The Fallen Queen's Dating Show Comeback

Catalina dragged her feet across the hallway and pressed her thumb against the biometric scanner of her Los Angeles penthouse. The electronic lock chimed a crisp beep. She pushed the heavy door open, stepped inside, and slammed it shut behind her with enough force to rattle the hinges. She kicked her feet violently. The expensive Jimmy Choo stilettos flew across the room and smacked hard against the pristine white wall, dropping to the hardwood floor. Her legs gave out. She collapsed onto the massive velvet sofa, her body sinking into the cushions as if all her bones had dissolved. She reached into her Hermes Birkin bag and pulled out the unmarked, matte-black secondary phone. The screen illuminated her face in the dark room. The Signal app icon sat in the center of the screen, glaring at her with a bright red badge, the number rapidly ticking upward as dozens of unread messages flooded the screen in real-time. She tapped the app. She opened the encrypted group chat named Famiglia. Her thumb swiped frantically up the screen. The entire chat was flooded. Jame had sent dozens of screenshots of the TMZ photos, zooming in on different angles of Brogan holding her arm. Jame followed the photos with a string of whistling emojis. Jame: Someone's chivalry tonight is truly bringing tears to my eyes. The text hit Catalina like a physical slap. Her blood boiled. Right below it, Denisse had dropped a thirty-second voice memo. Catalina tapped play. Denisse's high-pitched, ear-piercing scream blasted from the speaker, followed by rapid-fire interrogation. "Oh my god! Caty! Did he actually kneel? What did he say? Are you guys finally doing this? Tell me everything!" Catalina's entire body shook with rage. Her chest heaved. She gripped the phone with both hands, her thumbs flying across the keyboard. She typed out a massive paragraph explaining that it was a stupid accident and her heel got stuck. Her hands were shaking so badly she hit the wrong letters. The text was a jumbled mess. She let out a frustrated growl, highlighted the whole thing, and hit delete. She pressed and held the microphone icon. "He is a walking disaster!" Catalina screamed into the phone, her voice echoing off the high ceilings of her empty living room. "He ruined my perfect night! I won a Golden Globe and all anyone cares about is his stupid face!" She let go of the button. The voice note sent. The chat went dead silent for exactly two seconds. Then, Jame replied. She sent a cropped, hyper-zoomed image of Brogan's face from the hallway. It focused entirely on Brogan's eyes looking up at her. The look was undeniably, sickeningly tender. Jame drew a massive red circle around Brogan's eyes. Jame: If it was just an accident, why didn't he just step on your dress to rip it free? Why did he get down on one knee? The logic hit Catalina right in the chest. Her breath hitched. Her lungs seized. Unbidden, the memory of the hallway flashed in her mind. The smell of cedar. The heat of his hand on her ankle. The intense, focused way his jaw set as he looked up at her. She shook her head violently, trying to physically dislodge the image from her brain. She pressed her thumbs to the screen, hitting the keys so hard the glass tapped loudly. Catalina: Because he has OCD! He can't stand seeing Oscar de la Renta tulle tangled! It was a pathetic excuse. She knew it the second she hit send. It was a desperate shield to cover the sudden, erratic pounding of her heart. Denisse instantly replied with a GIF of a woman laughing hysterically. Denisse: A three-year-old wouldn't buy that bullshit, Caty. The air in the living room felt suffocating. Catalina swiped out of Signal and opened Twitter just to check. Her stomach violently dropped. Brogan's fans had taken her profile picture and photoshopped it onto a tombstone. There were hundreds of them. The anger that had been simmering in her veins finally breached the boiling point. Her vision actually blurred with red-hot fury. She swiped back to Signal. She jabbed her finger into the screen. Catalina: Listen to me. From this second on, if anyone in this chat mentions that bastard's name again, I am blocking you permanently. The absolute finality in her text was palpable. Jame sent a GIF of a mouth being zipped shut. He surrendered. The chat fell into an eerie, unnatural stillness. But the heavy, tight feeling in Catalina's chest didn't go away. She sat up straight, her muscles coiled tight. She tapped the settings icon in the top right corner of the chat. She stared at the warm, familiar group name: Famiglia. She hit backspace. She deleted the entire word. The system prompted her: Are you sure you want to change the group name? She jammed her finger onto Yes. She typed in the new name. Brogan is Dead to Me. She hit save. A small gray system message popped up in the center of the chat for everyone to see. Catalina changed the group name to "Brogan is Dead to Me". The chat remained dead. Even Denisse didn't dare type a single letter. Catalina tossed the phone onto the thick Persian rug. It landed with a soft, muffled thud. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. She stood up and walked over to the open-concept kitchen. She yanked the stainless steel refrigerator door open and grabbed a bottle of ice water. The freezing plastic shocked her warm skin, grounding her slightly. She twisted the cap off and chugged the water. A stray drop escaped her lips, trailing down her chin and pooling in the hollow of her collarbone. She closed her eyes, trying to force her brain to formulate a plan. Suddenly, the black screen of the phone on the rug lit up. In the dark living room, the glow was blinding. Catalina froze. The water bottle stopped halfway to her mouth. She stared at the screen. Her heart skipped a violent, terrifying beat. A notification banner hung at the top of the screen. The person who almost never spoke had suddenly broken the long, heavy silence. Brogan Cohen's solid black silhouette avatar was sitting next to a new voice message. He had broken his silence right after she changed the name. Catalina's fingers gripped the plastic water bottle so hard it crinkled loudly. Her knuckles turned stark white. She stared at the three-second audio file on the screen. A massive, suffocating weight of anticipation pressed down on her chest.