Nails, done.
A quick spa treatment after that.
Once she’d dropped Chloe back home, Eliana walked into a hair salon alone.
The stylist looked at her hair long enough to brush her waist and winced sympathetically.
“You’re sure you want it all off?
Hair like this takes years to grow back.”
Thick, dark, glossy, perfectly smooth.
Beautiful, straight, jet-black hair, clearly the product of years of careful upkeep.
Eliana studied her reflection.
That glossy hair, her pale, flawless skin, the soft pale-yellow dress together they framed a face striking enough to need no makeup at all.
Like a lily in full bloom.
Pure.
Delicate.
Harmless-looking.
Utterly without teeth.
She smiled, calm and certain.
“Cut it all off.”
Nathaniel had always loved her hair long.
She wasn’t dressing for someone she loved anymore.
The stylist nodded and got to work.
Snip by snip, dark strands drifted down to the floor.
Just like the invisible chains that had bound her for years, finally falling away.
It took a while.
When it was done, Eliana looked at the sharper, lighter version of herself in the mirror and smiled, just slightly.
“This cut suits you so much better, honestly it’s gorgeous on you!” the stylist gushed.
“Want to add some color, maybe a light perm while we’re at it?
I’ve got a look in mind, take a look at this”
Eliana glanced at the sample photos, then let her hand drift to her stomach.
“Let’s save that for another visit.
It’s getting late today.”
The stylist sighed, a little disappointed.
“I’ll come back for it,” Eliana promised with a smile.
This stylist really was talented worth the return trip.
“Deal!” The stylist perked right back up, grabbing a notebook.
“Roughly when should I pencil you in?”
Eliana glanced down at her stomach.
“About a week out,” she said quietly.
“Maybe up to twenty days, to be safe.”
Enough time to recover, once the procedure was behind her.
“Perfect, don’t you dare skip it,” the stylist called after her, watching Eliana leave with something close to admiration.
Eliana just smiled and nodded.
With a new haircut in place, she wandered into the luxury mall at the heart of Ashford City, just a few minutes away.
Every high-end label imaginable lined the halls.
She glanced down at her own soft, sweet-toned outfit and let out a short laugh.
Nathaniel had always liked soft and sweet.
It read as obedient to him.
It had never actually been her style.
She went store to store, and came out an hour later loaded down with shopping bags.
A taxi took her home.
Bags in hand, she stepped into her new apartment, new walls, new life, living entirely on her own and her face gave away absolutely nothing.
No joy.
No grief.
She changed out of the sweet, soft outfit and into a sharply tailored designer suit instead, something with real edge to it.
She set the plain canvas tote aside and picked up a structured chain-strap bag instead.
Traded the flat platform shoes for a pair of sleek pointed-toe heels.
She looked at herself in the mirror.
“Eliana Hart,” she said quietly to her own reflection, “here’s to a happy rebirth.”
The woman in the mirror didn’t smile back.
She tried to lift the corners of her mouth, but it felt so forced even she couldn’t buy it.
Seven years.
Pretending it didn’t still hurt would be a lie.
If the smile wouldn’t come honestly, she decided not to force it.
She let out a long breath, then turned to prepping for the next day.
If she was starting over, she was going to do it properly.
Hospital first thing in the morning.
Then a meeting with Jonathan Foster about the music competition.
…
Morning came fast.
Eliana drove to the hospital first; her appointment was already booked.
But before she’d even pulled into the parking lot, her phone rang.
Jonathan Foster.
Jonathan Foster ran Foster Entertainment, the biggest talent agency in Ashford City, backed by the Foster family, one of the only names in the city with enough weight to rival the Coles.
He was the third son of that family, currently overseeing the entertainment division.
Every song Eliana had ever written had gone through Foster Entertainment.
After marrying Nathaniel, she’d stepped back from public work entirely; he’d asked her to focus on caring for his ailing grandfather, and she’d known there wasn’t much time left for the old man, so she’d quietly disappeared from the industry.
Jonathan valued her talent too much to let that be the end of it, so he’d kept commissioning tracks and lyrics from her under a single-letter pseudonym: N.
Even without her face attached to it, the songs kept her name alive in industry circles, ready for whenever she wanted back in.
Because of who her husband was, Eliana had signed an ironclad confidentiality clause with Foster Entertainment, one Jonathan had personally signed off on himself.
The fact that N.
was actually Eliana Hart was a secret the two of them alone carried.
Back then, drunk on the happiness of marrying Nathaniel, she’d barely registered the quiet irony of using an initial that echoed his name.
She never imagined how much that would come to matter later.
She pulled the car over and picked up.
“Mr.
Foster?” she answered, confused.
She was fairly sure their meeting wasn’t until the afternoon.
“N., can you come by the office right now?” Jonathan’s voice carried a note of hesitation she wasn’t used to hearing from him.
Something was off.
She could tell immediately.
Because he’d used her pseudonym.
They never used that name with each other in private.
“Is something wrong?” Eliana asked directly.
She’d already booked the doctor’s appointment she wasn’t about to reschedule unless this was serious.
“Someone wants to buy your newest track.” Jonathan hesitated again.
“They’re asking for you specifically, in person.”
Eliana frowned, more confused than before.
“Handle it however you think is best,” she said.
Normally she just handed her finished work straight over to the label Jonathan wouldn’t personally call her over something this routine.
“The buyer’s a little…
unusual,” he said.
A beat passed, like he was steeling himself.
“It’s Vivian Blake.
She wants to buy your song.”
What?
Eliana blinked, caught off guard.
Wasn’t Vivian a florist?
What would she possibly want with a song?
Before she could ask, Jonathan kept going.
“It’s complicated.”
“I already turned her down once.
But she showed up at the office in person with someone else.”
He paused again, then finished it in one breath.
“Nathaniel Cole is with her.
And neither of them is taking no for an answer.”