My Ex Married My Enemy

CHAPTER 6: THE TRANSFORMATION

We saved the building, but we did not save my pride.

That night at 7:30pm, we raced to my Brooklyn studio in Adrian's Bentley. Manhattan traffic was crazy. Adrian was on the phone shouting, "Get me a judge! Now! I don't care if he is eating dinner! Get me Judge Morrison!"

When we arrived, Mark's demolition crew was already there. A big yellow bulldozer. Two men with a giant chain. And Vanessa standing there in a short red dress and big sunglasses even though it was evening, holding a bottle of champagne, laughing and filming for her i********: Live.

Rosa, my head seamstress, was really lying on the ground in front of the bulldozer. Her grey hair was loose. Her apron was dirty. But her face was strong like stone. My other workers, ten women and three men, stood behind her, holding hands, crying.

Vanessa saw me and smiled wide. "Oh, look who came! The crying CEO!"

Adrian did not shout. He stepped out of the Bentley slowly. He wore his dark suit like armor. He walked to the bulldozer driver, put one hand on the big machine, and said quietly, "If you touch this building, I will make sure you never work in this state again. Do you understand me?"

The driver looked at Vanessa, then at Adrian, then jumped down and ran away.

Adrian turned to Vanessa. He took off his sunglasses. His eyes were cold like ice in winter.

"You are on my wife's property," he said. His voice was low but every phone camera could hear it. We had called the press too. Three press vans arrived behind us, cameras flashing. "Leave. Now."

Vanessa's mouth fell open. "Your wife? She is not your wife! She is a..."

"She is Mrs. Adrian Blackwood as of tomorrow morning, 9am, City Hall," Adrian cut her off. He grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. My dress was still dirty, my face still swollen from crying, but I stood beside him. He held my hand up high, so the cameras could see our linked fingers. "And this building has my mother-in-law's name on it. Touch it again and I will sue you for everything your father's company owns. And trust me, I have better lawyers."

Vanessa left, screaming into her phone, her red dress flying.

The workers cheered. Rosa stood up slowly, her knees shaking. I ran to her and hugged her hard. She smelled like fabric and sweat and mother.

"You came, my baby," she whispered in my ear. "I knew you would come."

That night, I did not go back to my tiny apartment in Queens. Adrian took me to his penthouse on the Upper West Side. Not his main mansion, his private penthouse that no press knew about. The building had a private elevator that opened directly into his home.

It was not a home. It was like a museum. White walls, black floors, glass everywhere. No photos. No color. No life. Just cold, perfect, expensive emptiness. Like him.

"You will stay in the guest room tonight," he said, taking off his suit jacket and throwing it over a chair. Under it he wore a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, showing strong forearms with veins. I had never seen him without a suit jacket. He looked younger. More human.

"Tomorrow morning, City Hall, 9am. You need to sleep," he said.

But I could not sleep. I sat on the cold floor of the huge guest room, my back against the giant bed, my cracked phone in my hand. Even though we saved the building tonight, the picture from this afternoon was everywhere online.

Bella Hadid's stylist had reposted it. The caption: Is this the new fashion? Divorce in the morning, billionaire by night?

Comments: She divorced this morning and already found a new man? So desperate.

No wonder Mark left her. She was always looking for richer.

Gold digger alert.

Adrian Blackwood can do better.

Each word entered my chest like a small needle. I read them one by one, my hands shaking.

Adrian found me there at 10pm. He had showered. His hair was wet and messy. He wore a simple grey t-shirt and black sweatpants. I had never seen him in casual clothes. He looked like a normal man, not a billionaire. A very handsome normal man.

"What are you doing on the floor again?" he asked, standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. His t-shirt stretched over his muscles.

"Reading," I whispered. I did not look up.

He walked in, took the phone gently from my shaking hands, and turned it off. His fingers brushed mine. Warm and dry. Mine were cold and sweaty.

"Don't read that rubbish," he said quietly. "Those people don't know you. They sit in their small apartments eating cheap noodles and they type hate because their own lives are empty."

"But they are right," I said, tears finally falling again. I was tired of crying, but the tears kept coming. I hugged my knees. "I divorced this morning and now I am in another man's house. I am wearing a dirty dress. I look like exactly what Vanessa said I am. A desperate, clingy woman who cannot survive without a man. My mother would be ashamed of me."

My shoulders shook hard. I hid my face in my knees, making myself small.

Adrian did not say "don't cry." He did not say "you are beautiful." He did something different that shocked me.

He sat down on the floor beside me. His long legs stretched out. His grey t-shirt touched the dusty floor where my dirty dress had been. A man whose penthouse was worth twenty million dollars sat on the floor with a crying girl in a dirty dress.

"Look at me, Julia," he said.

I shook my head, hiding my face.

"Julia, look at me."

His voice was firm, but not harsh. Like a teacher who cares.

I slowly lifted my red, swollen face. My mascara was running again.

He was looking at me, really looking at me, his dark brown eyes serious and soft at the same time.

"You are not clingy. You are not desperate. You are a woman who was robbed in broad daylight and you had the courage to ask for help. That is not shameful. That is brave. But..." He paused and his eyes moved from my face to my dirty dress to my bare feet. "But brave women should not look like they just survived a hurricane. If you want the world to respect you tomorrow, you must first show them you respect yourself tonight. You cannot go to City Hall looking like this."

"What do you mean?" I sniffled.

"I mean tomorrow morning at 9am, you will become Mrs. Adrian Blackwood. The press will be at City Hall. Mark and Vanessa will be watching from their honeymoon. The whole American Fashion Council will be watching. If you appear there looking like this broken girl on the floor, they will eat you alive. They will say Adrian Blackwood married a charity case out of pity. Is that what you want for Carter Designs? For your mother's name on that building?"

I wiped my nose with my hand. "No."

"Then stand up."

I stared at him.

"Stand up, Julia," he repeated, his voice low and commanding. He stood up in one smooth, powerful movement and held out his hand to me. His hand was big, palm open.

I placed my shaking hand in his. His grip was strong and warm and safe. He pulled me up easily, like I weighed nothing. My body swayed a little because my legs were numb from sitting on the floor for an hour. He put a steadying hand on my waist. His hand was big and hot through my thin dress. I felt a shiver run down my back, but not from cold. From his touch.

He led me to the full-length mirror in the corner of the huge guest room.

"Look," he said, standing behind me. His hands on my shoulders. His chest close to my back but not quite touching. In the mirror, we looked strange together. Him tall, clean, powerful in grey. Me small, dirty, broken in my once-fine blue dress.

"What do you see?" he asked, his voice low near my ear.

"A failure," I whispered, looking down at my feet.

"No," he said sharply. His hands tightened slightly on my shoulders, making me look up again into the mirror, into his eyes. "Look again. What do you see?"

I forced myself to look. My eyes were red and puffy. My lip was bleeding where I bit it. My dress had a small tear at the side from when I fell on the sidewalk.

"I see a woman who let people step on her for too long," I whispered. My voice cracked.

"Good. Now we will change what you see. We will make them see what I see."

He took out his phone and made a call. "Mrs. Laurent, bring them up now. Yes, all of them. And tell the kitchen to bring food. Real food, pasta, chicken, not salad."

Five minutes later, the private elevator dinged and five women walked out, rolling big silver suitcases that shone like treasure chests. A tall, sharp-faced French woman in her fifties led them. She wore all black and her silver hair was in a tight, perfect bun. She looked like a general going to war.

"Mrs. Laurent, my personal image consultant," Adrian introduced. "She has made first ladies and movie stars look like queens. She will make you look like what you are."

Mrs. Laurent looked me up and down, from my dirty hair to my bare feet with chipped nail polish. Her lips pressed into a thin line. She did not smile.

"So this is the new Mrs. Blackwood," she said, her French accent thick. "We have work to do. A lot of work. Girls!"

The five women opened their suitcases. One had makeup worth more than my rent. One had dresses - silky, expensive dresses. One had shoes, shining like glass. One had hair tools that steamed.

"Wait, wait, I..." I started, stepping back, my back hitting Adrian's chest. He was solid behind me, like a wall.

"Julia," Adrian whispered close to my ear, his breath warm on my neck, making goosebumps rise on my skin all the way down my arms. "Do you trust me?"

His hands were still on my shoulders. His body was a shield behind me.

I nodded slowly, my heart beating fast.

"Then let them work," he said. He leaned even closer, his lips almost touching my ear, his voice so low only I could hear. "And tomorrow, when Vanessa sees you on the news, I want her champagne to choke her."

He let go of my shoulders and walked out of the room, closing the glass door behind him.

What happened next was not a makeover. It was a boot camp. A queen training camp.

Mrs. Laurent pointed to a velvet chair. "Sit."

Two women attacked my hair, washing it in the big bathroom, scrubbing my scalp hard with expensive-smelling shampoo. I winced.

"Don't move," one said. "Your hair is dead from cheap straightening."

Another woman knelt and took my feet, removing my dirty heels, massaging my swollen ankles with hot oil.

"Your feet are crying from pain," she muttered.

Mrs. Laurent stood in front of me with a notepad, like a strict teacher.

"Lesson one, Julia," she said, her voice hard and sharp. "A queen never says sorry for existing. From now on, you don't say 'sorry' unless you kill someone. Do you understand?"

I nodded. "Sorry... I mean..."

"Again!" she snapped, hitting the notepad. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said, louder.

"Louder!"

"YES!"

"Good. Lesson two. The word NO. Say it."

"No."

"Louder. Like you mean it. Like you are telling a man who just stole your company and gave it to your enemy to get out of your building."

My hands clenched into fists. I thought of Mark's smile. I thought of Vanessa in my mother's apron.

"NO!" I shouted, so loud my own ears rang and the makeup women jumped.

Mrs. Laurent smiled for the first time. A small, sharp, proud smile.

"Better. Again. NO!"

"NO!"

"NO!"

For twenty minutes, I just stood in the middle of that expensive penthouse bedroom and shouted NO at the top of my lungs. My throat became sore and raw, but my chest felt lighter and lighter. Like each NO was pushing out some of the fear and sadness that had lived inside me for three years of bad marriage.

Then came the dresses.

They threw my dirty blue divorce dress in the trash. Literally. Mrs. Laurent picked it up with two fingers like it was garbage and dropped it in a black trash bag.

"Burn it," she said.

They put me in a simple, fitted, off-white dress for tomorrow. Not puffy and princess-like, but powerful. The fabric hugged my waist and fell straight down to my knees. It had long sleeves that were sheer, with small pearls sewn in. It was modest but sexy. Expensive but not flashy. It said: I am not trying too hard. I am just better.

I looked in the mirror and gasped. My waist looked smaller. My shoulders looked straighter. My legs looked longer.

Then makeup. Not too much. Just enough to hide the redness, to make my eyes look bigger, sharper, like a cat ready to fight. Nude lipstick with a little shine. My mother never let me wear bold makeup. She said natural is best. Tonight, I wanted to be unnatural. I wanted to be unforgettable.

Then hair. They did not straighten it bone-straight like I always did to please Mark. Mark liked straight, flat hair. They left my natural curls, but they brushed them out, big and full and wild around my face, like a lion's mane. Like a crown.

When they finished, Mrs. Laurent turned me slowly to face the giant mirror that covered the whole wall.

I did not recognize myself.

The woman in the mirror was not the crying girl on the floor of Lexington Avenue. Her back was straight like a dancer. Her chin was up high. Her eyes, lined with soft black, were not swollen anymore. They were sharp and bright and a little dangerous. Her lips were soft and firm, not trembling. Her hair was big and wild and free.

"Who is she?" I whispered, touching my own cheek with a steady hand. No shaking anymore.

Mrs. Laurent stood behind me, her hands on my shoulders, just like Adrian had done an hour ago.

"She is Mrs. Adrian Blackwood," she said quietly, with respect in her voice now. "She is the woman who will take back her building tomorrow. Say your name."

"Julia... Julia Blackwood," I whispered.

"Louder."

"Julia Blackwood."

"Like you own Fifth Avenue."

I took a deep breath. I looked at my own eyes in the mirror. I thought of Rosa lying in front of the bulldozer. I thought of my mother's pink wall. I thought of Mark's text: No hard feelings?

I said, louder, clear, "I AM JULIA BLACKWOOD."

The glass door opened.

Adrian stood there, holding a tray with two plates of hot creamy pasta and grilled chicken and two glasses of orange juice. He had brought me food himself. No servants. No butler.

He stopped dead when he saw me.

The tray in his hands tilted slightly. Pasta almost fell. His eyes went wide. His mouth opened a little. For a full ten seconds, he just stared, frozen in the doorway.

Mrs. Laurent and the other women quietly packed their silver suitcases and slipped out into the private elevator, smiling secret smiles to each other.

Adrian finally walked in and placed the tray on the low table, his movements stiff and awkward, like he forgot how to walk normally. Like a teenage boy, not a billionaire.

"You..." He cleared his throat. His voice was rough and low. "You look... different."

"Is it bad?" I asked, suddenly nervous again, touching my big curly hair. My old habit of biting my lip came back.

He walked towards me, slowly, his eyes never leaving my face. He stopped one foot away. So close I could see the small pulse beating fast in his neck. His body was tense, his hands in tight fists at his sides, like he was stopping himself from doing something he wanted to do.

He reached out, but not to touch my face. He reached past me to pick up a single curl that had fallen on my shoulder. He held it between his thumb and finger, soft, like it was silk and might break.

"You look," he whispered, his voice husky and quiet, his eyes on my lips now, not my eyes. "You look like trouble, Julia. Beautiful trouble."

My heart started beating very fast. Loud like a drum. I was sure he could hear it in the quiet penthouse. My face became hot under the makeup. My knees felt weak.

"Is that... is that good?" I whispered, looking up at him through my lashes. My body moved on its own, leaning slightly closer to him. His grey t-shirt smelled like clean laundry and his cologne.

He dropped the curl like it burned him and stepped back quickly, one big step. His face became cold again, mask back on, but his ears were red.

"Eat your food," he said sharply, turning away to look out the huge window at the lights of Manhattan, his back to me, his hands behind his back, clenched tight. "You need strength. Tomorrow morning at 9am, every camera in New York will be on you. And Vanessa Cole will be watching from her hotel. Don't give her the satisfaction of seeing you weak. Eat."

I sat down to eat, my legs shaking again, but for a completely different reason now. My lips still tingled where his eyes had looked. The pasta was delicious but I could barely taste it.

We ate in silence on the floor, backs against the bed, like two kids. But every time I looked up, I caught him looking at me in the reflection of the dark window, his eyes dark and hungry and confused, then quickly looking away when I caught him, like he was angry at himself for looking.

At 11:30pm, when I was finally alone in the big soft guest bed wearing a new silk white nightdress, my new phone - a gift from Adrian, the latest iPhone - buzzed loudly on the pillow.

It was a message from an unknown number with a picture attached. No name.

It was a picture of Adrian and Vanessa, two years ago, in a dark club in SoHo, kissing hard, his hands all over her bare waist, her legs around him. The timestamp said 2:13 AM.

And below it, a message: You think he is saving you, sweetie? He has already had your enemy. He had her first. Ask him who Vanessa lost her first baby for. And ask him why he really hates Mark. - A Friend

My blood turned to ice water.

The door to my bedroom opened slowly without a knock, and Adrian stood there in the dark doorway, his grey t-shirt off now, only in low black sweatpants, his chest bare and wet like he just showered again, and he said quietly, "Julia, I can't sleep... can I... can I stay here with you for a while? Just to talk?"