After the Miscarriage, I Stopped Being a Stepmother to Don's Heir

A few days passed. Leon didn't come home.

Back at the office, I didn't see him either.

I worked PR for his company. No one knew I was his wife.

The secret marriage was Giselle's idea. When she found out we were getting married, she threw a fit, saying a woman who spent her days in low-cut dresses working the social circuit had no business being the Donna of the Santoro family. It would embarrass everyone.

It was petty and jealous and completely unhinged, but Leon actually listened.

He said we'd go public when the time was right.

The right time never came.

At some point, I stopped expecting it.

On lunch break, the girls in PR were gossiping.

"Did you hear? The Don might be getting back together with Giselle."

"I know! They took Rosalie to Disney together. The pictures are adorable."

I stared out the glass wall at the sky, heavy and grey like a song that only goes one way.

"Scarlett, look, don't they look perfect together?"

A coworker pushed her phone in my face.

It was Giselle's Facebook. Posted today, several photos. Rosalie in the middle, Leon and Giselle on either side, all three cheeks pressed together. Behind them was a castle and a fairy-tale blue sky. A perfect little family.

In the screen, they were complete. Outside the screen, I was the extra that didn't belong.

The girls cooed around me.

"Honestly, only someone like Giselle deserves a man like the Don."

"God, I'd give anything to marry a man like him."

"Dream on. Women like us don't get to be Cinderella."

A coworker slung her arm around my shoulder and grinned.

"Right, Scarlett? Men like the Don are princes, but we're not the lucky girls who get the glass slipper."

The last message in my thread with Leon was from before I lost the baby. Over two weeks. Neither of us had reached out once. If I didn't make the first move, he never would.

I didn't know if other marriages were like this.

I just knew I was tired of one that only ran in one direction.

I looked at the phone in my coworker's hand, at the three smiling faces in the photo, and said calmly, "You're right. We're not Cinderella."

I decided to ask Leon for a divorce.