Chapter 10 Her Side
Serena's POV
Vivienne didn't sit back down. She stood there, both hands pressed flat on the coffee table, staring at me like I'd just told her the house was on fire.
"Divorced." She said the word like she was testing it, turning it over, deciding it was unacceptable. "Elliot wants a divorce."
I nodded. My throat was still raw.
I'd spent the whole car ride rehearsing this — how to say it without falling apart, how to hand her the facts without making it sound like I was begging for rescue. Three things. Just three things. I could do three things.
"He already has the paperwork ready," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "Camille's back. And the marriage — it was always a deal, Vivienne. One year. That was the arrangement Harold made with Elliot before the wedding."
Each sentence cost me something. I kept my hands folded in my lap and my eyes on the middle distance, because if I looked directly at her I was going to lose it completely.
Vivienne straightened up slowly. The warmth in her face had gone somewhere else, replaced by something harder and colder and very, very controlled.
"He had paperwork ready." It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
She picked up her phone off the side table. Her jaw was set. I recognized that expression — I'd seen it on Elliot once, right before he ended a board call that wasn't going his way.
She's going to call him. I didn't try to stop her.
She didn't put it on speaker. She didn't have to. Vivienne's voice carries when she's angry, and right now she was furious in that particular upper-crust way — clipped, precise, every word a verdict.
"Are you out of your mind?" She didn't wait for an answer. "You're throwing away your wife for that woman? What the hell do you think marriage is — a subscription you cancel when something better comes along?"
I sat very still and listened to the muffled sound of Elliot on the other end. Even through the phone I could tell he was calm. Measured. He'd probably expected this call.
He said something about Harold. About the agreement. About how this had always been the plan.
Vivienne's chin went up. "Your grandfather made that deal. I didn't. I was never consulted, and I don't consider myself bound by it." Her voice dropped half a register. "I'm telling you right now — you are not divorcing Serena. That is not happening."
I pressed my thumbnail into my palm and held onto the small, clean sting of it.
She's fighting for me. The thought felt strange and breakable. Someone in this family is actually fighting for me. It didn't fix anything. But it meant something.
Then Camille's voice came through the phone.
I heard it before I understood — that soft, wounded tone she does so well, the kind that sounds like vulnerability but isn't. My spine went rigid.
"Mrs. Ashford, it's not what you think." Clear as a bell. "It's not that Elliot doesn't want Serena. Serena has someone else. We only found out this morning."
The room went very quiet.
My fingers dug into the arm of the sofa. The lie I'd told last night — that stupid, reflexive, self-protective lie — had just been handed to Camille like a loaded gun, and she'd aimed it without hesitating.
Of course she did. I stared at the far wall and kept my face blank. Of course.
I couldn't explain. Not now, not without sounding exactly as desperate as she wanted me to sound. I made it up. I said it to hurt him. I said it because I needed to feel like I had something she didn't. None of that was going to help me. So I sat there and let it land.
Vivienne was quiet for exactly two seconds.
Then she laughed — short, sharp, zero warmth.
"Camille." Her voice went almost pleasant, which was worse than the fury. "You waltz back into this family, park yourself next to my son, and then call me to trash his wife?" The pleasantness dropped. "You're the other woman. That is what you are. And no amount of reframing changes that."
Yes. The wolf stirred — low and satisfied, the way it gets when something finally lands right. Keep going.
"Mrs. Ashford, I—" Camille's voice cracked at the edges. That smooth, practiced composure splitting right down the middle.
"Don't." Vivienne cut her off clean. "You came back the second you thought the coast was clear, and you want me to feel sorry for you? You broke up a marriage, Camille. Own it. Don't you dare call me and make Serena the villain in a story you wrote."
The wolf let out something slow and mean behind my ribs. I didn't move. Didn't let a single thing show. But inside — yeah. That felt good.
Camille's breath caught. Then silence. Then the faint sound of Elliot's voice somewhere close to her, low and soothing.
Of course he is. The satisfaction curdled slightly at that. But the wolf was still watching, still pleased.
She pulled herself together fast. She always does. "I apologize, Mrs. Ashford," she said, her voice smoothed carefully back into place. "I'm just worried about Elliot. That's all."
Vivienne drew breath to respond — and the bedroom door opened.
The cough came first. Rough and wet, the kind that sounds like it costs something. Agnes appeared in the doorway, one hand on the frame, the other supporting Harold's arm. Dark robe, disheveled hair, that gray-pink color that meant he'd been horizontal too long. He moved slowly, but his eyes were sharp and already reading the room.
"What's all the noise?" His voice was thin but still carried weight. "You two trying to wake the whole street?"
Vivienne's hand froze — phone still live, Camille still on the other end. She looked at Harold, then at the phone, and I watched her do the math in real time.
I was already on my feet.
Don't tell him. Don't you dare. Two cardiac episodes in the past year. No stress, no shocks — his doctor had been explicit. Whatever was burning in that phone call could not land in this room. Not tonight.
I crossed to Vivienne and touched her arm, just lightly. She glanced at me. I gave the smallest shake of my head.
She understood. She lowered the phone and ended the call without another word.
Harold let Agnes guide him to the armchair, watching us both with the patient suspicion of a man who'd spent decades watching people manage him. "Well?"
I got the smile onto my face from somewhere. I don't know where, but it held.
"Nothing serious, Harold." My voice came out easy, almost convincing. "Elliot was supposed to be here for dinner tonight — work ran over. You know how Vivienne gets when he pulls that."
