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Prologue
Jos
“But we’re trying for a baby together! How can you even think about doing this at a time like this?”
Sandra threw up her hands, radiating anger like a nuclear blast. Her beautiful face was transformed into something nasty as she stared Jos down.
“No. You’re trying to have a baby. This whole thing was your idea. It’s like a mission for you or something. You’re doing it like you do everything else—blind and deaf to any opposition. You’ve always gotten what you wanted. You carved and scratched and fought your way from the ground up and this is no different, except this time, when you finally realized there was more to life than just your job, you steamrolled right over me. Your wife.” She threw her hands up and blew out a sigh that deflated her completely. Her eyes tore away from Jos like she couldn’t stand to look at her, but Jos knew the truth. Sandra was hardly ever confrontational and this blow up meant things had been brewing for a long time. “I’m not the enemy here, and I wish you wouldn’t treat me like I was.”
Jos had to admit that Sandra was right about the whole scratching and clawing thing. She was a force to be reckoned with. She was unstoppable. She used to love when people said that about her. It was a compliment to her tenacity, her will to succeed, especially as a woman in an industry that was typically very male dominated. She hadn’t just survived, she’d thrived for twenty-one years.
“So, you’re telling me that you don’t want to do this? Why now, after I’ve already gone through with the treatments, the painful, terrible treatments, the stress of the whole thing?” Jos paused, knowing full well she wasn’t being fair. She raked her hands through her shoulder length white-blonde hair. “I might already be pregnant. I can’t do this without you.”
Instead of garnering empathy when she appealed to Sandra that way, she got a mean, twisted, icy grin. “That’s the thing. You can do everything without me. You’ve proven that time and again. You want to do everything on your own just to prove that you can. You’ve been cutting me out for years. And now, you want to have a baby because you woke up one day and realized your job, which has been your lifeblood for over two decades, and all the fame that it’s brought hasn’t fully satisfied you. Here’s a news broadcast that for once you didn’t cover—you’re having a mid-life crisis. You’re doing this because you’re forty-three and you’ve achieved everything that one person could possibly achieve.
You came from nothing, and you’ve made this name for yourself. You were the kid no one wanted, the one who bounced around from foster home to foster home until you aged out of the system and put yourself through school by working three jobs. You were the one who put in the time no one else was willing to do. You were always there with your nose in everything, your fearlessness driving you forward until someone had to take notice and give you a job because you were willing to do it all. You were willing to work any hours, cover any story no matter how tedious. You didn’t even know the word no. Now you have a house anyone would kill for, clothes that cost more than most people make in a lifetime, cars, a vacation house in Florida even though we freaking live in San Jose, and on and on. It took you twenty-one years to realize just how hollow fame really is.
“I’m sorry. I just freaking can’t anymore. I can’t stay with you and keep pretending that everything is fine. I can’t keep going to all your dinners and award shows and charity this and charity that because you want everyone to believe you’re this great person who cares about the community you grew up in. I’m done being your plus one. I’m never going to be your partner, and that’s what I want to be. That’s what I deserve to be, as your wife.”
Jos had experience with just about everything. She’d lived on the streets for six months back when she was eighteen. She knew what it cost to live through eleven different foster homes in seven years. She knew how to hide when her mom was high, or when her boyfriends came home with her, drunk or high or both, and always, always cruel and easy with their violence.
Her earlier life had shaped her, hollowing her out and turning her to stone. She didn’t allow things like base emotions, and that’s why she was so successful. When people said she was fearless—travelling all over the world in the early stages of her career, going to dangerous places, interviewing dangerous people—they were correct, but only because she’d learned long ago what it meant to swallow her fear along with any tenderness that mi
ght make her weak.
She’d realized, five years ago, believing she was hollow made her hollow. Her job was her everything, and even though she would always live for it and put it first, she’d begun her search for something else. The thing that everyone said would change a person, add value and completion to their lives, soften their hard edges. She’d truly wanted it. Wanted to see if it could work. If she was capable. She’d tried. God, how she’d tried.
Sandra stared at Jos like she was a monster. Her face fell flat, which was the expression she used to hide when she was in pain. Jos registered that. The pain she caused this woman that she told herself that she loved. That she’d tried to love the best way she could. And she’d failed. She’d failed because Sandra wasn’t happy. She looked like she was being suffocated.
“You consume people,” Sandra hissed, letting her venom fly in the one real fight they’d had in the five years they’d been together. “You inject them with your vileness. Everyone thinks you have this zest for life. That you’re this amazing person who’s going to save the world. You’re Josella Frank, and not even the media can tear you down. You’ve survived war, dictators, being held at gunpoint eighteen different times. You’ve gone without food for nine days, been trapped in an avalanche once, and been lost in the jungle. Your version of settling down was hosting the prestigious evening news. You were freaking head-hunted for it. You were the chosen one. The golden child.
“You’re this amazing person on the outside, but on the inside? There’s nothing there. Nothing but the San Jose Evening Edition. You’re less than empty. You don’t love me. You never did. You wanted to do the things other people were doing. Give yourself that shot at a normal life because you thought it was the right thing to do. That having a wife and children would validate your position in the world not just as a superhuman, but as a woman. This kid is just a tool for you, just a pawn, because your whole life is a game. It’s strategy for you, never feeling.”
Sandra’s lips pursed together, and her jade green eyes shot daggers at Jos. The level of hatred that was being levelled at her took her breath away. Just because she rarely allowed emotions of her own didn’t mean that she was immune to the emotions of others.
For once, Jos was at a loss. How was she supposed to defend herself against that? Was she supposed to defend herself? Sandra solved her dilemma for her, speaking first.
“This, like everything else, is your baby. He or she will be a part of you because that’s what you wanted. You never even asked me if I wanted to use my eggs. Then again you never asked if I wanted to be a mother. We’ve been married for two years, and last year you came home and told me that we were doing in-vitro. That you’d done all the research. That you were starting the process. You never once asked me if I was ready to be a mom.”
“You love kids!”
“That doesn’t mean I’m ready to start a family with you.”
Jos shook her head in disbelief. “You never said anything! It’s a little late to start this now, telling me you don’t want a family when I might actually be pregnant!”
Sandra cleared her throat roughly. She was tall and willowy, still stunningly gorgeous at thirty-seven. She’d modelled earlier on in life, given most of her money to her controlling, abusive father, then started fresh, quitting everything and moving from New York to San Jose. She was working as a waitress at a five-star restaurant in the heart of the city when Jos met her.
She’d gone for a late-night dinner with a business exec that she’d wanted to interview. Wine and dine was the way to get them, or at least the way the bigwigs liked to convince people to do their shows and not a competitor’s, but the guy had never showed. He gave that interview to a competing show, a morning show of all things. Jos had never seen Steven so angry. Not really at her, but also with her. He’d seen it as her failure, which meant she’d had to work extra hard to make up for it, landing interview after interview, story after story, when it wasn’t even in her job description to have to attract and land people for the show.
That late-night dinner turned into something. She’d eaten alone, and her waitress, Sandra, had taken pity on her. They’d ended up chatting, which was virtually meaningless to Jos, just one woman being polite to another, but at the end of the night, Sandra left her name and number on the back of the receipt. The highly unprofessional move had surprised Jos. For that reason alone, she’d called Sandra the next day.
“I’m done.” Sandra’s voice was flat, but her eyes burned with a fire Jos hadn’t seen before.
Her pulse kicked up. She’d trained herself to avoid things like this, and even now, though it had been years since she’d found herself in a dangerous situation, she found herself levelling her breathing, trying to settle her heart rate.
There was a long pause, the silence yawning between them like a vacuum, sucking up all the air in the room until Jos’ lungs felt strangely constricted.
“Done with what?” Jos reached out and grasped the edge of the counter. She thought, ridiculously enough, of walking to the fridge and calmly pouring herself a glass of bottled water. Not wine because she might actually be pregnant, though she had yet to find out if the in-vitro had worked.
Sandra’s face changed yet again, and Jos realized she wasn’t the only one who had an at the ready, made-for-TV smile. How long had Sandra hated her? How long had she felt this way? How long had she resented her without saying anything? Her smile was an ugly slash on her beautiful mouth. Her normally placid features were pulled into sharp points. She looked hard and cold, which shocked Jos further, because she truly believed Sandra wasn’t capable of feelings like that.
“What’s it like to be the one at a disadvantage?” she asked levelly, her voice dripping ice. “To be the one overlooked? The one seen through? The one who is just there? The one thrown away whenever it’s not convenient to be there?”
“I-I’ve never treated you like that,” Jos stammered. “I love you, Sandra.”
“Love? Oh, my God!” She snorted and that twisted smile became a twisted sneer. “You don’t know how to love anyone or anything except your job. The fact that you have to ask me what I’m done with just shows how out of touch you are with anything and everything. You’re an excellent journalist in all aspects of the word, but when it comes to knowing yourself, you’re so fucking clueless. You have everything, but you’re empty. You only married me because you thought having a wife was the all-American thing to do.” Her eyes dropped to Jos’ stomach. “I seriously hope you’re not pregnant, for everyone’s sake. If anyone could raise a child alone, you could, but you’ll never be a mother. You have no clue how to be a parent. You have no clue how to be a wife. You’re a solo unit. You always have been, and you always will be. Since you need me to spell it out, I’m done with this.” She waved her hand back and forth between them. “I’m done with you. I’m done trying. I’m done begging for scraps from your table of affection. I’m done trying to figure out what it takes not just to please you, but to make you even notice that I’m here. I’m done with this marriage.”
“Sandra, I…” Jos could think of a thousand things to say on any other day at any other time. No matter how tough of an interview, she always found the right words. It was something she’d been praised for time and time again. Now, though, when it really counted? When Sandra deserved to be fought for, to have a piece of Jos’ truth? She found herself without any words.
Sandra shook her head like she’d been expecting exactly that and wasn’t at all surprised or even disappointed. Her face blanked out, a vengeful mirror of the one Jos often gave people when she didn’t want them to chip away at her carefully perfected façade. “I want a divorce.”
Chapter 1
Six Months Later
Jos
Jos always knew when she was in for it, and when she was called to the fourth-floor boardroom, the one used only by execs, owners, and general managers, she knew it couldn’t be a good thing.
She was sure she wasn’t in for one of t
hose you’re getting a promotion conversations.
She supposed that was the one good thing about not being pregnant; she could choose to walk up four flights of stairs instead of using the elevator. When she walked through the open door, only years of training pushed her forward.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen both the president and vice president of the station in the same meeting. Those were the kind of meetings she wasn’t singled out to attend.
