Chapter 3: She Should Have Known Better

Nathan was quiet for so long that Vivian almost checked to see if the call had dropped.

When he finally spoke, his voice was careful. "So then you're going to"

He stopped himself mid-sentence.

Stupid question. Rosie was here. Of course Vivian was staying.

He cleared his throat and tried a different angle. "Did you hear that Rebecca Rong won the Golden Star Award for Best Actress last month?"

Vivian said nothing.

"Your father and his wife threw a celebration party. Spent over a million dollars on it." He hesitated. "And the Stonewell family has been looking at her differently ever since. Word is it won't be long before she and Sebastian Stonewell make things official."

Rebecca Rong. Sebastian Stonewell.

Two names she hadn't said, hadn't even let herself think in years. Hearing them dropped so casually into conversation made something flicker behind her eyes. A ghost of a feeling, there and gone in less than a second.

She recovered smoothly. "Are you expecting me to send a gift basket? Because I'm fresh out of goodwill and slightly low on cash, though my life's still mostly intact so there's that."

Nathan made a sound like a man swallowing a scream. "Vivian, I am trying to warn you. If Rebecca finds out you are back in New York, who knows what she'll pull this time. Last time she came after you, she didn't stop until she had burned your entire life to the ground. You ran out of the country with nothing. If she gets the chance to go at you again"

"She won't."

"You don't know"

"Nathan." Vivian's voice was quiet. Calm. Final. "She won't."

She was just opening her mouth to say something lighter something to ease the tension she could feel radiating through the phone when movement from the corridor outside made her eyes cut sideways.

A group. Coming this way. Loud, important, taking up space the way wealthy people always did.

"Someone's coming," she said quickly. "I'll call you back."

"Don't you dare hang up on me, Vivian Rong, I haven't finished"

"Later."

"Hello?! VIVIAN"

She ended the call, dropped the phone into her bag, and turned to go.

She looked up.

And walked directly into the last two people on earth she wanted to see.

They came sweeping in like they owned the building and knowing Sebastian Stonewell's portfolio, perhaps part of it.

Among a cluster of broad-bellied, self-satisfied men in suits, Sebastian stood out the way a lit match stands out in a dark room. Tall, immaculately dressed, the kind of handsome that came with old money and ruthless confidence. He made every other man in the group look like a before photo.

And clinging to his arm fingers curled possessively around his sleeve, body angled into his side like a punctuation mark was Rebecca Rong.

She was dressed in a limited-edition Chanel that probably cost more than most people's rent. Her hair was swept up perfectly. Her smile, directed at Sebastian, was warm and practiced and utterly flawless.

Vivian's expression went absolutely flat.

Of course.

Nathan and his impossibly accurate mouth. She had barely hung up the phone and here they were, materializing out of thin air like the universe had a twisted sense of humor.

She didn't move fast enough.

Rebecca's eyes swept the lobby the way they always did, cataloguing the room, measuring every face and landed on Vivian.

The warmth in them didn't disappear. It just... rearranged itself into something else entirely.

Rebecca Rong.

Vivian had known her when she was still Rebecca Jiang the quiet, wide-eyed ten-year-old girl her mother had brought home one afternoon and introduced as someone who needed a family.

Rebecca's mother had been a friend of Vivian's mother. A car accident. Tragic. Sudden. And afterward, there had been Rebecca, orphaned and lost, standing in the doorway of the Rong family home with a single suitcase.

Vivian's mother had cried. Had held the girl's hands and promised to take care of her.

And she had.

So had Vivian.

God help her, so had she.

She had been seventeen and foolish and full of the kind of open-hearted affection that hadn't yet learned to protect itself. She had welcomed Rebecca like a sister. Shared everything her friends, her wardrobe, her connections, her world.

And eventually with breathtaking patience Rebecca had used every single one of them as a stepping stone.

She had used Vivian's contacts to get her foot in the door of the entertainment industry. Used Vivian's name and family resources to build her early reputation. And then, when she had extracted every last drop of usefulness

She had gone after Sebastian.

Vivian's Sebastian. Her first love. The boy she had dated for three years, the one she had trusted without question.

Rebecca hadn't just stolen him. She had made sure Vivian witnessed it had arranged for Vivian to overhear them together, in the most deliberate, surgical act of cruelty Vivian had ever experienced.

But even that hadn't been enough.

What came after was something Vivian still couldn't think about without her hands going cold.

Rebecca had arranged something. A drink that wasn't just a drink. A situation that Vivian never consented to and never saw coming. And Vivian had woken up in a hotel room she didn't recognize, with memories that didn't connect, and a creeping horror that took hours to fully understand.

She had gone to the hospital alone.

The reporters had been waiting outside.

The photos had gone everywhere.

And then came the accusations whispered first, then shouted. That Vivian had pushed her elderly grandmother down the stairs in a rage. That she had always been unstable, selfish, wild. That Rebecca had been the one trying to hold the family together all along.

Her own mother had looked her in the eye and chosen to believe it.

The Rong family had thrown her out. Not quietly. Loudly, publicly, with the kind of finality that made it clear she was not meant to come back.

She had been twenty-two years old.

She had left with a carry-on bag and a secret that was only beginning to show.

And while she rebuilt herself from nothing, on the other side of the world, Rebecca Rong had stepped comfortably into everything that had once belonged to Vivian. The family name. The resources. The connections. Sebastian Stonewell.

The Golden Star Award

The Million-dollar Celebration Party

The life that should have been Vivian's.