The Price of Her Fame

pty, but it was a clean slate. I called a moving company to get my essential belongings from the old place. I gave them strict instru

eing the space that was once filled with our shared life. I arrang

Mark. He had called, his voice f

can't. And Liam, that snake. I always k

th," I said, m

u going to d

simply. "What el

alone, to process the sheer scale of the deception. It wasn' t just the lie of her love for me; it was the lie of her entire life. For sev

keout from a box. I was starting to feel a semblance of normalcy return. The consta

I had forgotten to turn them off. Curiosity, like a

s Secret Child: Singer and Producer Liam Ha

udly in the quiet room. My blood r

e boy was holding Liam' s hand. He looked... he looked just like Liam. The timeline spun in my head, a dizzying calculation. Five years ago. We had been together fo

m out of the spotlight to give him a normal life. They claimed the boy had been living with Liam' s parents upstate.

e were always a bit blurry, taken from a distance. "He's shy," she'd say. The sudden trips she had to take upstate, alone. "Family emergency," she'd claim. "You

r to visit her secret ch

lculated deception that had spanned the majority of our relationship. Liam wasn't just a rival who had won

orm. #OliviaLied was trending. But for every person calling her out, there were two defending her, calling it

n't let go. Leo. The boy's name was Leo. I remembered a time, maybe a year ago, when Olivia had come home from one of her "fam

said quickly, snatching it up. "

I hadn't thought anything of it. I just threw it in the trash. Now, the memory was a flashing

ago, I had a bad case of the flu. I was laid up in bed for days. Olivia was surprisingly attentive, bringi

ng?" I had asked,

t. "The doctor said it might be a new flu strain. They asked

question it. I rolled over and went back to sleep. N

ttled over me. There was only one re

art. This was about the truth. The absolute, undeniable truth. I walked to my laptop

ed the number. I explained the situation in a low, controlled voice, feeling like a character in a spy movie. T

d, when I remembered. The hairbrush. It was long gone. But what else? I wracked my

ding a small part of it "to make sure it wasn't too hard for him." She had glued a few pieces together on our kitchen table, her hands covered in sticky glue. She had packed it up and mailed it the next day. But

old apartment. Where a

clear out. It had been four days. Was it sti

d, my voice tight. "There's a junk drawer in the kitchen. I need you to empty the enti

of random junk: old pens, rubber bands, loose change, and a single,

ourier to the lab they designated, along with a sample of my own DNA, which I collected myself with a kit the

mechanical. My mind was consumed by a single, burning question. I avoided the news, I avoided social media

d. The subject line was c

. A series of numbers and genetic markers that meant nothing to

TY OF PAT

, ETHAN MILLER is excluded as the biologi

ven given him her last n

. It was the final, brutal confirmation of the depth of her lie. She hadn't just cheated on me. She had a child with another man and let me believe, for

p. It wasn't sadness anymore. It was pure, undiluted rage. The kind of

e critical mistake. She underestimated me. She thought I was just the nice, supportive boyfriend

nd called the best div

dangerously calm. "I need your help. And I