“You’re convenient, nothing more. A way to spite me while indulging his appetites. Tell me, does it thrill you to think you’re stealing what belongs to me? That you’ve finally won something in your otherwise forgettable little life?”
“You don’t know anything about us.” The retort sounds hollow the moment it leaves my mouth, doubt pushing up through my chest.
“I know everything about you.” Her gaze cuts deep. “The quiet sister. The overlooked one. So desperate for validation, you’d swallow any pretty lie that falls from his lips. But here’s the truth: you’re temporary. Useful until you’re not.” She circles me, measured and merciless. “And when he tires of you, I’ll still be here. I’ll still wear his ring. I’ll still share his name, his legacy, his bed, while you fade into the long list of forgotten names.”
“He doesn’t love you.”
But does he love me?
Her laugh cuts deep, and something inside me withers. “Love? Oh, you simple, deluded child. This isn’t aboutlove. It’s about power. Position. Legacy. Things you couldn’t begin to comprehend.” My throat burns with unshed tears as she continues. “Do youreally think he would leave me—his perfect match, his equal in every way—for someone like you? A girl pretending to belong in rooms she was never meant to enter?”
“I earned my place here.” My voice cracks. “My research—”
“Your place?” Vivienne’s smile turns razor-edged. “You poor, touch-starved little thing. I see how you tremble when he’s near, how desperately you lean into his attention. Tell me, does it thrill you when he makes you cry out his name? When he strips you down to nothing but need and pleasure?”
Heat scorches my cheeks, but my chin lifts anyway, even as my pulse hammers behind my eyes. “That’s none of your concern.”
“Don’t be shy now. I know exactly how skilled my husband is at unraveling a woman’s resolve. How he can make you forget everything but the ecstasy he gives you. The way he memorizes every weakness, adapts to every hunger. Some crave gentleness.” Her gaze slides over me. “Like you. Soft touches, whispered praise, you ache for meaning disguised as affection. Others need power, surrender, adoration, brutality—he gives whatever secures their loyalty. But for Alexander?” her voice hardens, “it’s only ever about control, possession, and mastery. Once he’s solved the puzzle, it bores him.”
Her words dig beneath my skin, sinking into memories I wish I could silence—his hands, his breath, his voice shaping me like clay. Had any of it been real?
“But it all fades by morning, doesn’t it?” she presses. “When you wake up alone in sheets that still smell like him?”
“He has work—”
“Work?” Her laughter is laced with contempt. “Alexander hasn’t lifted a finger on a Sunday in fifty years. He calls it his holy day.”
My hands begin to shake. I press them against my thighs, but the tremor continues, betraying me.
She steps closer. “Did he touch your cheek when he told you that lie? That gentle brush of fingers that makes you feel like the most important person in his world?”
I see it clearly: the warmth of his palm that morning, the hush in his voice when he said he had meetings, and how I believed him, letting that fleeting contact convince me I mattered. Something unravels inside me, and Vivienne smiles.
“I wonder,” she muses, “who he’s studying right now. What shining-new toy has caught his eye while you sit here, wrapped in illusions.” She pauses, letting the words settle like venom sinking beneath skin. “A man with appetites that sharp rarely stays satisfied with a single indulgence.”
Footsteps echo down the corridor, crisp and measured, and Alexander steps into view. His jaw clenches as he takes in the scene.
“What’s going on here?”
Vivienne shifts at once, her expression transforming into something soft and theatrical. “Oh, I was just telling Luna about the family history, darling. This house can be such a maze. We wouldn’t want her wandering into the wrong rooms, or seeing things she shouldn’t.” Her laughter is stridulous, cutting through the air. “Perhaps we should give her a map, or a bell, so we know where she is.”
“I’m not a pet,” I murmur, hands curling into fists at my sides.
“Of course not, darling. I would never suggest such a thing.” Her gaze sparkles with calculated malice.
“Vivienne.” Alexander’s voice carries a warning.
She smiles wider and crosses the room with slow grace, and I notice the faintest shift in his posture. A tightening across his shoulders, tension that wasn’t there moments before.
“Always so protective,” she purrs, her ivory nails trailing lightly down his chest. He doesn’t flinch or move, but his throat ripples faintly as he swallows.
He doesn’t want her. She’s just performing, trying to make me doubt what I know.
Alexander catches her wrist and lowers her hand, but his thumb brushes against her pulse as he releases her. A gesture too casual, too instinctual to ignore.
It means nothing. I’m imagining things. She’s turning everything into poison.
“I was merely welcoming your newest companion,” Vivienne leans in, her lips ghosting along his jaw. Alexander stands perfectly still, but I see the subtle flutter of his eyelids.
