Signed The Papers: Watch Me Shine Now

The harsh glare of the desk lamp cut through the darkness of the Upper East Side penthouse. Faith Owens sat hunched over the massive marble island in her study. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to rub away the gritty exhaustion. Her neck ached with a dull, throbbing rhythm. She picked up her drafting pencil, forcing her focus back to the architectural blueprints spread out before her. The sudden, violent vibration of her phone against the marble shattered the dead silence of the room. The screen lit up. Quinn Baxter. Faith picked it up. The heavy, thumping bass of a nightclub bled through the speaker before Quinn even spoke. "Faith." Quinn's voice was breathless, sharp with an urgency that made the hairs on Faith's arms stand up. "Are you sitting down?" "I'm working," Faith said, her voice raspy from disuse. "What's wrong?" A sharp intake of breath hissed through the receiver. "My friend just got back from Paris. She was at JFK arrivals ten minutes ago. She sent me a picture." Faith's heart skipped a beat. A cold, heavy stone dropped into the pit of her stomach. Her fingers tightened around the metal barrel of her drafting pencil. "What picture, Quinn?" "It's Hartwell," Quinn spat, the name dripping with venom. "He went to the airport. He picked up Eveline Craig." The air in Faith's lungs vanished. The pencil in her hand jerked. The graphite tip snapped, tearing a jagged, ugly black line straight across her meticulous floor plan. A soft ping echoed from the phone. Quinn had sent the image. Faith's hand shook so violently she could barely pull the phone away from her ear. The blue light of the screen washed over her pale face. The photo was grainy, zoomed in from a distance, but the subjects were unmistakable. Hartwell. Her husband of six years. He was wearing his custom charcoal Tom Ford suit. His broad shoulders were angled downward, protective and intimate. His large hand rested firmly, possessively, on the small of a woman's waist. It was a gesture of tender devotion Faith had never, not once, received in two thousand days of marriage. Leaning into his chest, looking up at him with a fragile, flawless smile, was Eveline Craig. The perfect New York socialite. The woman Hartwell had always loved. A wave of pure, physiological nausea crashed over Faith. Acid burned the back of her throat. She clamped her free hand over her mouth, her stomach convulsing. The phone slipped from her sweaty palm. It hit the marble countertop with a sickening crack. The sound echoed off the high ceilings of the empty, cavernous penthouse. No one came running. No one asked if she was okay. She was utterly alone. "Faith?" Quinn's voice was a tinny yell from the dropped device. "He's a piece of trash. Do not let him do this to you anymore. You have to end this dead marriage." Faith swallowed the bile in her throat. She picked up the phone with numb fingers. "I know," she whispered. She pressed end. The silence rushed back in, suffocating and absolute. Faith turned her head, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the glittering, indifferent skyline of Manhattan. The isolation swallowed her whole. She slid off the high stool. Her legs felt like water. She had to grip the edge of the cold marble island just to keep from collapsing to the floor. Slowly, she forced herself to walk. Down the long, shadowed hallway. Past the priceless art she wasn't allowed to touch. She stopped in front of the heavy oak doors of the master suite. She pushed them open. The air inside was sterile and freezing. Faith walked straight into the massive walk-in closet. The space was aggressively divided. Hartwell's rows of dark, immaculate suits consumed eighty percent of the room. Her eyes drifted to the far, dark corner. Sitting there, gathering a thin layer of dust, was a battered twenty-inch suitcase. It was the only thing she had brought with her six years ago when she was forced into the Ware family. The memory of that hotel room flashed behind her eyes like a strobe light. The dizziness. The drugs in her system. Waking up next to Hartwell with cameras flashing in her face. He had looked at her with pure disgust, convinced she had orchestrated the entire scandal just to trap him for his money. No matter how much she cried, no matter how much she begged him to believe she was a victim too, his only response had been a ruthless prenuptial agreement and six years of psychological torture. Faith backed out of the closet. She walked into the living room and sank onto the edge of the pristine white sofa. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins, trying to hold her own body together. She stared up at the antique grandfather clock against the wall. Tick. Tick. Tick. Two in the morning. Usually, right now, she would be in the kitchen. Pouring a glass of room-temperature water, setting out two Advil on a napkin, waiting for the sound of the private elevator to announce her husband's return from a late business dinner. But tonight, that man was wrapping his arms around another woman. Giving her the warmth he had starved Faith of for six years. A broken, hollow sound scraped its way out of Faith's throat. It was a laugh that sounded like a sob. The first tear fell, hot and heavy, splashing onto the back of her hand. Then another. And another. She didn't wipe them away. She sat perfectly still in the dark, letting the saltwater track down her cheeks, mourning the death of her own pathetic, unrequited love. Hours bled away. The pitch-black sky outside the windows slowly bruised into a pale, ashen gray. The first sliver of dawn light pierced the glass, hitting Faith's swollen, red-rimmed eyes. She uncurled her stiff limbs and stood up. The agonizing vulnerability in her chest was gone. In its place was a cold, hollowed-out graveyard. For six years, she had begged, cried, and screamed, because deep down, she still harbored a pathetic, lingering sliver of hope. She had believed that if she just loved him enough, he would eventually see her. But that grainy photograph had been the key, unlocking the brutal reality she had refused to face. It showed her that these two thousand days had been nothing but a humiliating, one-sided delusion. Hope was finally dead. And with it, her tears had completely dried up.