Chapter 1
The pop superstar adjusted my earpiece, and then, on instinct, kissed my hair.
We both froze.
Because this was a reality show about divorce.
And we were from different couples.
After divorced Ashton, everyone thought I would be the one clinging to him.
He had announced our marriage at the peak of his fame. After successfully transitioning his career and finally winning awards, my name would always come up.
“How did she get so lucky?” they’d say. “She doesn’t deserve him.”
I was the one who asked for the divorce.
But he had been waiting for it for a long time.
While he was on set with his co–star, an actress named Vera, wearing his clothes, using his phone case, playing the part of a “set couple“…
I was still at home, flipping through a calendar, waiting for him to come back, only to have my calls rejected again and again with the excuse of being “busy.”
Until one day, I ran into Vera in first class.
She greeted me with a warm, beaming smile.
“Did you know,” she whispered in my ear, “I paid for this flight with his card.”
She was doing it on purpose.
Trying to force me to divorce him.
i
I gave her what she wanted. I went home and was packed and gone within half an hour.
I don’t want things that other people have touched and soiled.
Thank God, we didn’t have any children.
Ashton leaned against the doorframe, watching me.
His reaction was muted. He only asked one thing: “What else do you want?”
“Your phone.”
He was taken aback but handed it over without a fight.
In the years when he loved me most, when I was by his side as he climbed from obscurity to stardom, I had always been his one and only pinned contact.
Now, I had been replaced.
All that was left was “Do Not Disturb.”
We signed the papers. He gave me everything he had earned over the years, just begging me to let him go quickly.
He said he was truly in love with Vera.
After signing a non–disclosure agreement, I left, thinking I would never have contact with him again.
Until he called me, one month after the divorce.
“We need to meet.”
“We can’t let the fans find out you cheated. The show still has to air.”
1 had arrived early.
In the break room, Ashton’s manager was trying to persuade him.
“You’re divorced, but you’re still a top–tier actor. And her? She’s just a nobody waiting to become a laughingstock.”
“She’s definitely not going to take this lying down.”
“So, you just trick her. Tell her you want to go on a divorce reality show with her.”
‘Let her think she still has a chance to win you back, make her grovel and please you.”
Then, in the final edit, we’ll make her look annoying, and you’ll get to keep your ‘devoted lover‘ persona..
“You’re divorced, but you’re still a top–tier actor. And her? She’s just a nobody waiting to become a laughingstock.”
“She’s definitely not going to take this lying down.”
“So, you just trick her. Tell her you want to go on a divorce reality show with her.”
“Let her think she still has a chance to win you back, make her grovel and please you.”
“Then, in the final edit, we’ll make her look annoying, and you’ll get to keep your ‘devoted lover‘ persona.”
The manager nudged him. “Are you even listening?”
Ashton had his legs propped up on a low table, lazily playing a game on his phone. “Yeah,” he grunted.
“I’m telling you, you snap your fingers, and she’ll come crawling back like a grateful puppy.”
In the meeting room.
Ashton toyed with his phone with one hand.
He said a few simple words.
And I agreed.
“I’ll do the show.”
He stared into my eyes, hesitating for a moment. “Are you really that… desperate for me?”
He was so confident, so easy to fool.
I lowered my lashes.
“Yes.”
“Ashton,” I whispered, “is there still a chance for us?”
His gaze was cold. He turned his face away and said softly, “We’ll see how you perform.”
“But,” he added, “the premise of this show isn’t what you think.”
This divorce reality show was set to air during the broadcast of his new drama with Vera.
It was all to hype up their on–screen couple pairing.
The show’s theme was “Try a different lifestyle, see the problems in your marriage.”
Vera would be in a room with him.
And I would be in a room with Vera’s husband.
The man who, at nineteen, shot to fame with a single drama, won every major award, and then promptly retired to get married: Cole.
Ashton had basically picked up Cole’s scraps.
He had risen to fame with a face that was seventy percent similar to Cole’s.
The rumor was that Vera and Cole lived apart after their marriage.
That she loved him, but he didn’t love her back.
