First Meal

“What the fuck, Lu? I’m trying to be nice here and this is the thanks I get?”

The words tore out of my throat with the perfect blend of Parisian annoyance and high-society entitlement. My heart was slamming against my ribs like a frantic bird in a cage, but I didn’t let my voice waver. I stood my ground, my hand trembling under the weight of the five-carat lie on my finger.

Lucian froze. His hand was still clamped onto my shoulder, his fingers digging into the silk of my dress, but the sheer audacity of my tone seemed to throw him off.

“You think I’m an idiot?” he hissed, though the volume of his voice dropped a fraction. “I told you—the ring was sold. I have the receipts from the jeweler in Zurich.”

I let out a sharp, jagged laugh—the kind of cold, mocking sound I’d heard Vivian make in a dozen videos. I reached up and pried his hand off my shoulder, tossing his arm away as if it were nothing more than a nuisance.

“Oh, Lu. Always so paranoid,” I said, my voice dripping with honeyed condescension. “Did it ever occur to your brilliant, tortured mind that the ring I sold was a replica? I needed the cash for the move, and I wasn’t about to let a perfectly good diamond go to waste just because I was heading to Paris. The real one stayed in the vault. I just didn’t tell you because, well, you were a bit busy crashing your car and losing your mind.”

The silence that followed was so thick I could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway. I held my breath. It was a gamble—a massive, desperate bluff. I was betting on the fact that the real Vivian was exactly the kind of person who would sell a fake and keep the real one just to spite him.

Lucian’s jaw worked, his face a battleground of suspicion and longing. He wanted to believe me. Even through the hate, even through the betrayal, he was starving for a reason to let me stay.

Slowly, his posture slumped. He didn’t apologize—Vivian and Lucian didn’t seem to have that word in their vocabulary—but he stepped back, his hand searching for the edge of his chair.

“Sit down,” he muttered, his voice sounding tired. “The sound of you standing there is making my head ache.”

I didn’t sit. I saw the opportunity to push the ‘taming’ further. “No. You haven’t eaten, and you’re acting like a spoiled child. I’m going to get you something decent, and you’re going to sit there and act like a human being.”

I turned on my heel and marched toward the kitchen. My legs felt like jelly, and the moment I was out of his earshot, I collapsed against the wall, gasping for air. My palms were soaking wet. I had just lied to a man about his own engagement ring, and somehow, I was still breathing.

Ten minutes later, I returned with a tray. I had convinced the cook to make something simple—poached eggs, dry toast, and a cup of black coffee. No peppermint. No lilies. Just the basics.

I entered the dining room with the practiced grace of a woman who had never carried a tray in her life. I set it down in front of him, the porcelain clinking softly.

“Here. Eat,” I commanded.

Lucian didn’t move. He sat there, staring into the abyss of his own blindness. Then, without warning, his hand shot out.

He didn’t reach for the fork. He struck the side of the tray with a violent, backhanded motion.

CRASH.

The porcelain shattered against the floor. The eggs slid across the hardwood like a grisly accident, and the black coffee splashed upward, soaking the hem of my silk dress and scalding my ankles.

I gasped, jumping back, the heat of the liquid stinging my skin.

“I told you I wasn’t hungry!” Lucian roared, his face contorted in a mask of pure, ugly defiance. He was trying to provoke me. He wanted the screaming match. He wanted the Vivian who would throw a vase at his head and storm out, giving him a reason to sink back into his darkness. “Clean it up, Vivian. Since you’re so intent on playing the devoted fiancée, crawl on the floor and clean up the mess you made.”

I stood there, looking at the wreckage. My ankles were throbbing from the heat, and the dress—the dress that cost more than a year of Noah’s medication—was ruined.

The old Celeste would have cried. The Vivian I was playing would have shrieked and called him a monster before calling a maid to do the dirty work.

But I wasn’t either of them right now. I was a girl who had spent her nights scrubbing floors in a 24-hour diner just to buy bus fare. I was a girl who had seen her brother’s blood on a hospital gurney.

A mess on the floor didn’t scare me.

Without a word, I knelt.

The silk of my skirt soaked up the spilled coffee as I moved. I didn’t call for the staff. I didn’t hurl an insult. I simply began to pick up the jagged pieces of the broken plate. My fingers stung as a sharp edge sliced into my thumb, but I didn’t make a sound.

Lucian went still. He tilted his head, his ears straining to catch the sound of my voice. He was waiting for the explosion. He was waiting for the “How dare you!” or the “I’m leaving!”

Instead, all he heard was the soft clink of ceramic being gathered and the rustle of wet silk against the floor.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice wavering with a sudden, sharp edge of confusion.

I didn’t answer. I reached for a cloth I’d brought on the tray and began to wipe the coffee from the wood.

“Vivian? I told you to clean it, I didn’t actually think you would,” he said, his voice rising in pitch. He stood up, his hands hovering over the table as if trying to locate me in the space. “Why aren’t you yelling back? Scream at me! Tell me I’m a pathetic beast! Do something!”

I squeezed the excess coffee into a bowl, the silence in the room becoming a weapon of its own. I could feel his eyes—those clouded, beautiful eyes—searching for me, desperate for a reaction that fit his narrative of the woman who had ruined him.

I finished wiping the floor. I stood up slowly, clutching the tray of broken glass and wet towels. Only then did I speak.

“Are you finished?” I asked. My voice wasn’t the airy lilt of Vivian. It was flat. Tired. It was the voice of Celeste Harper.

Lucian flinched as if I’d slapped him. “Your voice… it’s gone cold.”

“It’s hard to be ‘bubbly’ when I’m picking glass out of my skin, Lucian,” I said, leaning in closer to him. I could smell the lingering scent of bourbon and the raw, electric tang of his fear. “You want me to yell? You want me to give up so you can go back to being the tragic, lonely victim? Sorry to disappoint you. I’ve dealt with much worse than a spilled cup of coffee.”

“You… you would have never done this before,” he whispered, his hand reaching out, almost touching my face before he pulled it back in a fit of self-loathing. “You would have called me a freak and stayed in a hotel for a week.”

“Maybe I realized that hotels are lonely,” I lied, though it felt like the truest thing I’d said all day. “I’m going to get a fresh tray. And this time, you’re going to eat it. Because if you die of starvation, I don’t get my happy ending, do I?”

I turned to leave, but his voice caught me at the door.

“Vivian?”

“Yes, Lucian?”

“Why is there blood on the floor? I can smell it.”

I looked down at my thumb. A thick drop of red was trailing down the white porcelain of the tray. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”

“Vivian Lancaster faints at the sight of a paper cut,” he said, his voice sounding hollow, haunted. “Who are you? Truly? Because you look like her, you smell like her… but you don’t feel like her at all.”

I felt a cold shiver race down my spine. The shift had happened. By being ‘good,’ by being resilient, I was becoming more suspicious than if I had been cruel.

“I’m the version of me that decided to grow up,” I said, my heart pounding. “You should try it, Lu. It’s liberating.”

I walked out of the room, my heart hammering against my ribs. I had survived the morning, but the ‘Beast’ wasn’t just angry anymore—he was curious. And curiosity was the one thing that could pull the mask right off my face.

As I made my way back to the kitchen, I saw Marcus standing at the end of the hall. He had seen the whole thing. He didn’t say a word, but he gave me a sharp, respectful nod. He knew I had just won a battle, but the look in his eyes told me the war was only just beginning.

I reached the kitchen and dumped the broken glass into the bin. My hand was shaking so badly I had to grip the edge of the counter.

“You’re doing great, Celeste,” I whispered to myself, my eyes burning. “Just a few more months. Just until he gets the surgery. For Noah.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I had one new message.

It wasn’t from the hospital. It was from an unknown number.

I know you’re in there, little actress. Tell Emelia the clock is ticking. We want our share, or Lucian gets a phone call he’ll never forget.

I dropped the phone. It clattered against the tile, the screen glowing in the dim light.

I wasn’t just fighting Lucian anymore. The ghosts of Vivian’s past were coming for their cut, and they didn’t care who they killed to get it.