My Movie Star Husband’s Forgotten Wife

Three days left in Los Angeles.

I taped the fourth box shut and sat back on my heels. Sheet music. Old letters. My mother's teacups. A sweater from Boston with a burn hole in the sleeve.

That was it. Eight years, and everything that was mine fit into four boxes.

The rest of the house belonged to Sebastian. His posters. His trophies. Racks of tuxedos worth more than my first car.

The front door slammed. He walked in, sunglasses pushed up into his hair, and stopped.

"Switching out your summer clothes?"

"Something like that."

"Good timing." He tossed his keys onto the dresser. "While you're digging around, find that pearl necklace. The one with the gold clasp. Chloe needs something classic for the premiere."

My hands went still on the tape gun.

"You gave me that necklace on our fifth anniversary."

"Did I?" He frowned like he was trying to remember a line. "Okay. So?"

"So no."

He laughed once, short and surprised. "Evie, come on. It's one night."

"It's mine, Sebastian."

His smile slipped. He crossed the room, opened my jewelry box, and lifted the pearls out himself. They swung from his fingers like they weighed nothing.

"It's just jewelry, Evelyn. Don't make it a competition."

He walked out with them.

---

That night, Chloe came over to try on dresses.

In our bedroom.

I heard her laughter from the hallway, bright and easy, like she'd been laughing in this house for years. The door was cracked open. A sliver of gold light spilled across the carpet.

"Sebastian, look."

I didn't mean to stop walking. My feet just did.

Through the gap, I saw her standing at our mirror in a white slip dress. My pearls rested against her collarbone. She touched them with two fingertips and tilted her head.

"Be honest." Her voice went soft and teasing. "Do I look like the real lady of the house?"

I waited for him to say *no*. To say *that's my wife's*. To say anything at all that belonged to me.

Sebastian leaned against the bedpost, arms folded.

"You look beautiful."

Chloe giggled and spun once. The pearls caught the light.

I stepped back from the door without a sound and went downstairs. I rinsed a clean mug that didn't need rinsing. Then I rinsed it again.

---

The next morning, a documentary crew swarmed the living room. Cables everywhere. A director named Marcus with a gray beanie was shouting about lighting.

"We need one more angle on the piano story. Chloe, sweetheart, you're up."

They'd moved my piano out of the guest room. Pulled off the dust sheet. Set Chloe on the bench beside it.

I hovered at the edge of the kitchen, holding a dish towel.

"So tell us," Marcus said. "The song. 'The One I Love.'"

Chloe pressed a hand to her heart. "Sebastian wrote it during the hardest time of his life. After the accident. I'd sit with him on the bad nights, and he'd play it for me. That's how I knew he was going to make it."

The towel twisted in my fists.

She joined his team three years ago. *Three.*

"Cut! Gorgeous." Marcus grinned at Sebastian. "And the credit reads *music by Sebastian Vale, written for Chloe*, right? That's the hook."

Sebastian nodded. "Sure. Run it."

I waited until the crew broke for lunch. Then I followed him into the study and shut the door.

"You're letting them say you wrote it."

He was scrolling through emails. "It's a documentary, Evelyn. It needs a story."

"It's my song. I wrote it with a wrapped hand because I'd sprained it carrying your groceries up four flights of stairs."

"Nobody cares about the details."

"She wasn't there. *I* was there."

He finally looked up, and his face held nothing but impatience.

"You're being way too sensitive about this." He set the phone down. "Does it really matter who was there eight years ago?"

My throat closed. I felt the heat crawl up behind my eyes and didn't bother hiding it.

"It mattered to me."

For a second, something flickered across his face. Confusion, maybe. Like a door had opened in a house he thought he knew every room of.

Then it was gone.

"Look, I'll get you something nice after the premiere," he said. "That bracelet you liked in Paris. Okay?"

I opened the study door and walked out.

---

The night of the premiere, the flashbulbs turned Hollywood Boulevard white.

From the backseat of my rideshare, I watched the red carpet on my phone. Chloe in white silk. Sebastian in black. Her hand curled around his arm. My pearls at her throat.

"SEBASTIAN! CHLOE! Over here!"

"Look this way! Kiss for the camera!"

A group of fans waved a glowing sign. *HOLLYWOOD'S PERFECT COUPLE.*

The driver whistled. "Those two, huh? Real-life romance."

"So they say."

I went in through the side entrance. A staffer with a clipboard barely glanced at my ticket.

"Section F. All the way up, last row. Watch the steps."

From up there, Sebastian was a dark shape in the first row. I couldn't see his expression. I couldn't even see his hands.

The lights went down.

The film was polished. Expensive. Then the screen cut to the recovery years, and the room went quiet.

There was footage I recognized. I'd shot it on a cheap camcorder in our Boston kitchen. Sebastian at the table, gripping a stress ball, sweat on his lip.

But the woman beside him had been blurred. Cropped. Cut down to the back of a sweater with a burn hole in the sleeve.

Then Chloe's face filled the screen. *"I was the one who stayed with him through the darkest part."*

And the piano began.

The first four notes of "The One I Love."

I'd written those notes at two in the morning in January, my wrist throbbing in a bandage, the radiator knocking, Sebastian asleep with his head in my lap.

The tears came before I could stop them. Silent ones. I didn't wipe them away.

The credits rolled. The theater rose to its feet. The applause was so loud the floor hummed under my shoes.

A spotlight found Sebastian. He pulled Chloe into his arms on the stage.

"I want to thank one person," he said into the mic. His voice was warm. Thick. "Chloe. Thank you for never leaving."

The crowd went wild.

Then he bent and tugged her shawl up over her bare shoulder. Smoothed it flat with his palm.

My chest went quiet.

Eight years ago, on a freezing Boston street, he'd done that exact thing for me. Pulled my scarf higher. Told me I'd catch my death.

I laughed under my breath. The man beside me shot me a look.

I hadn't lost to Chloe.

I'd lost to a man who never really held on to me at all.

I stood and made my way down the aisle. As I passed the front row, Sebastian's eyes drifted my way.

They touched me for half a second.

Then they slid right back to her, like I was just another stranger heading for the restroom.

---

At LAX, my phone lit up.

*Why did you leave early? Chloe isn't feeling well. I'll take her home first. Dinner next week?*

I read it twice. I didn't answer.

I'd worn my wedding ring tonight. First time in months. I twisted it off my finger. It came free easily. My hand must have gotten thinner.

I dropped it into the deepest pocket of my carry-on and zipped it shut.

---

The plane began to taxi. My phone buzzed one last time.

Grace. *Confirmed. Papers will be served to Mr. Vale tomorrow at 10 a.m.*

A news alert slid in right below it. A clip from the afterparty. A reporter shoving a mic toward Sebastian.

"Is Chloe your muse?"

He smiled the smile that had won him two Oscars.

"She's very special to me."

I switched my phone to airplane mode. The engines roared. Los Angeles tilted and fell away beneath the wing.

Tomorrow at ten, a stranger would knock on his door.

And for the first time in eight years, Sebastian Vale would have to wait for me.