Chapter 2 - The Video
Tiana did not sleep.
At 1:17 in the morning, the birthday video had already been viewed more than forty thousand times.
Chanel had deleted the livestream, but deleting something online did not mean it disappeared.
Someone had screen-recorded it.
Then someone else had cut the sixteen most humiliating seconds into a clip.
Tiana watched herself point at the old sedan.
“You bought me somebody’s old junk?”
Cut.
Marcus pressed the button.
The luxury SUV flashed.
Cut.
“That was supposed to be.”
Cut.
Marcus saying, “I wanted to see how you treated the gift before you knew the price.”
The clip ended on Tiana’s face.
Forty thousand views.
Then forty-two.
Then forty-five.
Comments filled the screen faster than she could read them.
Some attacked her.
Some attacked Marcus.
Some said his test had been manipulative.
Others said her reaction proved his point.
Tiana locked her phone.
Across the bedroom, Marcus’s side of the bed was empty.
He was sleeping in the downstairs guest room.
That hurt more than the comments.
At seven, she found him in the kitchen drinking coffee.
The birthday decorations had been removed.
No balloons.
No flowers.
No cake.
The house felt like the morning after a funeral.
“Did you sleep?” Tiana asked.
Marcus did not look up.
“Enough.”
“Can we talk?”
“We’re talking.”
She pulled out a chair.
“Chanel didn’t know people would save it.”
Marcus lifted his eyes.
“Why are we talking about Chanel?”
“Because the video is everywhere.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“It affects both of us.”
“No, Tiana. It embarrasses you.”
Her jaw tightened.
“And it doesn’t embarrass you?”
Marcus considered that.
“It does.”
“Then why are you acting like you don’t care?”
“Because strangers thinking I bought a bad car isn’t what kept me awake.”
He placed his mug down.
“What kept me awake was hearing the woman I’ve spent four years with talk to me like I was beneath her.”
Tiana flinched.
“I didn’t talk to you like you were beneath me.”
Marcus repeated her words.
“‘I’m supposed to drive this?’”
“That was about the car.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you look at your friends before you said it?”
Tiana had no answer.
Marcus leaned back.
“You weren’t disappointed until you realized they were watching.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I watched your face.”
“You set me up.”
There it was.
The accusation she had been trying not to make.
Marcus did not deny it.
“Yes.”
Tiana blinked.
“You admit that?”
“I put a bow on a car that wasn’t your real gift. Yes.”
“That’s manipulative.”
“It was.”
The immediate admission disarmed her.
Marcus continued.
“And I’m not proud of it.”
“Then why do it?”
He stared into his coffee.
“Because I’d started noticing things.”
“What things?”
“The way you talked about my clothes.”
“I tease you.”
“The way you asked what my company made before you asked whether my new project went well.”
Tiana’s chest tightened.
“That’s not what happened.”
“The way you stopped wanting to go to restaurants you used to love because Chanel called them cheap.”
“Marcus—”
“And the way you started calling this house ‘small’ after we spent three years talking about how lucky we were to live here.”
Tiana looked around the kitchen.
The home had four bedrooms, floor-to-ceiling windows and a stone patio overlooking a landscaped yard.
Small was absurd.
Yet she remembered saying it.
Twice.
Maybe more.
Marcus stood.
“I needed to know whether I was imagining it.”
“So you tested me.”
“Yes.”
“And if I’d smiled and thanked you?”
“I would’ve given you the SUV.”
Tiana stared at him.
“That means your gift had conditions.”
“No.”
Marcus shook his head.
“My trust had conditions.”
His phone buzzed.
He checked the screen.
“Alicia.”
Tiana immediately stood.
“Please don’t cancel it yet.”
Marcus looked at her.
She hated herself the instant the sentence left her mouth.
Again.
The SUV.
Always the SUV.
Marcus answered.
“Morning, Alicia.”
Tiana watched his face.
“Yes.”
Pause.
“No. Don’t process anything.”
Another pause.
“Hold it until Friday.”
Tiana exhaled quietly.
Marcus ended the call.
“Why Friday?”
“Because I don’t make ninety-thousand-dollar decisions while I’m angry.”
The price stunned her despite everything.
Ninety thousand.
Marcus saw her expression.
“There.”
“What?”
“That look.”
“What look?”
“The price changed something.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“It always does lately.”
Tiana’s phone rang.
Chanel.
She declined it.
Marcus noticed.
“You should answer.”
“I don’t want to talk to her.”
“You might want to.”
“Why?”
Marcus pulled another phone from his pocket.
Not his usual one.
A work phone.
He opened a message and placed it on the table.
The sender was Jamal.
A screenshot filled the screen.
It was from Chanel’s private group chat.
Tiana recognized the group immediately.
Birthday Queens.
Chanel had written before the party:
If Marcus really bought her some basic car after all that bragging, I’m going live. This could be hilarious.
Beneath it, someone had replied:
Tiana will lose her mind.
Then Chanel:
Exactly.
Tiana went cold.
“I never saw this.”
“I know.”
“How did Jamal get it?”
“Nia sent it to him.”
Tiana stared at the screen.
Her best friend had anticipated her humiliation.
Worse, she had wanted it.
Marcus picked up his coffee.
“Tiana.”
She looked at him.
“What happened yesterday wasn’t just about a car.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Marcus’s expression hardened.
“I don’t think either of us knows yet.”
He walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Work.”
“Marcus.”
He stopped.
Tiana forced herself to ask the question she should have asked first.
“Why did that old sedan matter to you?”
For the first time all morning, Marcus looked genuinely wounded.
He glanced through the kitchen window toward the driveway.
The sedan remained parked outside.
“My father drove that car.”
Tiana’s breath caught.
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Marcus opened the door.
“And now you know one more thing you probably should’ve asked before calling it junk.”
