Everything in my life photographed well.
“Hold still, Mrs. Grant.” Ramona’s voice was muffled by the pins in her mouth. “Almost done with this section.”
“Take your time.”
The door opened behind me. I watched in the mirror as someone entered, someone tall and blonde and wearing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Camille Fairchild.
“Ramona.” Camille’s voice was pleasant and firm. “I need a moment alone with Mrs. Grant. Company business.”
Ramona looked up, uncertain. Her eyes flicked to me.
“It’s fine,” I said. “We won’t be long.”
Ramona gathered her things and left. The door clicked shut behind her.
Camille moved to the small sofa against the wall. She didn’t sit. She stood there, arms crossed, watching me in the mirror.
“That’s a pretty dress,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Rafael picked it out, didn’t he? He has good taste. When he bothers to pay attention.”
I kept my face neutral. “What do you want, Camille?”
“It’s more about what I can do for you, actually.
” She moved closer. Her heels clicked on the marble floor.
“I’ve been watching you, Brianna. For two and a half years, I’ve been watching you play the dutiful wife, and I have to say, you’re very good at it.
The smiles. The small talk. The way you stand just slightly behind him at events, never quite in the spotlight but always visible enough to matter. ”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“I’m getting at the fact that you’re wasting your time.
” She stopped at the edge of the platform, looking up at me with cold eyes.
“Two and a half years, and what do you have to show for it? No children. No real role in the company. No indication that Rafael sees you as anything more than a contractual obligation he’s waiting to fulfill. ”
The words landed exactly where she’d aimed them. I felt the impact in my chest.
“Our marriage isn’t your business.”
“Oh, but it is. Because I’m the one who’s going to be standing next to him when it ends. And I want you to know that. I want you to understand exactly what’s happening here, so you can make an informed decision about your future.”
I turned slowly on the platform. Faced her directly.
“What exactly do you think is happening here?”
Camille smiled. It was a terrible smile, all teeth and no warmth.
“You were a placeholder,” she said. “A means to an end. The marriage clause gave Rafael the CEO seat, and the three-year minimum gave him time to consolidate power. That’s all you ever were. A warm body in the contract paragraph.”
“Rafael and I have-”
“Have what? A connection? A future?” She laughed. “Sweetheart, he’s been with me since the beginning. Did you really think those late nights were about work? Did you think the business trips were about business?”
She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone.
“I didn’t want to do this,” she said, scrolling.
“I wanted you to figure it out on your own, find some dignity, walk away quietly. But you’re still here, still pretending, still playing house in that penthouse he bought to keep you occupied.
So I’m going to show you. And then I’m going to give you a choice. ”
She turned the phone toward me.
Photos.
Rafael and Camille in a hotel lobby, standing close.
Rafael and Camille at dinner, his hand on her arm.
Rafael and Camille in what looked very much like a bedroom, her head on his chest, his arm wrapped around her shoulders.
The dates were stamped in the corner. The first one was from a week after our wedding.
“I have more,” Camille said. “So many more. Every city, every trip, every conference. He comes home to you smelling like my perfume, and you’re too naive to notice.”
I couldn’t breathe.
The photos were clear. Sharp. Rafael’s face was unmistakable in each one. The intimacy in their posture, the casual way they touched, the comfort of two people who knew each other’s bodies.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?” She tucked the phone away. “Ask yourself this, Brianna. In two and a half years of marriage, has your husband ever once made you feel chosen? Has he ever prioritized you over the company? Has he ever looked at you the way a man looks at a woman he loves?”
I thought about the blackout. The promises whispered in candlelight. The bouquet with the typed card.
Apologies for the disruption.
“No,” Camille said softly, reading my face. “He hasn’t. Because you’re not the one he wants. You never were.”
“Get out.”
“Not yet. I told you I was going to give you a choice.” She stepped closer, close enough that I could smell her perfume.
“Walk away. Quietly. Wait out the remaining months and take your settlement and disappear back to whatever Texas backwater you came from. Do that, and I’ll make sure the transition is smooth.
I’ll make sure the press doesn’t tear you apart.
I’ll make sure you get to keep some small shred of dignity. ”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll make your life hell.” Her voice hardened.
“I’ll make sure every society page in New York knows exactly how pathetic you are.
I’ll make sure your family name becomes a punchline.
And when the divorce goes public, I’ll make sure everyone knows you were the one who failed.
That you couldn’t keep your husband interested.
That you couldn’t even do the one job the contract gave you. ”
She glanced down at my stomach.
“Two and a half years, and you couldn’t manage to get pregnant. What’s wrong, Brianna? Did you forget how that works? Or did Rafael just stop bothering to try?”
The words hit exactly where she meant them to hit: the empty nursery I’d never decorated, the pregnancy tests I’d stopped buying, the way Rafael reached for me in the dark but never once mentioned children or asked if I wanted them.
“He told me about the contract terms, you know.” Camille’s voice was almost gentle now.
“The real terms. The ones your lawyers didn’t put in writing.
The Grants wanted a boy to inherit the company.
The Salazars wanted a girl for the farms. And if you’d managed to produce either, you might’ve had some leverage.
But you didn’t. You couldn’t. And now you’re just taking up space. ”
My hands were shaking. I balled them into fists.
“Get out,” I said again.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“You’re threatening me.”
“I’m giving you information.” She shrugged. “What you do with it is up to you. But if I were in your position, I’d start packing. The company jet has an opening next Tuesday. I could put in a word, make sure you have a comfortable flight home.”
She turned toward the door. Paused. Looked back over her shoulder.
“Oh, and Brianna? If you’re thinking about confronting Rafael with any of this, don’t bother.
He’ll deny everything. He’s very good at that.
And then he’ll resent you for making things difficult, and the last few months of your marriage will be even more miserable than the first two and a half years. ”
I moved before I knew I was moving.
I stepped off the platform, crossed the room, and blocked the door.
“You don’t get to do this,” I said. “You don’t get to waltz into my fitting room and threaten me and walk away smiling. That’s not how this works.”
“Get out of my way.”
“No.”
Camille’s pleasant mask cracked, just slightly, and what showed underneath it was vicious.
“Move.”
“Make me.”
Her hand came up fast, palm open, aimed at my cheek.
I caught her wrist.
My father had put me in martial arts classes when I was eight years old. He’d grown up in a world where women needed to know how to defend themselves, and he’d made sure I could. Muscle memory so deep it didn’t require thought.
Camille’s wrist was thin in my grip. I could’ve broken it, and I wanted to. I wanted to hurt her the way her words and her photos had hurt me.
I didn’t.
I held her there, her arm frozen mid-swing, her eyes wide with what looked almost like fear.
“You don’t get to touch me,” I said. “You don’t get to threaten me. And you don’t get to stand there smiling while you tear my life apart. Do you understand?”
“Let go of me.”
“Answer the question.”
“You’re hurting me.”
“I’m barely touching you.” I released her wrist. Stepped back. “Now get out. And if you ever come near me again, if you ever try to put your hands on me again, I’ll put you on the floor so fast your perfect little head will spin. Are we clear?”
Camille rubbed her wrist. The mask was back, but I could see the cracks in it now.
“You’ll regret this,” she said.
“I regret a lot of things. You’re not going to be one of them.”
She left. The door slammed behind her.
I stood in the middle of the fitting room and tried to breathe.
The photos.
Rafael in hotel lobbies, at dinners, in bedrooms. His hands on her. Her head on his chest. Every city, every trip, every conference.
Since the beginning. Since a week after our wedding. Since before the blackout, before the promises, before I’d made the mistake of thinking he might actually care.
I pressed my hands to my face and cried.
It was ugly crying. The kind that came from somewhere deep and wouldn’t stop. I stood there in my silver dress with pins still in the hem and sobbed until my chest ached.
Then I stopped.
I wiped my face and looked in the mirror, and I thought about the woman I’d been when I walked into that conference room two and a half years ago, twenty-seven years old and ready to sacrifice three years of her life for her family.
And who she’d become.
I pulled out my phone before I could talk myself out of it.
The hotel’s name was stamped in the corner of the first photo, the one dated a week after our wedding. I found the number and called it, and I stood on that platform in my silver dress, pins still in the hem, and asked a stranger to tell me whether my husband was cheating on me.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t give out guest information.” The girl on the line sounded young. Careful. “It’s hotel policy.”
“Please.” My voice broke on the word. I kept going anyway. “Please. I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble. I just need to know if my husband was there. Rafael Grant. I need to know if he was there with someone, because I think he’s been cheating on me, and I can’t keep pretending I don’t know.”
There was a long silence. I could hear her breathing on the other end, a phone ringing somewhere behind her.
“Hold on,” she said finally, her voice dropping low, careful that no one near her could hear. Keys clicked. “I really shouldn’t do this. But yes. There was a Rafael Grant here that night.”
I closed my eyes.
“The reservation was under his name,” she went on, gentler now, the policy voice gone. “It was the honeymoon suite. That’s all I’ve got. I’m sorry. I hope you’re okay.”
She hung up before I could say anything back.
I held the phone to my ear long after the line went dead. The honeymoon suite. A week after he’d married me, he’d been in the honeymoon suite of a hotel in another city, and it hadn’t been with me.
I didn’t need the other nights, or the other cities. I didn’t need proof stacked in a folder. One phone call and a stranger’s pity had told me the whole of it. He’d been there, in the one room a man books for a woman he can’t wait to be alone with. It was never once the room he’d booked for me.
It was more than enough.
My husband was a cheater, my marriage was a farce, and everything I’d built in Manhattan stood on nothing.
I hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of the penthouse.
I sat in the back seat and watched the buildings blur past, and I thought about what Camille had said. The Grants wanted a boy. The Salazars wanted a girl. And I hadn’t given either family what they wanted.
But I wasn’t nothing.
I was Brianna Salazar. My father’s daughter. Built from Texas dirt and stubbornness and the knowledge that when the world knocked you down, you got back up.
Camille wanted me to run. She wanted me broken and beaten and crawling home in shame.
She was going to be disappointed.
I put my phone away. There would be no case, no folder of proof handed to a lawyer. I knew what I knew, and no amount of evidence was ever going to make it hurt less, or make him love me.
Six months until the contract ended, and I already understood exactly how I meant to spend them.
I wasn’t going to take his money, or anything else that would tie me to him for the rest of my life.
I was going to take myself, and whatever was left of my heart, and I was going to disappear so completely that the only thing he’d have left of me was the memory of how badly he’d underestimated me.
The cab pulled up to the penthouse. I paid the driver, walked into the lobby and rode the elevator up and stood in the living room of the home I’d shared with a stranger.
I was still standing there when I heard myself say it out loud, quiet and certain in the empty room.
“I’m a Salazar.”