Chapter 2

One sunny afternoon, Ethan brought Jessica Hayes to our home. Jessica, his high school sweetheart, the one he never quite got over. She was pregnant, very pregnant.

"She's escaping an abusive husband, Sarah," Ethan said, his arm around Jessica's shoulders. "She needs a safe place. She needs us."

Jessica looked at me, a small, sad smile on her face. I knew that look.

He didn't ask me. He told me.

"She can stay in the guest wing," Ethan continued, already leading Jessica inside. "And you'll need to make sure she's comfortable, Sarah. She's been through a lot."

I stood there, in the marble entryway of the house my money and my work had bought. Comfortable. Right.

His mother, Eleanor Knight, arrived a few days later. She' d always been cool to me, even when I was wiping her chin and changing her bedsheets. Now, with success, she was worse. She adored Jessica on sight.

"A proper family, Ethan," she' d say, loud enough for me to hear. "Someone who understands our world."

I started to see it clearly. I was the workhorse, the one who got them here. Now that they were here, they needed a different kind of woman. A show pony.