*Vivienne*Four days had passed since the death of my mother but everything still felt like a dream. Time and time again, I would constantly murmur to myself that it was just a bad dream. One that would go away if I would just wake up. But when I eventually wake up the next morning, the reality of everything that has happened dawns on me. I was now all alone in this world. I remembered crying so hard the night that Liam found me in my apartment but after that night, I seemed to have locked up my feelings. I went numb.I didn't want to feel anything. I was numb even when my mother's corpse was later found among the debris from the fire. And when I had gone to see the body in order to identify it, I was unable to form any word or reaction. It was as if everything inside me had dried up. I just stood there, the sight of her mutilated form etching itself into my mind, a haunting contrast to the beautiful, cheerful woman I had always known even when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer
*Vivienne*My heart stopped beating, my throat closing up with horror as my eyes slightly widened.“Fr… from back ho…home?” I stuttered, my throat dry. Liam nodded in confirmation and sighed. “At least, that's what he said. Does anyone come to mind?”My heartbeat started again but this time, it was irregular. My forehead was probably shining with a sheen of sweat though it would be barely visible in the car. I counted up to ten in my head and then slowly shook my head. “Nobody at all,” I answered with a shaky breath. Liam gazed at me and then reached forward and then briefly grabbed my hand. “Don't worry about it, I'm sure the person is just some paparazzi,” he tried reassuring me with a gentle smile. I cut my eyes at him and looked out the window instead, my insides growing shallow and tight. No, it was surely somebody from home. I could just feel it. I bit down hard on my lower lip, my mind racing with several chaotic thoughts. How did the person find me? For the past decade,
*Vivienne*My brother’s eyes widened in disbelief, but Liam didn’t let go. Instead, he twisted Dean's wrist, applying just enough pressure to make him wince.A sharp gasp escaped Dean's lips, quickly morphing into a scream that echoed in the streets. “Stop! Let him go!” I cried out, stepping forward, my heart racing. I didn’t want things to escalate any further. Liam maintained his grip, his dark, angry eyes locked onto my brother’s, a silent message passing between them. “This isn’t the way to talk with your sister,” he uttered, his tone calm but authoritative, grounding the situation. I looked back at my brother and watched as he writhed in pain, I could see the anger in his eyes fading, replaced by a flicker of fear and hate.“Am I clear, mister?” Liam asked and when Dean kept shut, he twisted his wrist again making him whimper in pain. “Words, mister.”Dean's head bobbed up and down in frantic desperation, his face contorted into a grimace. “Yes, yes!” he blurted out.After a t
*Vivienne*Silence. Silence now seemed to be the only thing accompanying me these days. Maybe it was because I felt dead inside ever since that night. The night I told Liam my deepest, darkest secret. I could vividly remember the way he froze, his eyes widening as he just stared at me. He didn't utter a word. He never did. Because the exact moment he opened his mouth to talk, his phone began to ring and a few moments later, he had to leave the country to shoot his new TV series. I remembered tossing in my bed, unable to sleep even after I had thrown some sleeping pills down my throat. Then after, I cried and later ended up sleeping that way. I glanced at my phone and stared at the dark, blank screen. I wondered what he thought of me now, would he see me as a murderer now?Technically speaking, I am a murderer but somehow, the thought of Liam viewing me that way made my heart ache. For the briefest of moments, a tingle of regret reverberated in my chest, maybe I should have hel
*Vivienne*My brows met together in a deep frown. “What?”Mrs. Pryce glanced at me. “He didn't tell you, did he?” he whispered in a small voice. “Typical.”What the hell was this woman saying?Clause?Relationship?I shook my head. “No, I mean, why are you so sure that Liam and I are in a relationship?”Sure, we have indulged in a hardcore foreplay and make out session but that doesn't mean we were in a relationship… right?Mrs. Pryce glanced at me, amusement glinting in her eyes. “You are so naive, Ms. Reynolds, and it's not even a cute look on you,” she said. “Relationships don't usually entail that you have to put a label on whatever you guys are doing. The tabloids and newspapers are living proof that you guys are living together and possibly fucking each other's brains out. That's the only conviction that the board of directors and shareholders would see and hold.”I frowned, my mind snagging on one thing she's said. “Tabloids and newspapers? I don't remember any articles—”“That
*Vivienne*My heart plummeted. The world around me faded into a blur; the lazy conversation of both my employees and the customers , the distant hum of traffic down the street—all drowned out by the pounding of my pulse in my ears.“No… no, do…don't tell me,” I stammered, my voice trembling. “Oh yes, I did,” he replied, the glee in his tone sending chills down my spine. “It wasn't an easy feat by the way, I had to spend tons of hours drafting my plan. But then, after that, everything else was just easy peasy.”A wave of nausea washed over me, making me feel light headed. I felt myself going weak at the knees which then prompted me to lean against the table, my hands found its way up my neck as it closed up making it hard for me to breath. “Should I tell you what happened?” he continued, his voice thick and low with amusement. “Of course I should, it's your mother we are talking about here.”He was enjoying this. That sick bastard was enjoying this.“Like I said earlier, it wasn't a
*Liam*I am standing in front of the windows in my office, overlooking the city below. It has been three days since I returned to Los Angeles and a week since I had seen her. My heart began to ache again as it has always done for the past few days whenever I think of her. Sighing deeply, I rubbed a hand over the spot but it continued to throb even more persistently.It almost felt like we have been separated for a lifetime and not just some few days. Each breath I took was laced with the memory of her laughter— the ones I'd shared with her. More than once in a day, I would recall the way her eyes genuinely sparked when she was happy, or the way the tip of her nose wrinkled when she was honestly annoyed with me or even how her left eye twitches whenever she was lying. It even reached a point where every corner of the house held fragments of her presence so much that I had to relocate to another room.And just when I thought it wouldn't get any worse, she proceeded to hunt me in my
*Liam*“Yoo, Pryce! Where the fuck are you?” Ryder's voice thundered, the car speakers resounding with his voice. “I told you where I was going, didn't I?” I answered with my eyes fixed on the road before me. I then pressed a button on the steering wheel to reduce the volume of the speakers. “No! I don't actually mean where,” he said, backtracking a little bit. “Why the fuck did you take the car without the driver?”With a small turn of my wrists on the steering wheel, I navigated a curve and turned onto the highway. “He was wasting my time, man,” I muttered. There was a brief moment of silence where Ryder breathed in deeply and that was when I knew that his tolerance range for me today was perhaps not that high. “But. That. Doesn't. Mean. You. Had. Drive. By. Yourself,” he gritted out, punctuating each word. I lifted my shoulders in a slight shrug even though he couldn't see me. “I think I can manage driving to the hotel without fainting.”“And that's the fucking point!” he expl