Lapdog Like Me Chapter 2

I turned, a flicker of surprise in my eyes.

I vaguely recognized him. One of Ron's cronies, Chad, I think.

His eyes were wide with disbelief, scanning me from head to toe. The woman standing before him was a world away from the girl he remembered. Dressed in a high-end power suit, I carried myself with an aura of quiet confidence—a far cry from the desperate girl who used to worship the ground Ron Rockefeller walked on.

"Mia, you've changed! I almost didn't recognize you!"

I was more surprised that he recognized me. I had invested a good portion of my earnings into seeing the world's top plastic surgeons, who had painstakingly restored my original features. Today, I looked nothing like Ron's precious Lillian Shaw.

Chad must have seen the question in my eyes. "After you left," he explained, "Ron dug up everything about you. He knows what you used to look like."

He must have been disappointed, then. My original face was nothing like Lillian's. Not that I cared anymore.

"I have to run," I said, offering a polite but dismissive smile. "We can catch up some other time."

"Wait," he said, grabbing my arm. "After you vanished, Ron was a mess for a long time."

"It's been six years, Chad," I replied coolly. "His emotional state is no longer my problem." I wasn't in the business of after-care.

His face flushed with anger. "Think you're hot stuff now that you're not with Ron? No matter how much you make, you'll never touch his level of wealth. Ron's taken over the whole Rockefeller empire now. He's throwing a party at the Elysian Club tonight. You should come. Maybe he'll even find a little job for you…"

The sheer arrogance of it was astounding. I simply pulled my arm free, slipped into my Pagani, and left him standing in my exhaust.

After a long afternoon of company meetings and a cocktail party, it was already late. As I stepped out of the venue, I ran right into Chad and his entourage. It turned out my event and their party were in the same high-end club.

"Well, well, look who it is," Chad sneered. "Said you weren't coming. Who are you all dressed up for?"

Before I could protest, he was steering me toward their private room.

The door swung open to a scene of loud music and drunken revelry.

Someone spotted Chad and whistled. "There you are, man! Took you long enough. Not gonna introduce us to the beautiful lady?"

My gaze swept across the room. I recognized a few faces from Ron's old crew, but most were new. They were all clustered around one man, who sat like a king on his throne.

It was Ron.

The years had chiseled away his boyish arrogance, replacing it with the polished steel of a man in power. But it wasn't him that made my breath catch. It was the woman beside him.

Her face was a perfect, mature echo of the one I used to wear.

Lillian Shaw. The real Lillian Shaw.

My fingers flew across my phone's screen, snapping a quick picture and sending it to my boss. His reply was instant: [Keep her there. I'm on it.]

Just then, a familiar voice cut through the noise. "Mia? Ron, isn't that your old lapdog?"

The entire room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.

Ron's head snapped up. His eyes locked on me, and the wine glass in his hand shattered, red wine and glass shards spilling onto the plush carpet. His lazy amusement morphed into shock, then into an unreadable, complex storm.

The whispers started, laced with mockery and pity.

"That's Mia. During the years Lillian was gone, she tried to slide into her place. Even got surgery to look just like her. She was obsessed with Ron."

"Obsessed? Please, she was a gold digger. Every woman in this city wants a piece of Ron Rockefeller. He never actually cared about her."

"But he threw a huge fit when she left."

"And even though Lillian's been back for a while, Ron keeps saying they're just 'friends'..."

"No way. Remember how devastated he was when he thought Lillian died? She's the one he actually loves."

"So this impostor is back now? You think she's trying to compete with the real thing?"

A shadow of malice crossed Lillian’s face before she masked it with a brilliant smile. She glided toward me. "Mia, is it? Thank you for taking care of Ron for three years, using my face."