It was the fifth year of my marriage to A-list actor Chase Hughes.
The shippers of him and award-winning actress Penelope Spencer kidnapped our son to force us to divorce.
My pathetic state, begging the kidnapper on my knees, was broadcast live to the entire internet.
Chase, in response, sent the live-streamer ninety-nine virtual Porsches. "If you guys acted a little more convincingly," he commented, "I might've actually believed you."
My son’s kindergarten teacher.
A die-hard fan of my husband, Chase Hughes, for the last ten years.
The moment she realized the cheerful little boy in her class was our son, she kidnapped him without a second thought.
She didn’t want money or anything else. All she wanted was for Chase and me to divorce.
In an abandoned, half-finished building on the outskirts of the city.
I knelt before Skylar Pearson, my hands clasped together, begging her. "Ms. Pearson, please, I’m begging you, don’t hurt Little Leo. I’ll do anything you want!"
Skylar laughed maniacally and threw a phone at me—it was live-streaming.
"Say it! Tell the whole world you’re divorcing Chase! That you’ll take that little burden and disappear from his life forever!"
With trembling hands, I pointed the camera at myself. A bitter lump formed in my throat. "I’m going to divorce Chase Hughes. I’ll take our son and disappear from his world forever!"
The moment the words left my mouth.
The live chat exploded.
"OMG! I can't believe I'm alive to hear this bitch finally say it! So satisfying!"
"You're a legend, girl! Don't be scared! All the Chase-Penelope shippers have your back! We'll get you out!"
"You better mean what you say. Don't come crying later, pretending we forced you."
"You should've vanished the day Penelope came back to the country. Who told you to shamelessly stick around?! You even got one of our own thrown in jail! You're a total jinx!"
I didn’t understand what was wrong with the world.
In a live stream with hundreds of thousands of viewers.
No one saw the sharp knife pressed against an innocent child’s neck.
No one cared that they were witnessing a crime in real time.
All they cared about was whether I—the eyesore—was finally going to disappear.
"What are you crying for?! You’ve been squatting in Penelope’s spot for years! You have the nerve to cry?! Louder! So everyone can hear you!" Skylar shrieked, refusing to let up. She dragged the sharp blade across my son’s neck, leaving a long, red line.
My heart seized, feeling like it had skipped a beat.
Forcing down the overwhelming emotions, I repeated the words over and over. "I’m going to divorce Chase Hughes. I’ll take our son and disappear from his world forever!"
"I’m going to divorce Chase Hughes. I’ll take our son and disappear from his world forever!"The livestream was shut down.
Before the police arrived.
The chat was already flooded with hundreds of thousands of copy-pasted comments.
"Shipping Chase and Penelope forever!"
Chase and Penelope.
As in, the award-winning actors Chase Hughes and Penelope Spencer.
They both broke into the industry around the same time.
They'd co-starred in twenty-seven movies together.
They were the most shipped couple of their generation—basically America's sweethearts.
Together, they shattered one ratings record and box office milestone after another.
Everyone said they were a match made in heaven, the perfect golden couple.
But then I came along and shattered their vision of perfect love.
No one knew that Chase and I grew up together.
Or that I was his first agent.
They only saw Penelope jumping from a twenty-story platform for Chase on the big screen.
They didn't know I was the one who got him his first role, pounding the pavement in 104-degree heat and pitching to hundreds of production teams.
They only saw Penelope thoughtfully adjusting Chase's suit at an awards ceremony.
They didn't know that when Chase had a fall that nearly scarred his face, I was the one who stayed by his side around the clock.
They only saw Penelope remembering all of Chase's favorite things in interviews.
They didn't know that to help Chase hone his craft, I learned the script for every single one of his movies by heart.
Chase Hughes wasn't born a star.
But all my years working behind the scenes just made me the homewrecker everyone loved to hate.
Three months ago, Penelope came back to the States.
The moment her plane landed.
Chase announced on Twitter that he was casting her as the leading lady in his new movie.
That high-profile move made all their obsessive shippers go absolutely wild.
And it pushed their hatred for me to an all-time high.
Some people threatened to run me over with a car.
Some wanted to push me off a cliff.
Others wanted to sell me off to the Southern Tropics.
Basically, they were willing to do anything to make the "homewrecker" disappear for good.
Skylar Pearson was arrested.
But I have no idea when the next Skylar Pearson will show up.It was two in the morning.
I finished giving my statement and walked out of the police station, holding my child who was already fast asleep.
Chase Hughes’s solid black Maybach was parked right in the station’s lot.
My steps faltered, and a storm of complicated feelings clouded my face.
A moment later, the car door opened.
Chase's current agent, Presley, walked toward me, a new Chanel lambskin bag dangling from her arm.
"Chase has a few major scenes to shoot, and the whole production is on a tight schedule, so he couldn't get away. The company's PR team will handle the livestream incident. For now, I'll take you two home. If you need anything later, just give me a call."
A bitter smile touched my lips.
*What the hell was I even hoping for?*
The ride home was silent.
I brought my child back to the large downtown apartment Chase and I shared.
In the car, I was so exhausted I had to fight just to stay awake.
But now, lying in our soft, king-sized bed, I’d never felt more alert.
I closed my eyes.
My mind flooded with the vicious, cruel comments from the livestream.
I opened them.
And all I could see was Skylar Pearson’s twisted, grinning face.
I unlocked my phone and, as if possessed, opened Twitter.
Sure enough.
The afternoon's kidnapping livestream was the number one trending topic.
They’d screenshotted a moment when I was so distraught my nostrils were flared and my mouth was downturned.
They turned it into a grotesque meme.
They said my disheveled outfit was so disgusting the brand would probably discontinue it.
No one seemed to consider how panicked a mother gets when she finds out her child is in danger.
They’d even started a fan club for Skylar, the woman who kidnapped me, and were writing a joint letter to vouch for her.
My eyes welled up again, and huge teardrops splashed onto my phone screen.
I was a professional agent who had clawed her way through the entertainment industry; I knew better than anyone that behind every online hate campaign, there's usually someone pulling the strings.
Not every comment is written by a real person.
But today, all that rampant online malice had materialized into a sharp knife pressed against my son's throat.
In five years, I had never so desperately needed comfort and reassurance from Chase.
I went to the first person pinned on my WhatsApp list and hit the call button.
One second later, the call disconnected.
Refusing to give up, I tried again.
Again, disconnected in a second. He'd hung up on me.
I found myself tapping on Chase's social media profile.
Two hours ago, while I was at the police station with our son giving my statement, he'd posted an update.
The caption read: "You are the leading lady of my life."
The picture was of him and Penelope Spencer, poring over a script together.
He looked intense and brooding; she, poised and elegant.
From any angle, they looked perfect for each other.
In that moment, a sound escaped my lips.
I couldn't tell if it was a laugh or a sob.
In that moment, the love that had begun with the recklessness of our youth was finally stripped of all its glittering ornaments, revealing the pale, bare truth underneath.You are the leading lady of my life.
That was back when we were fifteen.
A line Chase Hughes improvised during our school play.
The original line was: "We are all the protagonists of our own lives."
But instead, in front of the entire school—students and teachers alike—
he turned that cheesy, inspirational monologue into a sudden confession of love to me.
That day, Chase got a warning and was sentenced to ten laps around the track.
After he finished, he hugged me, drenched in sweat and still buzzing with adrenaline.
He was still totally wired, saying, "I'm gonna be a huge star one day! And you'll always, always be the leading lady of my life."
Years later,
Chase really did become a huge star.
But another leading lady appeared in his life.
"Chase and Penelope: Hollywood's Perfect Couple."
The first time I saw that trending topic, I couldn't help but give Chase the cold shoulder and throw a fit.
I refused to eat for a whole day and night.
Chase, with dark circles under his eyes from an all-night shoot, came and spoon-fed me chicken noodle soup, bite by bite.
He said, "Penelope is just my leading lady on screen. You're the leading lady of my life!"
I believe he was sincere the first time he said that to me.
It's just that afterward, spending day after day with Penelope, he started to waver.
He swore up and down that he didn't love Penelope, yet he couldn't stand seeing her with any other guy.
Whenever Penelope had a scene with another male actor, he would instinctively start nitpicking their performance.
It was as if he was the only man in the world worthy of being her co-star.
For Penelope, he'd delay our wedding date again and again.
For Penelope, he even insisted on bankrolling a risky remake of the only film he'd made where she *wasn't* the leading lady.
In the three months since Penelope returned to the country, they were inseparable.
Even when my child and I went through a life-or-death crisis, he couldn't be bothered to show up or even check in.
Being "busy" was always his best excuse.
Thirteen years.
Our relationship spanned from our teens to our mid-thirties.
The relationship had gone on for too long.
So long that it felt awkward to just say: I don't love you anymore.
Our marriage was no longer the natural culmination of our love.
It was just a matter of appearances, social standing, and a responsibility we felt forced to bear.
Looking back now, I was so stupid it's pathetic.
They say every cell in the human body is replaced every seven years.
The fifteen-year-old Chase and the thirty-five-year-old Chase weren't even the same person.
Five in the morning. The first hint of dawn was breaking.
I sat on the edge of the empty bed.
Staring at the wedding decal on our bedroom's French doors—the one we hadn't taken down in five years.
I had put it up, full of hope, and stubbornly refused to ever take it down.
Because every time I looked outside through that decal,
I always felt like I could see the most beautiful future for Chase and me.
Now here I was again, just sitting and staring at it.
*Do I really still love Chase?*
Maybe I did, right up until the second I saw his post.
Or maybe the love had already died somewhere in the disappointment of these past few years we've spent mostly apart.
Whatever the answer is, I understand one thing now.
The only person who truly deserves all your love is yourself.The upcoming chapters are even more exciting! Click the download button below to read the entire book!👇👇👇 {"title":"The Superstar's Wife","cover":"https://static-v1.mydramawave.com/vt/prod/cover/8a8d1529-2d54-4d1f-96ed-26fabf8a6e09.jpg?image_process=quality,85/resize,w_600/format,webp","chapter_title":"","chapter_text":"It was the fifth year of my marriage to A-list actor Chase Hughes.\n\nThe shippers of him and award-winning actress Penelope Spencer kidnapped our son to force us to divorce.\n\nMy pathetic state, begging the kidnapper on my knees, was broadcast live to the entire internet.\n\nChase, in response, sent the live-streamer ninety-nine virtual Porsches. \"If you guys acted a little more convincingly,\" he commented, \"I might've actually believed you.\"\n\nMy son’s kindergarten teacher.\n\nA die-hard fan of my husband, Chase Hughes, for the last ten years.\n\nThe moment she realized the cheerful little boy in her class was our son, she kidnapped him without a second thought.\n\nShe didn’t want money or anything else. All she wanted was for Chase and me to divorce.\n\nIn an abandoned, half-finished building on the outskirts of the city.\n\nI knelt before Skylar Pearson, my hands clasped together, begging her. \"Ms. Pearson, please, I’m begging you, don’t hurt Little Leo. I’ll do anything you want!\"\n\nSkylar laughed maniacally and threw a ","chapter_content_path":"https://video-v6.mydramawave.com/novel/25660/1/en_808a3769-130c-4df9-95f6-48ade11c1930.txt","chapters":[{"title":"","text":"It was the fifth year of my marriage to A-list actor Chase Hughes.\n\nThe shippers of him and award-winning actress Penelope Spencer kidnapped our son to force us to divorce.\n\nMy pathetic state, begging the kidnapper on my knees, was broadcast live to the entire internet.\n\nChase, in response, sent the live-streamer ninety-nine virtual Porsches. \"If you guys acted a little more convincingly,\" he commented, \"I might've actually believed you.\"\n\nMy son’s kindergarten teacher.\n\nA die-hard fan of my husband, Chase Hughes, for the last ten years.\n\nThe moment she realized the cheerful little boy in her class was our son, she kidnapped him without a second thought.\n\nShe didn’t want money or anything else. All she wanted was for Chase and me to divorce.\n\nIn an abandoned, half-finished building on the outskirts of the city.\n\nI knelt before Skylar Pearson, my hands clasped together, begging her. \"Ms. Pearson, please, I’m begging you, don’t hurt Little Leo. I’ll do anything you want!\"\n\nSkylar laughed maniacally and threw a phone at me—it was live-streaming.\n\n\"Say it! Tell the whole world you’re divorcing Chase! That you’ll take that little burden and disappear from his life forever!\"\n\nWith trembling hands, I pointed the camera at myself. A bitter lump formed in my throat. \"I’m going to divorce Chase Hughes. I’ll take our son and disappear from his world forever!\"\n\nThe moment the words left my mouth.\n\nThe live chat exploded.\n\n\"OMG! I can't believe I'm alive to hear this bitch finally say it! So satisfying!\"\n\n\"You're a legend, girl! Don't be scared! All the Chase-Penelope shippers have your back! We'll get you out!\"\n\n\"You better mean what you say. Don't come crying later, pretending we forced you.\"\n\n\"You should've vanished the day Penelope came back to the country. Who told you to shamelessly stick around?! You even got one of our own thrown in jail! You're a total jinx!\"\n\nI didn’t understand what was wrong with the world.\n\nIn a live stream with hundreds of thousands of viewers.\n\nNo one saw the sharp knife pressed against an innocent child’s neck.\n\nNo one cared that they were witnessing a crime in real time.\n\nAll they cared about was whether I—the eyesore—was finally going to disappear.\n\n\"What are you crying for?! You’ve been squatting in Penelope’s spot for years! You have the nerve to cry?! Louder! So everyone can hear you!\" Skylar shrieked, refusing to let up. She dragged the sharp blade across my son’s neck, leaving a long, red line.\n\nMy heart seized, feeling like it had skipped a beat.\n\nForcing down the overwhelming emotions, I repeated the words over and over. \"I’m going to divorce Chase Hughes. I’ll take our son and disappear from his world forever!\"\n\n\"I’m going to divorce Chase Hughes. I’ll take our son and disappear from his world forever!\""},{"title":"","text":"The livestream was shut down.\n\nBefore the police arrived.\n\nThe chat was already flooded with hundreds of thousands of copy-pasted comments.\n\n\"Shipping Chase and Penelope forever!\"\n\nChase and Penelope.\n\nAs in, the award-winning actors Chase Hughes and Penelope Spencer.\n\nThey both broke into the industry around the same time.\n\nThey'd co-starred in twenty-seven movies together.\n\nThey were the most shipped couple of their generation—basically America's sweethearts.\n\nTogether, they shattered one ratings record and box office milestone after another.\n\nEveryone said they were a match made in heaven, the perfect golden couple.\n\nBut then I came along and shattered their vision of perfect love.\n\nNo one knew that Chase and I grew up together.\n\nOr that I was his first agent.\n\nThey only saw Penelope jumping from a twenty-story platform for Chase on the big screen.\n\nThey didn't know I was the one who got him his first role, pounding the pavement in 104-degree heat and pitching to hundreds of production teams.\n\nThey only saw Penelope thoughtfully adjusting Chase's suit at an awards ceremony.\n\nThey didn't know that when Chase had a fall that nearly scarred his face, I was the one who stayed by his side around the clock.\n\nThey only saw Penelope remembering all of Chase's favorite things in interviews.\n\nThey didn't know that to help Chase hone his craft, I learned the script for every single one of his movies by heart.\n\nChase Hughes wasn't born a star.\n\nBut all my years working behind the scenes just made me the homewrecker everyone loved to hate.\n\nThree months ago, Penelope came back to the States.\n\nThe moment her plane landed.\n\nChase announced on Twitter that he was casting her as the leading lady in his new movie.\n\nThat high-profile move made all their obsessive shippers go absolutely wild.\n\nAnd it pushed their hatred for me to an all-time high.\n\nSome people threatened to run me over with a car.\n\nSome wanted to push me off a cliff.\n\nOthers wanted to sell me off to the Southern Tropics.\n\nBasically, they were willing to do anything to make the \"homewrecker\" disappear for good.\n\nSkylar Pearson was arrested.\n\nBut I have no idea when the next Skylar Pearson will show up."},{"title":"","text":"It was two in the morning.\n\nI finished giving my statement and walked out of the police station, holding my child who was already fast asleep.\n\nChase Hughes’s solid black Maybach was parked right in the station’s lot.\n\nMy steps faltered, and a storm of complicated feelings clouded my face.\n\nA moment later, the car door opened.\n\nChase's current agent, Presley, walked toward me, a new Chanel lambskin bag dangling from her arm.\n\n\"Chase has a few major scenes to shoot, and the whole production is on a tight schedule, so he couldn't get away. The company's PR team will handle the livestream incident. For now, I'll take you two home. If you need anything later, just give me a call.\"\n\nA bitter smile touched my lips.\n\n*What the hell was I even hoping for?*\n\nThe ride home was silent.\n\nI brought my child back to the large downtown apartment Chase and I shared.\n\nIn the car, I was so exhausted I had to fight just to stay awake.\n\nBut now, lying in our soft, king-sized bed, I’d never felt more alert.\n\nI closed my eyes.\n\nMy mind flooded with the vicious, cruel comments from the livestream.\n\nI opened them.\n\nAnd all I could see was Skylar Pearson’s twisted, grinning face.\n\nI unlocked my phone and, as if possessed, opened Twitter.\n\nSure enough.\n\nThe afternoon's kidnapping livestream was the number one trending topic.\n\nThey’d screenshotted a moment when I was so distraught my nostrils were flared and my mouth was downturned.\n\nThey turned it into a grotesque meme.\n\nThey said my disheveled outfit was so disgusting the brand would probably discontinue it.\n\nNo one seemed to consider how panicked a mother gets when she finds out her child is in danger.\n\nThey’d even started a fan club for Skylar, the woman who kidnapped me, and were writing a joint letter to vouch for her.\n\nMy eyes welled up again, and huge teardrops splashed onto my phone screen.\n\nI was a professional agent who had clawed her way through the entertainment industry; I knew better than anyone that behind every online hate campaign, there's usually someone pulling the strings.\n\nNot every comment is written by a real person.\n\nBut today, all that rampant online malice had materialized into a sharp knife pressed against my son's throat.\n\nIn five years, I had never so desperately needed comfort and reassurance from Chase.\n\nI went to the first person pinned on my WhatsApp list and hit the call button.\n\nOne second later, the call disconnected.\n\nRefusing to give up, I tried again.\n\nAgain, disconnected in a second. He'd hung up on me.\n\nI found myself tapping on Chase's social media profile.\n\nTwo hours ago, while I was at the police station with our son giving my statement, he'd posted an update.\n\nThe caption read: \"You are the leading lady of my life.\"\n\nThe picture was of him and Penelope Spencer, poring over a script together.\n\nHe looked intense and brooding; she, poised and elegant.\n\nFrom any angle, they looked perfect for each other.\n\nIn that moment, a sound escaped my lips.\n\nI couldn't tell if it was a laugh or a sob.\n\nIn that moment, the love that had begun with the recklessness of our youth was finally stripped of all its glittering ornaments, revealing the pale, bare truth underneath."},{"title":"","text":"You are the leading lady of my life.\n\nThat was back when we were fifteen.\n\nA line Chase Hughes improvised during our school play.\n\nThe original line was: \"We are all the protagonists of our own lives.\"\n\nBut instead, in front of the entire school—students and teachers alike—\n\nhe turned that cheesy, inspirational monologue into a sudden confession of love to me.\n\nThat day, Chase got a warning and was sentenced to ten laps around the track.\n\nAfter he finished, he hugged me, drenched in sweat and still buzzing with adrenaline.\n\nHe was still totally wired, saying, \"I'm gonna be a huge star one day! And you'll always, always be the leading lady of my life.\"\n\nYears later,\n\nChase really did become a huge star.\n\nBut another leading lady appeared in his life.\n\n\"Chase and Penelope: Hollywood's Perfect Couple.\"\n\nThe first time I saw that trending topic, I couldn't help but give Chase the cold shoulder and throw a fit.\n\nI refused to eat for a whole day and night.\n\nChase, with dark circles under his eyes from an all-night shoot, came and spoon-fed me chicken noodle soup, bite by bite.\n\nHe said, \"Penelope is just my leading lady on screen. You're the leading lady of my life!\"\n\nI believe he was sincere the first time he said that to me.\n\nIt's just that afterward, spending day after day with Penelope, he started to waver.\n\nHe swore up and down that he didn't love Penelope, yet he couldn't stand seeing her with any other guy.\n\nWhenever Penelope had a scene with another male actor, he would instinctively start nitpicking their performance.\n\nIt was as if he was the only man in the world worthy of being her co-star.\n\nFor Penelope, he'd delay our wedding date again and again.\n\nFor Penelope, he even insisted on bankrolling a risky remake of the only film he'd made where she *wasn't* the leading lady.\n\nIn the three months since Penelope returned to the country, they were inseparable.\n\nEven when my child and I went through a life-or-death crisis, he couldn't be bothered to show up or even check in.\n\nBeing \"busy\" was always his best excuse.\n\nThirteen years.\n\nOur relationship spanned from our teens to our mid-thirties.\n\nThe relationship had gone on for too long.\n\nSo long that it felt awkward to just say: I don't love you anymore.\n\nOur marriage was no longer the natural culmination of our love.\n\nIt was just a matter of appearances, social standing, and a responsibility we felt forced to bear.\n\nLooking back now, I was so stupid it's pathetic.\n\nThey say every cell in the human body is replaced every seven years.\n\nThe fifteen-year-old Chase and the thirty-five-year-old Chase weren't even the same person.\n\nFive in the morning. The first hint of dawn was breaking.\n\nI sat on the edge of the empty bed.\n\nStaring at the wedding decal on our bedroom's French doors—the one we hadn't taken down in five years.\n\nI had put it up, full of hope, and stubbornly refused to ever take it down.\n\nBecause every time I looked outside through that decal,\n\nI always felt like I could see the most beautiful future for Chase and me.\n\nNow here I was again, just sitting and staring at it.\n\n*Do I really still love Chase?*\n\nMaybe I did, right up until the second I saw his post.\n\nOr maybe the love had already died somewhere in the disappointment of these past few years we've spent mostly apart.\n\nWhatever the answer is, I understand one thing now.\n\nThe only person who truly deserves all your love is yourself."}],"chapter_list":[{"chapter_key":"zDxEABgKmK","title":"","serial_number":1,"start_chapter":0,"content_path":"https://video-v6.mydramawave.com/novel/25660/1/en_808a3769-130c-4df9-95f6-48ade11c1930.txt","word_count":491,"unlock":false,"has_set_free_remind":false,"is_free":false},{"chapter_key":"ntWrNOkiWq","title":"","serial_number":2,"start_chapter":0,"content_path":"https://video-v6.mydramawave.com/novel/25660/2/en_b241f0ca-5fe9-435f-a52b-b8c96bfd9b98.txt","word_count":370,"unlock":false,"has_set_free_remind":false,"is_free":false},{"chapter_key":"lH2uEHvaoK","title":"","serial_number":3,"start_chapter":0,"content_path":"https://video-v6.mydramawave.com/novel/25660/3/en_53c196a9-35a1-4f33-9f9e-e4636a215919.txt","word_count":562,"unlock":false,"has_set_free_remind":false,"is_free":false},{"chapter_key":"5O0iXKDizy","title":"","serial_number":4,"start_chapter":0,"content_path":"https://video-v6.mydramawave.com/novel/25660/4/en_c1a4b0d9-31fb-4ff1-8e57-541750db8473.txt","word_count":606,"unlock":false,"has_set_free_remind":false,"is_free":false}]} "2600:1f28:365:80b0:4d23:66fa:c2bb:7bae" {"clickToRead":"🔥🔥Click to read the next chapter for free 👇","continueReading":"CONTINUE READING","more":"More","open":"Open","bottomText":"The upcoming chapters are even more exciting! Click the download button below to read the entire book!👇👇👇"} {} {} ""
