บททั้งหมดของ He Gave My Bed To His Mistress, So I Took Everything : บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

VIVIAN'S POV The boutique was quiet, the kind of place where the sales staff spoke in whispers and the air smelled of expensive paper and faint perfume. Mrs. Gray was already settled on a plush velvet armchair, a glass of champagne in hand, looking like she chaired the board of the place rather than simply being its best customer. "Another," she declared, as I emerged from the dressing room in a perfectly acceptable but uninspired navy gown. "Something with more... consequence." I sighed, retreating back behind the heavy curtain. Consequence wasn't what I was going for. I was aiming for respectable, for invisible. But Mrs. Gray had opinions, and she wasn't shy about sharing them. It was strange, though. I missed my own grandmother with an ache that was still fresh and raw, but there was a lightness here, an ease in Mrs. Gray's company that I hadn't felt in years. She didn't look at me and see the woman who'd failed, the one who couldn't keep a real marriage. I finally stepped

SEBASTIAN'S POVVivian found me by the terrace doors with two champagne flutes."You look like you're working," she said, handing me one."I am working.""At a party." Her brows went up."Especially at a party." I touched the small of her back, the way I'd been doing all night without quite deciding to make a habit of it. "You look like you're enjoying yourself.""I am." She said it like she was surprised by it herself. "Don't tell anyone."I didn't get the chance to answer that before Grandmother descended on her and swept her off toward a cluster of women from the hospital board. I let it happen. Vivian could hold her own in a room like this better than most people who'd been bred for it their whole lives, and watching her do it from across the floor had its own satisfactions.I was midway through a conversation with a shipping executive I had no real interest in when I caught Marcus's eye over the man's shoulder.It wasn't a long look. But I'd worked with him for six years, and I k

SEBASTIAN'S POVI don't remember crossing the last of that distance. One second I was fighting through a wall of tuxedos, and the next I was on my knees on marble gone dark and slick beneath her, her name coming out of me in a voice I didn't recognize as my own."Vivian." I got a hand under her jaw, careful, terrified of making anything worse by touching her wrong. Her eyes were closed. There was blood at her hairline, more of it soaking into the silver at her hip, and for one endless second I couldn't find her pulse at all before my fingers finally caught it, thin and too fast, under her jaw.She was breathing. I made myself hold onto that single fact and nothing else."Someone call an ambulance—" a woman's voice, somewhere above me, already reaching for her phone."No." I didn't look up. "Marcus."He was already crouched on her other side, talking into his phone in the flat, fast voice he used when a situation had moved past anything that benefited from calm.Entrance C, now, we don

SEBASTIAN’S POV"I'm her husband! Now get out of my way before I have you all fired. Do you have any idea who I am?"He spotted me then, and his frantic energy focused into a single point of pure fury. He started toward me, but my men shifted, intercepting him without effort, their movements economical and sure."You!" he bit out. "Get your dogs to stand down. I'm seeing Vivian. Now."I took a step forward, putting myself directly in his path. The air between us felt electric, charged with all the things he didn't know and all the things I couldn't say. My voice was level, devoid of any heat, which somehow made it colder than any shout."I think it is best if you leave, Nathaniel."He laughed, a short, ugly sound completely devoid of humor. "I'm not going anywhere without my wife.""You're not going anywhere near her," I said, my voice dropping to match his, the quiet in the hallway deepening with the threat. "You were told to leave. I suggest you do that before I'm forced to have you

SEBASTIAN’S POV"I was just bringing Rory in." My voice sounded strained even to my own ears. I gestured vaguely with my head toward the child in my arms. "She fell asleep."I walked to the crib, my movements stiff, and gently laid Rory down, arranging her small body with a care that felt like a prayer. When I straightened and turned back, Vivian had finished, setting the pump aside and reaching for the thin silk shirt draped over the arm of the chair."I was actually looking for you," I said, forcing my gaze to stay on her face. "The meeting with the Carmichaels has been cancelled. Something came up on their end.""Oh." She looked relieved. "That's good. I wasn't looking forward to it.""Instead," I continued, "we're having dinner with my grandmother. At Chez Laurent."Her expression shifted, the relief replaced by a familiar, weary resignation. "Of course we are.""She's not feeling well," I added, a little more gently than I intended. "Her doctor is concerned. I think she just want