Page 42 of Devotion
The social media situation was a different universe entirely. Overnight, Sazón’s following had jumped by over a hundred thousand. My name was trending. Reporters were writing what they called aCinderella story, the small-town chef who married the billionaire actor. Comments poured in—some kind, some envious, and some genuinely vicious.
But at least three-quarters of them called me beautiful, which I was choosing to focus on because the alternative was reading the ones that called me a gold-digger, and I didn’t have the emotional capacity for that.
Elspeth had been calling. I hadn’t answered. I didn’t have the energy for my cousin right now. Whatever she wanted, it would involve a compliment wrapped around an insult delivered with a smile, and I was full up on those.
Anna and I FaceTimed while I scrolled through comments. Anna was in bed in her usual lounging uniform—eating grapes, face mask on, looking, as always, like a queen reviewing intelligence reports.
“Christopher Vale’s new wife is stunning,” I read aloud. “She looks like she could cook and model at the same time. Anna, they think I’m stunning.”
“You are stunning. I’ve been telling you this for years.”
“Who is this woman and where did she come from? She’s giving main character energy.” I squealed. Actually squealed, like a teenager. I was not proud of it but I was not going to pretend it didn’t happen. “Anna, they’re calling me a main character!”
“Don’t let it go to your head. Read me a mean one.”
“She must be after his money. That one has four thousand likes.”
“Ignore that. What’s the marriage like? Are you two talking?”
“We live in the same house and I see him approximately never. He leaves before I’m awake and comes back after I’ve gone to bed. We’ve had one conversation this week and it was about eggs.”
Anna was quiet for a beat. “Miley.”
“What?”
“Don’t fall in love with him.”
“Anna, that would require him to be in the same room as me for more than ninety seconds, which has not happened since the gala.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
The next morning, I opened the refrigerator, prepared to eat my leftovers from last night.
Gone.
The plate was in the sink, empty and washed.
He’d eaten it, washed the plate himself, and saidnothing?
The morning after that, the same thing happened—last night's leftovers vanished, the plate already in the sink by the time I came home.
I started making extra. Not because he asked; he never did. But the plate kept coming back clean, and Miley Torres was constitutionally incapable of feeding someone half-portions when she knew they were hungry.
I had a new name for him now.The Food Thief. Because that’s what he was. A man who told me not to cook for him and then ate everything I made without a word of acknowledgment, like a very tall, very handsome, very emotionally unavailable raccoon.
At Eleanor’s, the days were warm and easy. She was everything Christopher wasn’t—talkative and affectionate, interested in my life with a warmth that felt genuine rather than transactional.
We cooked together sometimes. She’d sit at the kitchen island and tell me stories about building the company with her late husband, about Christopher as a child, about the lemon tree in the garden.
One afternoon, she looked up from her tea and casually said, “When do you spend time with your husband if you’re always here?”
“He’s not really my husband, Eleanor.”
“He’s legally your husband.”
“He’s contractually my husband. There’s a difference.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is there?”
