Page 56

VIVIENNE
The ceiling was still. White, blank, unmoving. I stared at it like it might rearrange itself into answers if I blinked enough times.
I didn’t blink.
The sheets were soft, too soft, like they were mocking me. The kind of expensive softness that made everything else feel harder by comparison. I was curled on my side, knees to my chest, hair a tangled mess against Elias’s pillow, but I hadn’t moved in what felt like hours.
Elias was quiet, too.
He lay beside me for a while, his body heat radiating in steady waves, his hand ghosting near my arm as if he wanted to reach for me but didn’t know how. As if the same man who could hack into secure servers and make a grown man cry with a look was suddenly helpless when it came to a woman unraveling beside him.
He exhaled. Once. Twice. His fingers drummed once against the mattress, then stopped.
Still, I didn’t move.
Neither did he.
And in the silence that stretched between us, I could feel it—the aching desire to connect, to bridge the chasm between us, and the impossibility of doing so.
Finally, he shifted, rolling to his back. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, voice low, raw. “You want to burn it all down, Red? Fine. But I can’t keep watching you disappear … Inward, I mean.”
I didn’t answer.
Because I didn’t know either.
What was there to say? I was tired of screaming. Tired of being angry about things I couldn’t control. Tired of staring at myself in the mirror and wondering where the girl had gone—the one who used to dance for joy, not just to make a meager living.
“I’m not trying to fix you,” Elias said after a beat, voice roughened by restraint. “But I’m not going to let you fade either.”
I turned my face into the pillow, the scent of him strong there.
Then the bed shifted. I heard him sit up, stand, pace a few steps. His movements were purposeful now, sharper.
A beat of silence. Then:
“Get dressed,” he said.
I didn’t move.
“And wait here,” he added, a little softer now. “I’ll be back.”
I turned slowly to look at him. He was already tugging on a T-shirt, shoving his phone into his pocket, his jaw set like he had a mission.
“What are you?—”
“Trust me.” He looked at me for a long second, then leaned down, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I’ll be right back.”
And then he was gone.
The suite door clicked shut, and I was alone again.
For a moment, I just lay there, staring at the spot he’d left, unsure whether to move or scream or curl tighter into myself.
Instead, I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling again.
Trust me.
I didn’t know if I could.