Chapter One – Celeste Rivera

For seven years I, Celeste Rivera was the iron spine behind Adrian Larke, the country’s most bankable and beloved A-list actor.

As his exclusive celebrity manager -and secret wife-I had built his empire from the ground up. I had ghostwritten his apologies, brokered hush contracts, created trending hashtags out of his accidents and turned fleeting side characters into stardom fuel for his narrative.

Our marriage inked in a small registry office on a rainy Tuesday, was kept hidden from the world-a mutual decision made in the name of “career longevity.”

A necessary sacrifice, Adrian called it as he kissed me lovingly. “You are my home Celeste, once I am at the top I will make you my queen.”

But the crown never came, instead there was Silvia Quinn.

A doe-eyed, fairylike rookie who had won a supporting role in Adrian’s new film-a strategic casting call that I had approved myself.

At first, I played along. After all, I had written the script and designed the media arc. Cute interactions, behind-the-scenes moments.. Fans loved a slow-burn romance.

But then, things started slipping. Photos grew too intimate…. Interviews too flirtatious.

The trending topic on social media read: #AdrianSilviaForever

Underneath it, a slow-motion video played on loop-Silvia Quinn feeding Adrian Larke a strawberry from his birthday cake as fans screamed in the background. He smiled, wiped cream off her cheek and whispered something in her ear. She blushed, making him laugh.

“Adrian just said he hates kids,” Silvia giggled to the camera, “but he would not mind one if it looked like me.”

The video had twenty million views in under an hour.

I watched it with trembling fingers while standing outside Studio 3’s back entrance.

In my hands, a thermal bag of handmade dishes cooked overnight for six hours, packed since dawn.Braised chicken in red wine. Black truffle risotto. Shrimp dumplings Adrian once mentioned liking from a French bakery. I had found a way to get them air-flown overnight because today was a special day.

The rain clung to me like a second skin as I slipped into Adrian’s private studio, clutching the food I had spent all night cooking.

A soft laugh escaped my lips.

He would be surprised. Maybe even happy.

Tonight, I would finally tell him.

We are having a baby.

As I sneaked inside, I saw Adrian’s laptop blinking on the desk making me chuckle, Still open. Logged in. Breathing light.

“How silly of him, after seven years he still has no sense of hiding anything huh?” I walked toward it slowly, fingers trembling with excitement and I just wanted to do something sweet.

Something small…maybe set the wallpaper to the ultrasound I had taken that morning.

Write [World’s Best Daddy] in the corner.

He would see it and smile maybe even cry.

My hand hovered over the trackpad. One click.

A minimized window opened playing a video.

I saw a familiar hallway.

My breath caught.

The Rivera estate.

My mother’s last gift to me before her death. The home that was my solace and yet I had mortgaged it to fund Adrian’s first film.

Adrian had promised me, hand over heart“I will buy it back Cel, when I have the world, I will keep it in your feet.”

I smiled faintly, tears stinging my lashes.

He is trying.

Even now, after everything… maybe he still remembers.

But then-

A door opened on screen and Adrian walked in.

Laughing.

Carrying Silvia in his arms.

She threw her head back, giggling, clinging to his neck as he spun her around the grand living room and my smile froze as if someone had immersed my head underwater.

They kissed. Breathless. Shameless.

And then Adrian whispered the words that pulled the earth beneath my feet.

“I still cannot believe it… I am going to be a dad!”

My entire world crumbled like ashes.

I did not blink.

I did not breathe.

Because just yesterday, Adrian had held me so lovingly, peppering kisses across my face, murmuring, “It’s all just for show, Celeste. You know you are my entire world.”

It was at that moment when the phone- Adrian’s phone kept on the desk buzzed.

[DOCTOR HARLEEN]

With trembling fingers, too shocked to feel anything…sorrow, dear, misery or absolute devastation… I picked it up.

“What have you done Adrian?! Celeste is pregnant again! But this time the baby will not survive… and neither will she!”

Dr. Harleen’s voice was full of grief as she complained.

“All these years Celeste has been thinking she has a cursed body unable to bear a child and every time she in in the clinic…have you seen that child cry so sadly thinking that she failed you?

All these years she has been perfectly capable of giving birth! It is only because you made her forcefully abort so many times that her body has completely broken and it has come to this!”

“Mr. Adrian Larke, Celeste is suffering from ovarian cancer. It’s pressing against her heart. If she choose to carry this child, she will not make it to the third trimester.

It’s either her or this baby.”

My entire body shook in horror as I lost the feelings in my legs, falling down.

Adrian had shown me multiple report previously. “Your body is too fragile, Cel.” he had said gently, fingers stroking my cheek. “Carrying full term could kill you. …I love you so much Celeste and I cannot lose you so please forgive me…. The timing is not right baby.”

The timing was never right.

Not when he landed his first blockbuster.

Not when the endorsement deals came from Paris Fashion wekk.

Not when his face lit up billboards in Tokyo and Times Square.

Not when Silvia Quinn came.

“Do you want to lose everything we have built for a child?” he had asked once, holding my face with soft guilt.

So I said yes.

Yes to silence.

Yes to sacrifice.

I used to think he was saving me.

That every time he made me swallow a pill, every time he whispered "not yet" into my hair, it was because he was scared to lose me.

Something inside me shattered.

“So it was never love...never fear for my wellbeing?” Those words escaped my mouth, my entire body trembling…hot tears trailed down my face as with eyes wide I watched my entire being completely shattered.

“…..Are you…Is this Celeste?” Dr.Harleen asked me and yet I was too shocked to hear. At that moment Dr. Harleen’s voice became quieter. Her pause too deliberate.

“Celeste…Celeste please listen to me…. “

The phone slipped past my hands and landed on the ground. Sounds of fireworks went in the background as Bigshot actor Adrian Larke celebrated while his discarded wife was left behind.

And my entire world crumbled in that instant.

Keeping a hand on my belly I bled tears knowing that It was this instant, that the marriage of my dreams was completely crushed.