My Ex Betrayed Me, The Cold Movie Star Loved Me

"Hold the clamp steady," I told the apprentice, wiping sweat from my temple with the back of my wrist. "If the silver overheats, the tension snaps the prongs."

"Miss Laurent, it's four in the morning," the girl whispered, trembling as the jeweler's torch hissed. "You've been at the bench since yesterday afternoon. Mr. Blake’s office sent a driver with lunch twelve hours ago. You didn't touch it."

"Send the driver away." I lowered the magnification visor, aligning the faceted sapphire into the custom platinum housing. "I don't eat Blake food. I don't take Blake favors. We have sixteen pieces to polish before the runway opens at noon."

"The fashion director asked if we should put your husband's studio logo on the press release," she murmured. "It would guarantee the front page."

"No." My voice stayed flat, sharp as diamond grit. "The collection carries my mark alone. Not Arthur Laurent's. Not Sebastian Blake's."

By eleven o'clock, the backstage corridor of the Wilshire Pavilion buzzed with manic energy. Racks of silk whipped past. Hairspray hung thick in the air.

I secured the final clasp around the lead model's neck. Twenty hours of continuous work burned behind my eyelids like raw sand.

"Isabelle?" a voice called out from the lighting rig.

My knees gave way.

The concrete floor surged upward. Sound shattered into a high, piercing whine, and the lights cut to black.

***

The hum of a heart monitor pulled me back.

A sharp smell of antiseptic stung my sinuses. White ceiling panels stretched above, framed by sleek, modern recessed lighting.

"Drink," a deep voice commanded from the edge of the mattress.

I turned my head.

Sebastian Blake stood beside the IV drip, holding a paper cup of water toward me. He had stripped off his suit jacket; his white shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, sleeves rolled up over forearms corded with muscle.

"I'm fine," I rasped, pushing against the stiff hospital sheets. "The showcase—"

"The showcase ended two hours ago," Sebastian interrupted. He tossed the paper cup into a steel bin with a sharp thud. "Your assistant delivered the pieces. The collection sold out in twenty minutes."

"I have to get back to the studio."

"Sit down, Isabelle." His palm came down against the mattress beside my hip, his gray eyes pinning me to the pillows. "You collapsed headfirst into an equipment crate. The doctor had to pump two bags of saline into your veins just to stabilize your pressure."

"It's exhaustion. Nothing more."

"Really?" The door swung open. A gray-haired physician in a white lab coat stepped in, flipping through a digital chart.

"Ah, Mrs. Blake, you're awake," the doctor said, glancing up. "I just finished explaining your blood work to your husband."

"Tell her," Sebastian ordered without looking away from me.

"Severe hypoglycemia, borderline anemia, and severe systemic malnutrition," the doctor said bluntly. "Your body has been running on pure adrenaline and black coffee for months. Worse, your endocrine markers indicate extreme, prolonged psychological stress. If you keep pushing sixty-hour shifts on empty stomachs, you're looking at total organ failure before thirty."

"I take vitamins," I said.

The doctor frowned. "Vitamins don't replace food, young lady. Rest. Real meals. Or next time, you won't wake up in a private suite."

The physician nodded to Sebastian and walked out, pulling the door shut.

Silence dropped over the room, heavy and suffocating.

"An asset," I quoted, staring at the ceiling. "Isn't that what you called me on our wedding day? You don't need to play the concerned spouse. I won't ruin your press run."

Sebastian's jaw tightened. "Do you think this is about press?"

"Isn't it?"

Before he could answer, the door cracked open again. Alexander, Sebastian’s personal executive assistant, stepped into the room holding a thick leather dossier.

"Mr. Blake," Alexander said, lowering his head. "You asked for the background audit on the jewelry division."

"Leave it," Sebastian said.

Alexander set the file on the glass nightstand, bowed, and slipped out, closing the latch with a muted snap.

Sebastian picked up the folder. He didn't sit. He flipped the cover open, exposing glossy photographs, production logs, and patent filings.

"Julian Hayes won Best Supporting Actor in London two years ago," Sebastian said, his tone chillingly smooth. "He walked the carpet wearing a serpent collar cast in blackened white gold with raw emerald eyes. *Vogue* called it the crowning jewel of indie red-carpet fashion."

I looked away, staring out the window at the Los Angeles skyline.

"The registry lists the designer as an anonymous artisan from an atelier in Florence," Sebastian continued, turning a page. "And yet, here are the original CAD files, the purchase orders for the rough emeralds, and the wax casts. All registered to your personal workstation in Arthur Laurent's basement."

"So you found my old files," I said. "Congratulations."

"There's more," Sebastian said, his voice dropping an octave. "Three historical dramas Julian starred in. Every signet ring, every custom dagger hilt, every royal pendant—drawn by your hand. Cast by your hand. Delivered without a single credit on the screen."

"Julian needed the spotlight," I said, a bitter taste rising on my tongue. "My father told me that supporting Julian’s image would secure our production deals. He said family sacrifices in silence."

"And Celeste?" Sebastian dropped the file onto the bed beside my legs.

A full-page magazine spread landed face-up.

It showed Celeste standing on the steps of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, beaming beside Julian. Around her throat rested a choker of platinum thorns cradling teardrop rubies.

The headline blazed in bold gold font: *CELESTE LAURENT: HOLLYWOOD’S NEWEST COUTURE JEWELRY PRODIGY.*

"She couldn't solder two links of brass together if her life depended on it," Sebastian said, his eyes drilling into mine. "That necklace took four hundred hours of labor. Alexander pulled the security logs from your studio. You built it while suffering from bronchitis, three days before they flew to France."

"Why do you care?" I demanded, my hands clenching into fists against the hospital sheets. "You thought I was a greedy socialite trying to steal my sister's rich fiancé! You thought I was an obedient little accountant doing my father's bidding!"

Sebastian took a step closer, towering over the bed. "I thought you were complicit."

"I was trapped!" I shouted, the fury tearing through my chest. "I gave Julian five years of my life. I designed his career, I paid off his debts through Laurent shell accounts, and the moment he gained traction, he took my sister into his bed! They took my designs, they took my name, and then they handed me to you like a piece of spoiled meat to seal their damn merger!"

Sebastian stood frozen. For three seconds, the room was so quiet I could hear the saline dripping through the plastic tube.

His hard, untouchable facade cracked. His pupils dilated, searching my face as if seeing the lines of my bone structure for the first time.

"A genius," he murmured, the word barely louder than a breath. "A prodigy hidden in the cellar while they paraded a counterfeit across the globe."

"Don't pity me, Sebastian."

"I don't pity you," he said, reaching out. His thumb brushed against the calluses on the inside of my index finger—the scars left by carving wax and grinding silver. "I despise waste. And your family threw away a crown to worship a plastic imitation."

My phone vibrated violently against the nightstand, breaking the moment.

Sebastian pulled his hand back, checking his watch. "Rest. Alexander has security posted outside. No one enters without my clearance."

He walked out, his stride long and hurried, pulling his phone to his ear as he rounded the corner.

I reached for my phone. It was an unlisted Los Angeles number.

I tapped answer.

"You think you're clever, don't you?" Celeste's voice hissed through the speaker, trembling with hysterical rage.

"Celeste?"

"Sebastian pulled his advertising contract from my jewelry line twenty minutes ago!" she screamed, her usual sweet facade completely gone. "The New York exhibition canceled my gallery space! He told the board that Laurent designs were unverified rubbish!"

Julian's voice filtered in from the background, muffled but furious: *Let me talk to her!*

"Did you tell him?" Celeste sobbed into the phone, the sound venomous. "Did you run to your billionaire husband and cry about your little sketches, Belle? You think he wants you? He's using you to punish Julian!"

"I didn't tell him anything, Celeste," I said coldly. "He has eyes. He can read a balance sheet."

"Listen to me, you pathetic shadow," Celeste spat, her voice dropping into a harsh rasp. "Julian and I are hosting the Winter Charity Gala next Friday. Every studio executive, every fashion editor, and every syndicate reporter in North America will be in that ballroom."

"Enjoy your party," I said, preparing to hang up.

"Oh, you're coming too, Belle," Celeste laughed, a manic, jagged sound. "Julian just arranged the press packets. We have the manufacturing receipts. We have the sworn statements from Arthur. By midnight on Friday, the world will know Isabelle Blake as an unstable, thieving fraud who stole her sister’s portfolio."

Julian grabbed the receiver on the other end, his voice dripping with venom. "You should have stayed in the basement, Isabelle. Now we're going to bury you where you belong."

The line clicked dead.