บททั้งหมดของ The Day Scarlett Moretti Died: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 8

At two in the morning, Vivian sent me a stream of photos, screenshots, and one voice recording.In the first photo, Adrian had her pressed against the floor-to-ceiling windows in our master bedroom while I was sitting in a board meeting downtown.In the second, I was still working through the wedding schedule in my study while they were on a filthy late-night video call from a bathroom.In the third, I was out entertaining business partners while the two of them were tangled together in the back seat of a car on a Manhattan street, the windows fogged over.The last photo showed a rumpled bed, a tie, a pair of stockings, and one of the cuff links I had picked out for Adrian myself.Then I opened the recording.Vivian’s breath came first, light and pleased.Then Adrian’s voice, low and rough from sex.“She’ll never leave me. Scarlett loves me enough to die for me.”A soft laugh from Vivian.“And a child?” she asked.He answered without hesitation.“She’s tried sixty-six times and still h

By the time the fire was finally under control, the wedding estate was little more than a blackened shell.They found the remains of the decorations first. Melted candleholders. Twisted ironwork. Charred lilies stuck to the marble like bones. Then, half-buried under ash near the top of the staircase, Adrian saw a scrap of paper that had somehow survived.He bent down and picked it up with trembling fingers.It was only a corner, burned through on two sides. But he recognized the handwriting at once.The first letter he had ever written Scarlett.He remembered giving it to her years ago, before the money, before the power, before people started calling him dangerous with fear in their voices. She had laughed when she took it and told him she was hiding it somewhere only she knew.And if I ever let you see it again, Adrian, that means I don't love you anymore.At the time, he had kissed her and told her that day would never come.Now he stood in the ruins of the house she had turned into

I saw him the moment I stepped out of the lobby.He looked older than he had any right to after only a year. Leaner, rougher, less polished in the face. The wind had reddened his skin, and snow clung to his dark coat and lashes.But none of it moved me the way it would have once."Say what you came to say," I told him. "And make it quick. I don't need an apology. I'm on a schedule."Something unsteady flashed through his eyes."I'm here to ask you to come back," he said. "I didn't know Vivian was sending you those things. The photos, the messages, the recording. I swear to you, Scarlett, I didn't know."I looked at him for a long moment."Whether you knew or not doesn't change what you did."Then I frowned. "Why are you smiling?"Because he was smiling.A real one, wrecked around the edges, but unmistakably relieved."Because you're talking to me," he said. "Do you know what that means? It means you still care enough to be angry."I almost laughed."Adrian, I staged a funeral instead o

Four years later."Adrian... Adrian."He opened his eyes to a woman's voice and, for one fractured second, thought he had finally made it back into one of the dreams.He rolled toward her and buried his face in her neck."Scarlett," he whispered, the name breaking apart in his mouth.The woman beside him went still before she forced herself to soften.Then a scarred arm came up around his back and stroked once, twice, like she was soothing a child instead of a man twice as dangerous.It was Vivian.After Chicago, Adrian had never truly let her go.He kept her in an apartment he paid for, under security he called protection and everyone else would have called captivity. He drank there, slept there, used her when he was too drunk, too drugged, or too desperate to survive the night with only his own thoughts for company.He almost always called her Scarlett.At first Vivian had fought it. Then she had bargained with it. By the end she had learned the same lesson women like her always lear