Was it true?

I ignored the first three calls.

Ben's name lit the screen, then vanished, then appeared again. Each time I turned the phone face down and kept working. 

I know Ben. He wouldn't suggest his brother marry me and still pursue me. We kissed. We held each other. We...we...are more than that!

The doubt Sam had planted the night before sat in my chest like something swallowed and not yet digested. *Failed prank. Payback. Who do you think told me to marry you?* I could not answer any of it, so I answered none of the calls.

This gutted feeling, Like Ben had physically stepped on my heart. My chest tightened, my breath heaved and I couldn't bring it out. 

The tears threatening to fall out were just too hard to explain.

I haven't felt this way in my entire life.

By late morning the studio felt too small. I needed to be somewhere that required movement and paperwork instead of thoughts. The collaboration files were still incomplete; there were signatures and approvals that had to be handled at the company offices. I told the driver to take me.

The building was glass and quiet authority. I walked through the main entrance and was stopped before I reached the elevators. A security officer checked a list, checked it again, and informed me I was not cleared for the floor I requested without prior authorization. The exchange was polite and public enough to sting. I stood there with my bag and my name and the clear knowledge that even here I required permission.

They married me. Although the Son wasn't specific but forcefully married me and yet they refused to let me in?

I turned around and went back outside.

Sam's car was just pulling away from the curb. Someone sat in the passenger seat. The angle of the shoulder, the platinum hair, the way the person turned toward him were enough to set my pulse in my throat. I did not think past the next action. I left the driver with a short instruction, took the car, and followed.

They did not go far.

The hotel was one of the discreet ones the family used for business that was not business. I watched from a distance as Sam handed the keys to a valet and walked inside with the woman beside him. In the better light of the lobby entrance the recognition landed fully.

Alena.

Her platinum hair. The Golden highlights. How did I miss them?

For a second the older confusion returned - the birthday, the half-second I had almost mistaken her for someone I might know- and then it cleared.

It wasn't just about Lena or Alena. I just wasn't paying much attention!

She was wearing a dress I knew. The same cut, the same deep color familiar as the maroon one Sam had chosen for me and tried to make me wear. The same taste. The same man.

Wait. Does that mean she chose the dress too for me? Sam did mention he had someone pick it out.

Was it her intention to make us wear the same dress to humiliate me?

I did not go in. I sat in the car long enough to be certain, then I drove home.

The dominant feeling was not the sharp jealousy of a wife. 

It was flatter and colder: confirmation, disgust, the dull heat of being managed by someone who did not even bother to be careful. He had done this before. He would do it again. The only new information was the face.

I had always known Alena would do anything to belong. She was family, second or whatever number removed, that bitch was family!

As if sulking with my parents, relatives and my sister wasn't enough!

---

I was in my room when he returned that evening. He didn't knock, he just barged in like a bush man.

He looked pleased with himself in the mild way he did after getting exactly what he wanted. He set a rectangular bottle on the dresser without ceremony.

"I told you I'd get it for you," he said. "You'll love it."

I already knew the scent. It had been on his skin the night he came back to the island villa. I sniffed it again.

It had been on him again at Danielle's birthday. Now it filled the space between us, and underneath his own cologne I could still smell it on him - the same perfume, worn recently, worn close.

Alena's.

I looked at the bottle and said nothing. He waited for a reaction, found none, and left the room with a small, satisfied sound.

The door clicked shut.

My phone vibrated almost immediately.

Ben.

*You have been ignoring my messages, Are you good? Can we meet?*

I stared at the message for a long time.

 The studio wreckage, the torn canvas, Sam's voice saying *failed prank*, Alena's dress in the hotel light, and the perfume still sitting on my dresser all existed in the same narrow space. I needed to confide on someone but...I typed a reply before the cleaner impulse could stop me.

*Did you suggest I marry Sam again because I'm a failed prank?*

The call came within seconds.

I answered.

"Katherine." His voice was tight, already braced. "What are you talking about?"

"Is it true?"

"Is *what* true?"

"That I was payback. That you told Sam to marry me. That Lena was supposed to be yours and I was what came after."

Silence opened on the line. When he spoke again the defense was already in it - careful, urgent, trying to get ahead of the damage.

"That isn't how it happened. Sam twists everything. I never-"

"Did you know?"

"I can explain. Just listen to me for a minute. I never asked him to-"

I ended the call.

The room was very quiet after the screen went dark. I sat on the edge of the bed with the rejected perfume bottle in my vision. For a while there was only the hard, dry pressure behind my eyes. Then the pressure broke.

My chest tightened and I couldn't hold it anymore.

I cried the way I had not allowed myself to cry in front of anyone - silent at first, then with the ugly, involuntary sound of someone who had been holding the line too long. It was not only about Sam. It was not only about Alena. It was the possibility that the one person who had looked at me like I was real had been part of the architecture of the cage the entire time.

I did not answer when the phone lit again.

I let it ring. If I answer, he would just hear me cry.