Alle Kapitel von My Statue Husband: Kapitel 61 – Kapitel 70

Vivian povThe backstage area of the Grand Palais smelled of expensive hairspray, scorched silk from steam irons, and the coppery, metallic edge of pure panic.At twenty-four, I had learned that high fashion wasn’t built on glamour. It was built on adrenaline and blistered fingers."Vivian, two minutes!"My assistant, Clara, was practically trembling as she held open the heavy velvet curtain that separated our chaotic backstage world from the blinding light of the main runway. Beyond that curtain sat five hundred of the most ruthless eyes in the fashion industry—critics who could destroy a decade of work with a single sentence, investors who held my family’s crumbling design house by a thread, and my father, who had made it crystal clear that if tonight failed, the Rousseau name was finished."Where is Michelle?" I demanded, my voice tight as I made a final adjustment to the seams of my showstopper piece."She’s—she’s on her mark, Vivian. But are you sure about the lighting adjustment

VIVIAN’S POVI shouldn’t have been in his study.The heavy mahogany doors were the only real boundary left in this sprawling, suffocating house. My husband, Robert Kelvin, made the rules very clear the day we moved into the estate three years ago. My office is my sanctuary, Vivian. I don't want the maids in there. I don't want the dogs in there. And I don't want you in there.I usually obeyed. It was easier to obey than to deal with the quiet, freezing anger that followed if I stepped out of line. Robert wasn’t a man who yelled. He was a man who punished with silence, with frozen bank accounts, and with looks of utter disappointment that made me feel like I was two inches tall.But tonight, the house was empty. Robert was at a board dinner in the city, an event I had feigned a migraine to get out of. The staff had retired to their quarters. I only went into the study because I needed the master key to the wine cellar, which Robert kept locked in his top drawer. I just wanted a single

Vivian’s POVThe rain had been relentless since dawn, turning the alley behind my studio into a murky stream that reflected the ugly neon glare of the city. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of damp wool, cold espresso, and fear.I sat at my drafting table, the screen of my laptop illuminating the sharp, rigid contours of my face in the dim room. My eyes burned. I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, but exhaustion was a luxury I couldn't afford. Not while my name was being dragged through the dirt on every fashion blog, morning show, and social media feed across the country.Fraud. Exploiter. Criminal.The words had been repeated so many times over the last twenty-four hours that they had lost their meaning, turning into a dull, throbbing headache behind my temples. But while the public opinion was a knife, it wasn't the blade that threatened to bleed me dry.It was the money. Or rather, the complete lack of it.My hand hovered over the trackpad as I refreshed the competition por

Vivian's POVThe silence in my apartment wasn't peaceful; it was thick, heavy, and tasted like stale rain.I sat on the edge of the worn sofa, staring at the blurred yellow streetlights bleeding through the fogged windowpane. Every surface in the room was covered in stacked boxes, muted fabric swatches, and legal letters with red headers that I couldn't bear to read again. Forty-eight hours ago, my name was on the cover of every major style magazine in the city. Tonight, I was a disgraced designer, disgraced by a public campaign so thorough that even my oldest friends wouldn't return my texts.In the shadows near the balcony door stood Stan.To anyone walking past the window, he looked like nothing more than an extraordinary piece of art—an ancient, life-sized marble statue of an ancient warrior, carved with muscle so precise and a face so arresting it felt like a holy relic stolen from a museum. But I could feel the faint, steady pulse of magic radiating off his stone skin. I could f

Vivian's POVI could feel the cold radiating off him before my fingers even grazed his sleeve.It was a deep, subterranean chill—the kind that belonged in dark caverns or ancient burial vaults, not in my sunlit third-floor design studio. Stan stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring down at the city traffic fifteen stories below. His tall, broad frame was silhouetted against the amber glow of the setting sun, but there was no warmth in him. Not anymore."Let me see it, Stan," I whispered, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to keep it steady.He didn't move. His jaw remained set in that carved, unforgiving line I had come to know so well. "It is nothing, Vivian.""Don't lie to me." I stepped closer, the soft carpet muffling my footsteps until I was standing right beside him. The scent of pine and crushed earth hovered around him, mixed with the faint, terrifying smell of ozone and dry dust. "You used it again last night, didn't you? When those corporate thugs tried to set