I Made Him Famous, He Chose His Mistress

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After I closed the sponsorship deal for Mark Delgado's exhibition, my stomach started bleeding and I collapsed on the curb.

I clung to the last thread of consciousness and called him. All I got was a busy signal, over and over.

The next second, a notification popped up on my social feed.

His new protge had posted a risqu photo, the sensitive parts barely covered by little strawberry stickers.

Frowning, I swiped right to the next one.

Same girl, different pose. Only this time the background was the floral-print bedsheets I'd swapped onto the bed before leaving that very morning.

"Being a body model is exhausting! Sitting still half the day, my back is killing me. The bed's so much cozier. Another day of being thoroughly spoiled by my dear, dear mentor!"

"But mentor scolded me hard, too. Said my figure's so good he keeps losing focus because of me."

A string of blushing emojis trailed the caption. The comment section was even worse.

I tapped the like button, looked down at the wine stains soaking my dress, the wreck of myself, and dialed another number.

"I'm sorry. The contract we just finalizedlet's put it on hold."

I hung up. My assistant, Dana Barnes, hailed a cab and took me to the hospital for a gastric lavage.

I hugged a trash can and threw up until the world spun, tears and snot smeared across my face.

The doctor frowned and couldn't hold it back.

"You again? Drinking like this, you're going to get yourself killed. Do you understand that?"

I gave a bitter smile and nodded.

I was a regular in the ER at 2 a.m. Every single time, I came in flat on my back, blackout drunk.

At dinner that night, the sponsor had made me a bet.

If I could down three bottles of high-proof liquor in one go, he'd sponsor Mark Delgado's exhibition.

Mark and I had been together ten years. I'd watched him claw his way up from a broke art student to a name that finally stuck in the art world.

One last push and his dream would come true.

And there was more. He'd promised to propose to me, officially, at the exhibition.

Ten years of chasing this together, and I wanted that show even more than he did.

The joke of it was, while I was drinking myself into a stomach hemorrhage, he was lying naked with another woman in my marital bed.

After a night on an IV drip, I had Dana take me back to the office.

I'd barely been asleep on the couch half an hour when the door slammed open.

Mark stormed in, face like a thundercloud, brandishing his phone.

"What is this supposed to mean?"

"Ava Jenner, your mind is filthy. Everything you see looks dirty because you're dirty!"

"There is nothing between me and Lucretia Monroe. It's all for the sake of art. Do you even understand that?"

He said it with total conviction, as if he'd forgotten what he swore when he first started out: that he'd never touch figure drawing, and if he ever did, I would be his only model.

I forced my eyes open and realized my finger had slipped earlier. I'd liked a comment.

"I'd bet money your mentor's intentions are anything but pure!"

A laugh escaped me, dry and helpless.

"You've got the nerve to call me dirty? You and your protge rolled around in my marriage bed. How clean could that possibly be?"

"Did you forget what you promised me, way back when?"

Something guilty flickered across Mark's face, but his tone stayed hard.

"I was just using her to practice, that's all. And what about you? Drinking yourself blind with a different man every night, never coming home?"

"And that male assistant of yours, glued to your side twenty-four hours a day. Who knows what the two of you"

"Crack!"

I cut him off with a slap across the face.

"Mark Delgado, you have no conscience!"

We'd both come from ordinary families, but he was the one obsessed with art.

After college, to buy him the best paints, the most expensive brushes, I'd been so broke I couldn't even afford a shared meal-prep box.

I lived on one plain dinner roll a day. The chronic malnutrition wrecked my stomach for good.

Later, when his career started taking off, I worked day and night chasing sponsors, drinking through endless business dinners. Stomach bleeds became routine.

"The last sponsor for your exhibition signed off tonight. And while I was being forced to drink until my stomach hemorrhaged, while I nearly died, where were you, Mark?"

My eyes burned. I swallowed down the sting climbing my nose and screamed the question at him.

"Stomach hemorrhage? Ava, I didn't know youyou know me. When I'm painting, I always shut my phone off."

Something in his face finally cracked. His hand lifted on instinct, reaching to feel my forehead.

A small figure came rushing over and planted herself between us.

The girl wore the look of a martyr facing the firing squad, jaw clenched. When her eyes swept over the red welt swelling on Mark's cheek, her lips trembled with tender heartbreak.

"It's all my fault, ma'am. I begged Mr. Delgado to sketch me. I only wanted a record of myself at my most beautiful"

"If you want to hit someone, hit me. Yell at me. Don't blame him."

She tilted her chin up stubbornly, and the gesture exposed a faint red mark along her throat.

In the early days, he used to leave marks like that on me too.

My lips curled into a mocking arc.

"Mark. We're done."

I rose and walked straight for the door. Lucretia threw out an arm to stop me.

"Ma'am, please, don't be like this, I can explain Ah!"

I turned to dodge her. Off balance, she crumpled to the floor.

Mark's eyes went bloodshot. He snatched my wrist.

"Enough, Ava. How long are you going to keep this up? You've got a problem, you take it out on me. Stop bullying a young girl!"

"She lost her own footing"

I'd barely gotten one word of defense out before he cut me off.

"You're just too small-minded to make room for Lucretia, so you invent these lies to smear her, and now you're putting your hands on her!"

"Fine. You want to break up, we break up. And this time, don't come crawling back to beg me!"

With that, he bent down, gathered Lucretia up off the floor, and slammed the door behind them.

I'd never warmed to Lucretia from the first time we met, so I'd had Dana quietly look into her.

Just as I'd suspected, the girl was anything but simple.

I'd urged Mark more than once to let her go. Every time, he'd called me unreasonable, and it always ended in a bitter, ugly fight.

After all that, my head spun. I caught myself against the edge of the desk just in time to keep from going down.

Our graduation photo sat there on the desktop, Mark and me.

I was beaming at the camera. His gaze was fixed on me, as if he were looking at his entire world.

A heavy pressure clamped down on my chest. One sweep of my hand and the photo dropped into the trash.

Forcing myself upright, I answered an email from overseas.

"Thank you for the offer. I'll report to my new position on time."

I'd worked with a French curatorial firm before, and their director had long wanted to lure me away.

Because of Mark, I'd turned them down flat.

Now there was no one left worth staying for.

I went home to pack.

The sight of the rumpled sheets on the master bed sent a wave of nausea through me. I yanked them off and flung them aside.

There was porridge simmering in the kitchen. I ladled myself a bowl.

A noise sounded outside the door, and then Mark walked in, leading Lucretia by the hand with exaggerated care.

My eyes landed on their fingers, laced tight together. Mark jerked his hand back as if he'd been scalded.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his expression turning a little awkward.

"Lucretia hurt her hand. It's hard for her to get by on her own, so she'll be staying here for a while. You're the one who caused this, after all, so you'll take good care of her."

"Oh, and Lucretia loves how the master bedroom's done up. For now I'll sleep in the studio and you'll take the guest room. Let her have the master bedroom, so she can settle in with peace of mind."

He caught sight of the bowl in my hands, and a faint, amused smile tugged at his mouth.

"See, Lucretia? I told you your teacher's wife loves me. That breakup talk earlier was just her temper running hot. Look, one fight and she's back home cooking porridge like a good girl."

Lucretia gazed up at him, eyes shining with worship.

"It's the master's charm, that's all. Of course your wife couldn't stay mad at you for real!"

She stuck out her tongue playfully. Mark took the bowl without a word, drew her down beside him at the table.

"Lucretia doesn't eat ginger or garlic. Remember that next time."

He kept his head bent, carefully picking out each piece of ginger and garlic as he tossed the order at me over his shoulder.

The scene looked like they were the master and mistress of this house, and I was nothing but the hired help.

Yet in ten years, he had never once done anything like this for me.

He always said his hands were meant for painting, that all the small tedious tasks of living were mine to handle for him.

On an ordinary day he wouldn't so much as right a tipped-over trash can, let alone spoon-feed me porridge.

Last month, when my period collided with a bout of gastroenteritis, the pain pinned me to the bed.

He wouldn't even boil me a cup of brown sugar water. He insisted on ordering delivery instead.

I stared at the words estimated arrival in one hour, too drained to feel anything but despair, and in the end I dragged myself up on my own.

So it turned out his artist's hands could care for someone after all.

A nameless fire flared up in me. I stepped forward, snatched the bowl, and dumped it into the sink.

"If she can't eat it, then don't make her."

"Ava Jenner! Have you lost your mind? She's sick! There's a limit to how jealous you're allowed to be!"

Then he looked down at Lucretia.

"Come on. The master will take you out to eat."

I grabbed the bedsheet from the corner and hurled it at him.

"Take your filth and get out!"

Mark turned back, looking at me like I was a lunatic.

The door slammed hard enough to shake the walls. I ladled myself another bowl of porridge and ate it, crying as I went.

Not long after, a string of message tones went off.

Lucretia had sent a photo of the two of them eating.

Like a taunt, they'd ordered a table piled with dishes.

Her cheeks were stuffed full, and Mark was smiling at her with doting tenderness, reaching over to wipe a smear of grease from the corner of her mouth.

I stared at the all-too-familiar dishes, lost in a daze.

That restaurant had taken me ages to plan around. Last year, for my birthday, I'd booked the window seat far in advance.

But I'd waited until the food went stone cold, until the restaurant closed, and Mark never showed.

It wasn't until the next day that he explained, his face full of guilt.

"Ava, I'm sorry. Lucretia and I went out on a field study and got stranded in the mountains. I couldn't make it back in time."

Seeing how worn out he looked, I didn't have the heart to scold him. Instead I smiled and told him it was fine, that there'd be plenty of chances to eat there later.

But later I learned there had been no getting stranded in the mountains.

He'd simply wanted to watch the stars with the girl. Even the field study was just an excuse.

"Wife of my master, here's the leftovers boxed up for you to take home. Don't forget to eat them, okay!"

I blocked her in return, dragged my suitcase out, and went to live at the office.

I glanced back at the marital home Mark and I had decorated together, piece by piece with our own hands, and felt my heart turn cold inch by inch.

Ten years of love, and it had still come to this.

On the way to the hospital for my follow-up, I passed the familiar high-end jewelry store.

I remembered that today was the pickup day for the engagement ring Mark and I had chosen.

As if drawn by some unseen hand, I pushed the door open. The first thing I saw was him holding Lucretia's hand, gently slipping a diamond ring onto her finger.

The clerk smiled and complimented Lucretia on her lovely fingers, saying what a devoted, well-matched couple they made.

Lucretia's cheeks flushed pink. She covered her mouth and gave a coy little laugh.

"Don't tease me. This is my master."

"I'm just trying it on for his wife. But my fingers are slender, so it might not fit her."

"This ring will probably have to be resized."

Mark raised an eyebrow and said nothing, but his gaze never left her fingertips.

Once, my own ten fingers had been slender and perfectly even. In college I'd been my professor's most prized student.

When I gave up painting to study exhibition curating, my professor lamented it again and again, taking my hands in his, saying it was such a shame for these hands not to hold a brush.

Back then, to bankroll Mark Delgado's dream when he had nothing, I'd washed dishes at a night market through the dead of winter, my hands cracked and peeling from the icy water.

He used to cradle those hands in his, eyes rimmed red, swearing he'd be good to me and only me for the rest of his life, that he'd never let me suffer again.

Now he stood by while strangers belittled and mocked me, and not a single word came to my defense.

I forced down the storm rising in my chest and stepped forward.

Lucretia Monroe saw me, and her smile froze on her face.

"Take it off once you've tried it on. Ava, come look and see if you like it."

Mark gestured for Lucretia to remove the ring, and she froze a moment before fumbling to slip it off, head bowed.

"It's such a hassle, taking it off and putting it back on. You like it, so keep it."

Mark's face darkened all at once, and he snapped at me for making a scene.

He'd just reached for my hand to push the ring onto my finger when the glass display case in the store shattered with a violent crash.

Jagged shards sprayed everywhere, screams breaking out all around.

A splinter slashed across Lucretia's cheek, and a thin line of blood welled up instantly.

She shrieked in terror, and Mark immediately shielded her, checking her wound.

Then he wrapped her tight in his suit jacket and rushed her away to somewhere safe.

I was knocked to the floor by the panicked crowd, my knees throbbing where they hit, my palm cut open by the glass.

I was about to cry out for help when a vicious cramp tore through my lower belly, like something was peeling away inside me, piece by piece.

I watched their backs disappear, watched the diamond ring lying abandoned on the floor not far off, and a hollow laugh escaped me.

The chaos slowly settled. A clerk helped me up off the floor, apologizing over and over.

She said some rich man's kept canary had dropped millions in the store, and when the wife found out, she'd lost it and come to smash the place.

The pain in my belly surged harder.

Before the last thread of consciousness slipped away, I felt a broad, strong arm scoop me up, holding me tight, calling my name in a frantic rush.

Was it Mark?

Didn't his heart belong only to Lucretia?

The thought drifted through me. If it really was him, then somehow I felt I could forgive all of it.

When I opened my eyes again, a sickly white hospital ceiling stared back.

The smell of disinfectant made me wince before I could stop myself.

"Such a shame. If she'd been brought in sooner, the baby might have been saved..."

The nurse's face was full of pity. Seeing the color drain further from my face, she couldn't help but offer comfort.

"Don't grieve. You're so young. You'll have more children."

Tears slid down without a sound and struck the pillow.

This was my second child with Mark Delgado. And I couldn't keep this one either?

Three years ago, when Mark was just starting out in the art world and beginning to make a name, he'd snatched a rival's resources and earned their hatred.

They hired men to corner him in an alley, set on breaking his hands and destroying his future.

In that critical moment, I threw myself in front of him without a second thought, and a heavy iron bar came down hard across my body.

What fell with me was the ultrasound printout clutched in my hand.

That tiny embryo on the page dissolved into wreckage on the ground.

Mark knelt and held me, his hands trembling almost beyond control, his eyes red as he roared out his vows.

He said he'd spend his whole life making it up to me, that he'd never let me suffer the slightest hurt again.

He said we'd have a houseful of children, grandkids gathered at our knees.

But it seemed even heaven wouldn't allow it.

The door creaked open. I closed my eyes, not wanting to look.

"Mark Delgado, I don't want to see you right now."

A long silence. Then he set a cup of water down by my bedside.

"Um... Ava, it's me."

I opened my eyes.

It was Dana Barnes.

His eyes were threaded with red, the clear sign he'd kept watch over me all night.

I gave a self-mocking little laugh and sent him an apologetic look.

Dana helped me sit up, and through the gap in the door, I caught the figure passing down the hallway.

Mark was carefully smoothing ointment over Lucretia's skin, his movements gentle and patient, his eyes full of tenderness.

"Artistic men are so soft and attentive. Honestly, those two make a fine pair standing together!"

The nurse, seeing me lost in the sight, couldn't resist the jab.

Every word, every syllable, carved at my heart like a slow blade.

Dana shifted to block my line of sight. "Ava, don't look anymore."

But I still couldn't let it go.

With trembling fingers, I dialed Mark. The phone rang for a long while before his impatient, dismissive voice finally came through.

"I'm busy with the exhibition. Whatever it is, tell me later."

The line went dead. He hadn't even had the patience to hear a single word from me.

I sank back into the hospital bed.

I don't know how much time passed before Mark sent me a video.

Curious, I tapped it open.

On a luxury yacht, fireworks burst across the sky in dazzling bloom, and Mark stood shoulder to shoulder with Lucretia.

He turned his head to look at her, exactly the way he'd looked at me ten years ago.

The message that followed twisted something tight in my chest.

"Today is my birthday. My mentor says nothing matters more than my birthday. If big sister has something to say, she can wait until after midnight."

The first year we were together, Mark celebrated my birthday. It was the only birthday we ever spent together.

Holding a tiny cake no bigger than his palm, he made me a promise.

He said that once our lives were settled, he'd buy out the entire night sky for my birthday, set off fireworks all night long, and cook me French steak with his own hands.

But every birthday after that, he always had some reason to be absent.

And to spare him the guilt, I lied every time and said I didn't mind.

I stared at the message thread, dazed, and by the time I came back to myself, both the video and the message had been deleted.

After three days and three nights of fevered sleep, I finally clawed my way back to clarity.

I opened my phone to find the screen flooded with Mark's messages, hundreds of them packed tight, every single one about the exhibition and work logistics.

From start to finish, not one word of concern. He didn't even care where I'd been these past few days.

I suddenly felt that I was less his lover than his business partner.

The college romance I'd once been so proud of had become a cake past its date. The outside still looked whole, but inside it had long gone sour and rotten.

Just then, Mark sent someone over with a gift box. Inside was a couture evening gown.

It was meant for tomorrow's exhibition.

I ran my fingers over the lavish, exquisite fabric, and a thought rose in my mind.

"Take it to Miss Monroe. Tell her Mark picked it out for her himself."

Then I lowered my head and opened an anonymous email.

Mark, I've prepared a special exhibition for you, to put a period at the end of our ten years.