3

Vivian’s POV

At last Richard looked up from his big mahogany desk. He had been ignoring me for ten minutes in a row, pretending to read a file, but I just stood in the middle of the study. I watched the deep ugly anger move across his well-maintained face. He spent thousands of dollars every month on skin treatments and expensive doctors to look young, but at the moment the hard lines of pure rage were visible around his mouth and eyes.

"Don't look at me like that, with that disrespectful stare," he snapped loudly, slamming his silver pen down onto the leather blotter. "I am your father, Vivian." Just remember that before you open your mouth.

"I try very hard not to forget it," I said softly. I didn't shout. I didn't weep. I was perfectly calm in my voice. “But you make it awfully hard to remember, Richard. Just look at this family. Just look at us. With you and Mom it's just a cold, dry business deal. No love. No respect. No loyalty. And there is surely nothing in this house that recognizes a legitimate daughter, in any real sense.”

His eyes went wide in utter surprise. "Pardon?"

"You heard me just fine," I said smoothly. You treat me like a worthless employee who is begging for scraps. You treat your mistress and your bastard daughter like royalty. I just wanted to let you know, I see exactly what you are.”

He opened his mouth, his face turning a dangerous dark shade of purple, but I didn't let him scream at me. I said it without even raising my voice a bit. I wheeled on my heels, strode out through the heavy oak doors, while his outraged expression was still forming on his face.

I descended the long, sweeping staircase, my heels clicking smartly on the polished marble. Sandra was waiting for me at the bottom step. She was wearing a flowing silk dress that had to cost more than my mother’s hospital room.

"Vivian, honey," said Sandra, stepping forward. She gave a warm, gentle smile. It was flawless. She knew how to do soft very well over the years. If you didn't know she had actively destroyed my mother's life you would think she was the kindest woman in the world. "You're not leaving so soon. The chef has just cooked a big lunch. Why not stay? I can fix you a warm plate.”

I waited on the lowest stair. I looked right into her perfect painted lips, and her fake sweet eyes. "No," I said in an icy voice. I just can't eat with you around. "God, I would throw up."

Richard's heavy footsteps echoed loudly from the top of the stairs. "Vivian!" His voice boomed back at her, bouncing off the high ceilings with a vengeance. "Sandra is your elder! You'll speak to her with the respect she deserves!”

I didn't answer to him. I didn't even glance. I turned around, walked straight to the heavy front door, pulled it open and left the house behind me without a second thought.

A few minutes later, sitting in the back of the taxi, my chest felt incredibly tight. My mind was a blur of figures and legal snares. I wanted money. I needed my mother's dowry, I knew. It was a huge fortune, safely tucked away in a trust fund, and I was going to have to get my hands on it right away. I had to make sure it stayed put before Sandra and her daughter Megan could find some quiet, dirty legal route to make it vanish completely.

But there was a hitch. According to the legal document signed by my parents during their arranged marriage decades ago, the dowry goes to their first child. Myself. But one massive condition made it impossible. I could only fully control the money in my marriage.

I pressed my head against the cold taxi window and gazed blindly at the passing traffic. So close I was. Or so I figured. At least. Derek and I had been together forever. I'd let him into my bed. I let him touch me, let him kiss me, let him whisper dirty sweet promises in my ear late at night when we were tangled in sheets. We were to be married.

And then I received his wedding invitation in my mailbox. The thick elegant paper announced his marriage to another woman. He had used me, thrown away my time and wrecked my only chance of saving my mother's money.

I finally pushed the door open and the hospital room was completely quiet. The only sound was the consistent, rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor beside the bed.

My mother, Helen, had just eaten a small bowl of plain soup. She looked up in surprise at the sound of my footsteps. Her eyes shifted almost immediately to the careful, probing eyes of a mother reading her daughter's face for any signs of hidden damage. "Vivian," she whispered, her voice faint and raspy. You look tired hun. Your eyes are sore. “Derek again?”

My heart shattered into a million pieces in my chest. She didn’t know he’s getting married today. She didn't know that I was cast aside by him.

"No Mom," I said smoothly. I managed a tiny, fake smile and kept my voice completely level. “We're fine," she said.

She didn't appear to be fully convinced, but I couldn't let her ask any more questions. "I just need to use the restroom," I said quickly, stepping away from the bed. “Just a moment.”

I pushed my way into the tiny hospital bathroom and locked the door behind me. I turned the sink to full blast, and ran freezing cold water over my hands. I scrubbed it into my face with a vengeance, gasping for air. The heavy pressure behind my sternum was building, collapsing my lungs. I shut my eyes and let the cold water run down my chin until the tight, painful pressure in my chest gradually eased to the point I could breathe properly.

I came back to the room and her eyes were shut. The strong pain medication had drawn her back to sleep. I went over quietly, put the thin white blanket under her chin, turned off the bright overhead lights, and left the room quietly.

By midnight the exclusive VIP bar downtown was loud, wild and aggressively bright. Neon lights flashing in the dark room. The bass of the music thumped loudly, vibrating up through my high heels. I was dressed in a very short, skin-tight black dress that hugged every single curve of my body. It left my thighs completely exposed and dipped very low between my breasts.

I walked down the dark carpeted hallway through the private section. I stopped, my hand flat against the cold wood of a private room door. My core pulsed hotly, a wet, heavy ache creeping between my thighs. I knew Ethan was in there somewhere.

Then a voice cut through the heavy bass of the music right behind me. "Vivian?"

I froze.

Derek stepped close, took a hard grip on my arm and spun me around. His eyes passed leisurely up and down my body. He stared at my big cleavage, then down to my bare, exposed legs. His eyes were cooling fast, filling with disgust and harsh judgment.

"Look at you," muttered Derek, his voice thick with arrogant irritation. "Clad like a cheap tease. If you had loved me more while we were together I would have married you long ago. If you just let go, and been a real woman for me in bed we wouldn't be here. You wouldn’t be dressed like this, throwing yourself around clubs.”

I looked at the man I used to cry for. I felt nothing.

I reached up, took hold of his fingers, and lifted his hand from my bare arm, without any particular feeling at all.

“Don’t touch me, Derek,” I said bluntly. And don't flatter yourself. “I’m not here for you.”

Derek scoffed loudly, folding his arms over his chest.

“Right. Well, the room you're standing outside of? It's the one I booked with Ethan. We got business to talk over."

He drew nearer, filling my personal space, the scent of expensive whiskey clinging to his breath. "If you're not here for me, then the other is one great absurdity. You spent the whole time we were together bitching about Ethan.”

He laughed darkly, a smug smile tugging at his lips.” You called the man an iceberg, Vivian. You said no woman could ever stand a man that cold in bed. He was probably dead from the waist down, you said, flat out.”

Derek shook his head and looked at me with absolute, mocking pity. he was just so damn sure of himself. "So, I am certain you are not here for Ethan.”

My face was expressionless, but inside my blood was running hot and fast. My skin went hot, remembering Ethan’s big, rough hands pinning my thighs apart in the dark. I remembered the burning, heavy heat of his mouth, my nails scratching down his broad back, and the dominant, dirty way he took my body until I screamed his name. The biggest lie I ever told was cold.

He knew she wasn’t there for Ethan’s sake.

He was relying on outdated information.