My Fake Husband Is A Secret Billionaire

Clara Hayes stood in the dim, familiar hallway of the Los Angeles apartment building, her fingers gripping the cardboard edges of a bakery box. Inside sat a custom red velvet cake. It had cost her a week's worth of grocery money, but it was Leo's twenty-sixth birthday.

She slid her key into the deadbolt. The lock clicked, a loud, metallic sound in the quiet hallway.

Clara pushed the door open and stepped onto the entryway rug. The apartment was dark, the blinds pulled tight against the afternoon sun. She took one step inside and froze.

A pair of unfamiliar, red-soled stiletto heels lay discarded on the rug. They were careless, kicked off in a hurry. Clara stared at them. Her stomach dropped, a sudden, heavy weight plummeting toward her knees.

Then, she heard it.

A muffled, high-pitched laugh echoed from down the short hallway. It came from the master bedroom.

Clara's breath hitched. The air in the apartment suddenly felt too thick to inhale. She slowly placed the cake box on the edge of the kitchen counter. Her hands were trembling so badly the cardboard scraped against the granite.

She forced her legs to move. She tiptoed down the hallway, her sneakers making no sound on the hardwood floor. The bedroom door was left slightly ajar, a crack of light spilling out onto the floorboards.

Clara stopped outside the door. Her fingernails dug so deeply into her palms that the skin threatened to break. She peered through the narrow crack, her eyes adjusting to the light filtering through the bedroom window.

Leo Foster, her boyfriend of four years, had a blonde woman pinned against the headboard of the bed Clara had bought for them.

The woman turned her head to laugh again. Clara recognized the sharp profile and the expensive blonde extensions immediately. It was Veronica Thorne. She was the daughter of a major Hollywood producer, a woman who frequented the same audition circles as Clara, always landing the roles Clara was told she was "too plain" for.

"You're going to get in trouble, Leo," Veronica whispered, her tone teasing. "Doesn't your little roommate come home soon?"

Leo scoffed. He kissed Veronica's neck. "Clara? She's probably at another dead-end extra gig. She's boring, Veronica. She's poor. She has no connections. She was just a stepping stone until I got my foot in the door."

Veronica laughed loudly, the sound grating and cruel. "God, she is pathetic. Did you see that cheap dress she wore to the mixer last week? It's like she enjoys looking like a peasant. Her dedication to your career is actually hilarious."

Clara stood in the hallway. A sharp, physical ache tore through her chest, right behind her sternum. It felt as if a jagged piece of glass was twisting into her lungs. She couldn't breathe. The pain was so acute it made her vision blur. Four years of paying his rent, buying his headshots, cooking his meals. A stepping stone.

The suffocating sorrow vanished in a