Chapter 2

2.

When I woke up the next morning, there was a note on the nightstand in his handwriting.

“I was exhausted last night, sorry for my tone. I booked a table at Per Se tonight to make it up to you. Love you.”

His handwriting was still as confident as it was when he wrote notes for me in the Harvard library, but now, it just made me sick.

I picked up my phone. Hailey had posted again on Instagram.

This time, it was a Reel of fireworks over Dumbo.

Brilliant explosions lit up the night sky, illuminating the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline.

The caption read: “Thank you for my own private fireworks show. In the new year, promise to keep spoiling me. #myhero”

I knew that background all too well.

Back when Elias and I were broke, I was the girl eating dollar-pizza slices on a park bench.

Seven years ago, on the Fourth of July, we huddled together on that same bench, shivering in the river wind, sharing a single cheap coat.

The Macy’s fireworks show had just started.

I pointed at the glittering sky, my eyes full of dreams.

He held my cold hand, his own eyes burning with ambition.

“Faye, just you wait. One day, I’m going to buy the penthouse across the river and have the most expensive fireworks in New York bloom just for you.”

Now, he’d done it.

But the leading lady in his American Dream was now Hailey.

The video kept playing.

The camera panned, and there was Elias, down on one knee. He held a signature Tiffany-blue box, carefully taking out a sterling silver baby rattle and handing it to the infant in Hailey’s arms.

My breath caught in my throat. A sharp pain, like my heart was stopping, shot through my chest.

When I got pregnant by accident the first time, I agreed to skip the wedding so it wouldn’t affect his crucial fundraising round. I even agreed to go with him to schmooze boorish, drunken investors while I was showing.

Then came the car accident. We lost him, our baby who was almost ready to be born.

That Tiffany silver rattle was the gift he’d picked out with me, after we’d scoured every store on Fifth Avenue, a charm to protect our unborn child.

I couldn’t control myself anymore. I grabbed my car keys and bolted out of the apartment.

I called Elias frantically on the way.

It rang for a long time before he picked up, the background noisy.

“What is it?” he answered, his voice dripping with annoyance at being interrupted.

“Where are you?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“I’m with a very important angel investor, Faye. Don’t be a control freak, I have to go.”

He was about to hang up.

But then, I heard Hailey’s sickeningly sweet voice clearly from his end.

“Daddy, the baby wants a hug.”

Elias frantically ended the call.

When I got to Brooklyn Bridge Park, I drove along the waterfront and immediately spotted his matte black Model X Plaid parked on the side of the road.

The license plate was my birthday. What a sick, ironic joke.

Elias was holding the baby, and Hailey was snuggled against his shoulder like a victor. The three of them, this goddamn “family,” looked perfect enough for a Ralph Lauren ad.

This was the man I had nurtured for seven years with my youth, my tears, and my money, and now another woman was reaping all the rewards.