Chapter 9
Lizanne
The sun sliced across the white duvet at a sharp l angle.
Lizanne reached for the left side of the bed, her hand meeting nothing but flat, cold linen.
She stayed there for a moment, pinned to her side, staring at the empty pillow.
Usually, Trina’s side of the bed carried a hint of sandalwood and late-night cigarettes; today, it just smelled of clean sheets, as the maid had just changed them the day before.
The kitchen marble was like ice under her bare feet. She moved through the morning ritual on autopilot—filling the reservoir, the violent scream of the bean grinder—anything to puncture the stillness of the house. While the machine hummed, she pulled her phone from her robe pocket.
You didn’t come home. Everything okay at the studio?
The Delivered stamp appeared instantly, but the silence on the other end remained.
She watched the espresso drip into a white ceramic cup, telling herself it was the usual pattern: Trina catching a melody, Trina hiding in the booth until dawn, Trina sleeping on the velvet lounge sofa to avoid the canyon roads in the dark.
At 8:30 AM, the intercom’s aggressive buzz shattered the quiet.
“Yes, Mel,” she said, pressing the button.
“Miss Connors.” Her security guard’s voice was leveled by years of professional training. “You need to look at the gate cameras. Now.”
She crossed to the foyer, her pulse ticking in her throat. One tap on the security panel and the world rushed in: a swarm of thirty people, long-lenses angled like weapons, and two news vans choking the driveway.
“How long?” Lizanne asked.
“Ten minutes. It’s growing. I’ve called for back-up.”
“Why are they here?”
“I don’t have that yet,” Mel said. “I’ll update you.”
She retreated to the kitchen, her fingers already dialing Pat. The call connected before the first ring finished.
“Don’t go online,” Pat’s voice was a sharp warning over a rush of wind and road noise. “I’m in the car, ten minutes out. Do not look at your phone, Lizanne. Do not touch social media.”
“Pat, there are dozens of people at my gate. What is happening?”
“I am almost there. Stay away from the windows.”
The line went dead. Lizanne stood in the center of her kitchen, the tablet on the charging dock glowing like a landmine. She didn’t go to social media. She went to her news bookmarks, her hands steady even as her stomach dropped.
The photo was at the top. High-resolution. Cruel.
Trina was tucked into a booth at a West Hollywood club, head tilted back in a way Lizanne knew too well. Marcus Lance was leaning over her, his hand on her thigh. They weren’t talking; they were occupied.
She scrolled down to the video. It was grainy, shaky phone footage. At 3:00 AM, the two of them stumbled out of a side exit, Trina unsteady on her feet, Marcus’s arm clamped around her waist to keep her upright.
“Trina! What about the wedding? What about Lizanne?” a voice barked from behind the lens.
Trina stopped. She looked directly into the camera with unfocused eyes and a small, crooked smile that made Lizanne’s blood turn to lead.
“Wedding?” Trina asked.
Marcus laughed, hauling her into the back of a black SUV. The door slammed, and the screen went black.
Lizanne didn’t realize she was on the floor until the cold of the marble finally seeped through her silk robe. She watched it again. “Wedding?” As if the wedding were a piece of trivia she’d forgotten. As if Lizanne were a stranger.
The headlines underneath were a blur of rumors—allegations that the affair had started eight months ago. At a birthday party Rose had arranged. A party they had attended as a couple. A party planned by Rose.
The front door heavy-thumped shut. Pat didn’t use the intercom; she burst in with her own key, finding Lizanne slumped against the kitchen island. Pat didn’t offer platitudes. She just sat on a barstool and took a deep breath.
“It hit the blogs at midnight,” Pat said after a long silence. “The mainstream sites picked it up an hour ago.”
“She said ‘wedding, as if she was unfamiliar with the concept,’” Lizanne whispered, wiping a stray tear with the back of her hand.
“She was high. We can fix the quote.”
“You can’t fix eight months, Pat. They’re saying it started in March.”
“Where is she?” Lizanne asked, her voice cracking.
“I don’t know. No one is talking.”
“We need a plan,” Pat began, pacing the length of the island, her heels clicking like a metronome. “We can say you were already separated. We can say the wedding was off weeks ago. If we control the narrative, we save the Prime Esque deal.”
“The wedding isn’t off,” Lizanne snapped, the words tumbling out in a frantic rush. “I have a dress at the shop. There’s a cake tasting on Monday. Rose found a venue and there’s a canopy! A canopy!” She clung to the word as if the lace and wood of a structure could hold her life together.
The intercom buzzed again. “Miss Connors,” Mel said. “Miss Holmes is at the gate.”
The five minutes it took for the car to wind up the driveway felt like an hour. Lizanne stood up, smoothing her robe and splashing cold water on her face until she looked like a person again.
When the elevator doors finally opened, Trina walked in wearing the same black dress from the video. One strap was twisted. She was carrying her heels in one hand, smelling of tobacco and cheap tequila.
“Pat,” Trina rasped. “Leave us.”
Lizanne gave a curt nod, and Pat retreated to the terrace.
“Is it true?” Lizanne asked. She didn’t move. She couldn’t.
Trina set her shoes on the counter and slumped onto a stool. “Yes.”
“Marcus Lance.”
“Yes.”
“Since March?”
Trina looked toward the window, refusing to meet Lizanne’s eyes. “A little less.”
“Eight months,” Lizanne’s voice was hollow.
“It was only supposed to be an escape,” Trina said, picking at a loose thread on her hem.
“An escape from what?”
“From this,” Trina gestured vaguely at the high-tech kitchen, the security cameras, the “Wedding of the Year.” “From being a co-star instead of a person.”
“I did this for us,” Lizanne said.
“No. You did it for you.” Trina finally looked at her, her eyes bloodshot and hard. “I’m falling in love with him, Liz. He doesn’t want a reality show. He just wants me.”
“And the wedding?”
“There is no wedding. I don’t want to get married. Not to you. Not to anyone. All this circus—the guest lists, the cameras in our bedroom—it killed it for me.”
“We dreamed of this,” Lizanne said, her voice small. “We sat on this floor and planned it.”
“No,” Trina’s voice went flat. “You dreamed. I listened. I said yes because I didn’t want to fight you. But the fact that you didn’t even notice I was miserable for eight months? That’s the answer, Liz. We’re done.”
Trina stood up, grabbing her shoes. She walked to the elevator, the doors sliding shut with a soft, final hiss.
Lizanne stood in the center of the kitchen.
She heard the distant roar of an engine, then nothing but the hum of the refrigerator.
Pat came back in from the terrace, her face softened by pity.
She didn’t ask questions; she just put her arms around Lizanne and held her while the first jagged sob finally broke through.
Outside, the morning fog was lifting, revealing the city below. But at the gate, the cameras were still pointed upward, waiting for the next act.
It was over. All of it was over. No wedding. No reality show. No lover. No more ‘honey bee’. They were done. And the worst part was, Lizanne didn’t even know if she was crying because Trina was gone, her because she had humiliated her on her way out.