Part 1His Get Out of Jail Free Card

I was the publicly acknowledged girlfriend of Jensen Rutherford, the Rutherford heir. For five years, our love was a whirlwind, a blazing inferno.

During the taping of a panel show, the host posed a popular question: "What's your partner's 'get out of jail free' card?" Without thinking, I blurted out, "His face." That night, I trended on social media with the hashtag #SiennaTheUltimateFaceLover.

Even when he was photographed kissing a starlet on a beach, even when they were seen entering a hotel together, my lovesick brain took over. I made a public declaration: "I'll never break up with him. I'd die without him."

Just when everyone thought I would remain that pathetically devoted forever, Jensen suddenly changed.

He cut ties with all the women on the side. He even knelt in the old Rutherford family chapel for three days and nights, vowing to give up his inheritance just to marry me. Everyone was calling it the prodigal son's return.

The truth didn't come out until the day I went to the cemetery to pay my respects and a paparazzo’s snapshot went viral.

In the photo, I was kneeling before a tombstone. The inscription read: "In loving memory of my husband, Bryce Rutherford." And the portrait etched into the stone was a dead ringer for Jensen.

The night he learned he was nothing but a substitute, Jensen Rutherford almost threw himself off a rooftop.

* * *

When Jensen and I first met, he was fresh off a breakup with his first love.

The girl, Giselle, had squared her jaw and shouted at him, "I'm the leading lady of my own life! I don't need some damn man to write my story!" Then she flew off to Europe to study acting.

Downstairs from his own company's headquarters, Jensen found me.

I was the picture of innocence, a delicate flower. I bore a striking resemblance to Giselle back when she was just starting out.

Jensen only asked me three questions.

"What's your name?"

"Are you single?"

"Want to be my girlfriend? Money and connections are yours for the taking."

In the beginning, Jensen's friends mocked me endlessly. "You're just a placeholder while Giselle's away. You really think a guy like Jensen would give you a second look otherwise?"

Giselle's fans were just as vicious. "Two-bit homewrecker! The second our queen comes back, you'll be the first one he kicks to the curb!"

Their fury was fueled by the fact that Jensen had taken all the resources once poured into Giselle's career and handed them to me.

Giselle, seething, posted a passive-aggressive message on her social media: "Some stand-ins shouldn't get too comfortable. What isn't yours will eventually be taken back."

Countless netizens waited for the drama to unfold. "There's no true love in high society. This girl's just gonna milk him for all he's worth and then bolt."

But five years passed.

I never asked Jensen for a single dime.

When he fell ill on a business trip, I dropped everything and flew overseas to take care of him myself. By the time he recovered, I had collapsed from exhaustion.

When rumors swirled about him and some influencer, I didn't even ask for an explanation before issuing a public statement: "I trust Jensen. I will always stand by him."

Slowly, everyone, including Jensen himself, became convinced that I was deeply, irrevocably in love with him.

Even his buddies changed their tune, finally starting to call me by my name with a hint of respect.

One of them even pulled him aside. "Dude, just settle down with Sienna. If I had someone who treated me like that, I'd know I'd made it in life."

That evening, at the villa in Crestwood Hills, Jensen wrapped his arms around me from behind, his lips brushing the shell of my ear as we looked out the floor-to-ceiling window.

"Sienna," he murmured, "maybe we should..."

Maybe we should get married.

He never finished the sentence.

His phone shattered the moment, ringing loud and shrill.

It was Giselle, her voice thick with tears.

"Jensen... if I said I regret it, is it too late?"

Jensen didn't answer with words.

He just let go of me and bolted out the door, so fast he didn't even stop to change out of his slippers.

Later that night, Giselle posted a new photo.

The caption: Found what was lost.

The picture was of two hands, fingers tightly interlaced. On Jensen's hand, he was still wearing the matching ring I'd given him.