Chapter 4 - The Unmasking
The Malibu beach house was a glass-and-steel monolith sitting on the edge of a rocky cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
It was Richard’s favorite retreat—the place where he claimed he went to "find inspiration" for his investment firm, but where he actually went to entertain his revolving door of younger women while I was performing twelve-hour trauma surgeries in Beverly Hills.
At four o'clock that afternoon, I arrived at the estate in my own car.
I did not drive up the main driveway. I parked three hundred yards away down the coastal highway, walking quietly up the stone pathway that led to the rear wrap-around wooden deck.
The sliding glass doors of the master living room were wide open, allowing the cool ocean breeze and the roaring sound of the crashing waves to fill the house.
Inside, Richard was sitting on the white leather sofa, wearing a loose linen shirt and shorts, a crystal tumbler of Macallan scotch resting in his hand. He was smiling, listening to the soft jazz playing from the surround-sound speakers, waiting for his young, beautiful mistress to arrive.
A heavy knock echoed from the front entry door.
"Chloe!" Richard called out, stepping up from the sofa with an eager, youthful spring in his step. "It’s unlocked, sweet girl! Come in!"
I stood outside on the glass deck, hidden behind the shadow of a large potted palm tree, watching through the floor-to-ceiling glass.
The front door clicked open.
Footsteps echoed across the hardwood floor—slow, hesitant, heavy footsteps that lacked the light, energetic bounce Richard was expecting.
Chloe Bennett stepped into the grand living room.
She was wearing a long, black trench coat, her head covered in a silk scarf, dark oversized sunglasses hiding the top half of her face. She was shivering, her shoulders slouched, her posture defeated and broken.
"Chloe?" Richard chuckled, walking toward her with open arms, a foolish, eager grin spread across his face. "What's with the mystery, babe? Why have you been dark for two weeks? I tried calling you five times—"
He reached out, grabbing her silk scarf and pulling it back, while simultaneously reaching up to sliding her dark sunglasses down her nose.
"Let me see that drop-dead gorgeous face—"
The words froze in Richard’s throat.
The silk scarf dropped to the floorboards. The sunglasses slipped from his fingers, clattering against the hardwood.
Richard stepped back as if he had been struck in the chest with a sledgehammer.
Chloe stood in the sunlight filtering through the ocean windows.
Her hair had been pulled back into a severe, tight bun.
Her face—devoid of makeup, pale, and raw—stared at him.
The sharp, broken nasal bridge. The deep, hollow, shadowed sockets beneath her eyes. The thin, tight, joyless lips. The cold, severe jawline that had sat across from him at his dinner table for twelve long years.
Richard’s face went completely, utterly white. The glass of scotch slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor, splashing dark brown liquor and ice cubes across his bare feet.
"E... Eleanor?" Richard stammered, his voice dropping into a terrified, incomprehensible squeak. He stumbled backward, his knees slamming against the edge of the glass coffee table. "What... what are you doing here? Why are you dressed like that? Where is Chloe?!"
Chloe looked at him through her new, hooded eyes, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks, carving wet tracks through her pale skin.
"Richard..." Chloe whimpered. Her voice was higher than mine, but her facial movement—the way her thin lips pulled back over her teeth, the way her brow furrowed into deep, exhausted lines—was a terrifying, perfect duplicate of his wife. "It’s me... it’s Chloe..."
Richard stopped moving. His eyes darted wildly over her face, searching for the twenty-two-year-old blonde model he had kissed three weeks ago.
"No..." Richard whispered, shaking his head frantically, his breathing coming in fast, panic-stricken gulps. "No, no, no! This is a joke! Where is she?! What did you do to your face?!"
"I did it for you!" Chloe screamed, stepping toward him, reaching out with her hands—hands that now looked frail and old against the severe lines of her new face. "I wanted to give you what you wanted! I wanted to replace her! I went to her clinic! I paid her!"
Richard’s brain struggled to process the words, churning through the nightmare reality unfolding before him.
"You... you went to her clinic?" Richard gasped. "You went to the Vance Institute?!"
"She did," I said.
My voice cut through the room like a steel blade.
I stepped through the open sliding glass door from the deck, carrying a thick leather briefcase in my right hand.
I was wearing my tailored grey business suit, my hair styled impeccably, my makeup light, natural, and sharp.
I stood beside the broken scotch glass, looking at my husband and his mistress standing side-by-side in the sunlit room.
Richard spun around, his mouth hanging open, his eyes bouncing wildly between me and Chloe.
Me. Her. The original. The copy.
He looked at my face—the face he had known for twelve years. Then he looked at Chloe’s face—the raw, plastic, manufactured nightmare version of my face that sat on a twenty-two-year-old body.
"Eleanor..." Richard choked out, pressing his hands against his forehead as if his brain were about to burst from his skull. "El... what... what is this?! What did you do?!"
"I provided a service, Richard," I said smoothly, walking over to the marble kitchen island and placing my leather briefcase on the counter. "Miss Bennett came into my office two weeks ago. She brought a photo of me—a photo you took in our garden—and asked me to make her into a version of your wife that would finally convince you to leave me."
I reached into my briefcase and pulled out a stack of documents.
"She paid with your corporate credit card," I continued, sliding the first document across the marble counter toward him. "Two hundred thousand dollars. I simply followed her explicit instructions. I carved your preferences directly into her bone structure."
Richard looked at Chloe, his face twisted in a look of absolute, profound revulsion.
"You look disgusting..." Richard spat at her, his voice shaking with a vile, panicked hatred. "You look like a hag! You look like my wife's dead mother!"
Chloe let out a shattered, agonizing sob, collapsing onto the white leather sofa, covering her ruined, reconstructed face with her hands.
"You said you hated her face!" Chloe screamed at him through her fingers. "You told me every night that you were tired of looking at her! You told me she was an old, exhausted anchor around your neck!"
"I didn't tell you to turn into her, you stupid bitch!" Richard roared, his face turning purple with rage.
"Enough," I said.
The word was not loud, but it possessed an authority that instantly silenced both of them.
I pulled the second set of papers from my briefcase.
"Richard," I said, sliding the thick legal stack across the marble island next to the surgical receipts. "These are divorce papers. Prepared by Sterling & Associates this morning."
Richard froze, looking down at the heavy white pages. "Divorce? El... wait. Listen to me. She tricked me! This girl... she's crazy! She came after me! I don't love her! I love you!"
"You love my institute, Richard," I corrected softly, stepping closer to him until I could smell the stale scotch on his breath. "You love my inheritance. You love the forty million dollars in equity we built while I worked twenty-hour days while you drank on this balcony."
I tapped the first page of the divorce settlement.
"Because you used corporate funds—funds from my medical practice—to finance an illegal extramarital procedure on a patient who signed a full release form, my attorneys have already frozen all joint accounts under the emergency fraud protection act."
"You can't do that!" Richard bellowed, stepping toward me, his hands clenching into fists. "That money is half mine!"
"It was half yours," I said calmly. "Until two hours ago, when your corporate board—which I control eighty percent of—voted to terminate your position as Managing Director due to gross financial misconduct and ethical violations involving patient exploitation."
Richard’s hands dropped to his sides. His knees shook. "You... you ousted me?"
"You have twenty-four hours to vacate this property," I said, pointing to the ocean view outside. "The Malibu house, the Tuscan villa, and the Beverly Hills estate were all purchased through my family's private trust before our marriage. You have no legal claim to any of them."
I turned my eyes to Chloe, who was weeping silently on the sofa, clutching her knees to her chest.
"And as for you, Miss Bennett," I murmured, walking over to stand above her. "Your surgical contract included a standard, non-refundable structural modification clause. Reversals are medically impossible due to the bone osteotomies performed on your zygomatic arches and septum. You will look like me for the rest of your life."
Chloe looked up at me through her ruined, hooded eyes, her face a mask of permanent, unyielding grief.
May you like
"Why?" she whimpered. "Why did you do this to me?"
"Because you wanted to be unforgettable, Chloe," I whispered, bending down until my lips were an inch from her ear. "And now, every time Richard looks at any woman for the rest of his miserable, impoverished life... he will see my face staring back at him."
