Chapter 123 Vivian
Greyson
The penthouse air was a tomb, chilled and scentless, a vacuum where life went to be preserved, not lived. It was the absolute antithesis of Cassie’s world the memory of salt spray, sun-warmed wood, and her skin, a phantom sensation that haunted me as the elevator ascended. Here, the only scent was the faint, expensive ghost of Vivian’s perfume, a floral poison I’d come to associate with a slow, suffocating death of the soul. Every breath here was a betrayal.
She was waiting, as always, a sculpture placed before the panoramic backdrop of the city. Vivian was perfection carved from ice,every blonde hair in place, her silk sheath dress clinging to a form that spoke of personal trainers and surgical precision. She was a trophy in a museum I never wanted to visit, let alone reside in.
“Greyson,” she said, turning. Her smile was a practiced curve, not reaching her eyes, which performed a quick, assessing inventory of my state. She found me lacking, as always. “You’re late. I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind about seeing your daughter.”
The words, “your daughter,” were a needle expertly inserted, a reminder of the chain she’d forged link by link over two long years. The guilt, once a crippling weight, now felt like an ill-fitting suit I was desperate to shed. Tonight, I wasn't here out of guilt. I was here as an executioner.
“Traffic,” I lied, my voice flat. I shrugged off my jacket, feeling the weight of the two folders in the inner pocket press against my chest like a shield. Or a weapon.
“She’s already asleep,” Vivian continued, gliding toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. “you can look in on her. She asked for you before bed. She said, ‘Dad should read to me?’ It was… heartbreaking when I had to tell her you weren’t here yet.”
Another needle. Another twist. I used to flinch. Tonight, I felt a cold, clarifying anger. She was using a child’s innocent voice as a tool, and the vileness of it steeled my resolve.
“I’d like to see her,” I said, following her down the marble-floored hall. We passed the gallery of their life,a life I was an imposter in. A large, professionally shot portrait dominated the wall: Vivian, beaming, holding a smiling Emma. The space beside them was tellingly empty, a void I had been temporarily filling. A placeholder.
Emma’s room was a showroom for perfect childhood. Everything was coordinated in tasteful, muted tones. A collection of pristine, designer stuffed animals sat arranged on a shelf, not a single one out of place. There were no crayon drawings taped to the walls, no scattered toys, no joyful chaos. It was a beautiful, sterile cell.
In the center of it, in a bed fit for a princess, lay Emma. She was a beautiful child. There was no denying that. For two years, I had stood in this spot, staring at her face, desperately searching for a piece of myself, for some echo of the O’Malley lineage that would legitimize my presence here. I had blamed my own emotional frigidity, the scars left by my father’s death and Cassie’s absence, for the connection that stubbornly refused to ignite.
Armed with a truth so absolute it was terrifying, I saw her with new eyes. The resemblance I had tried so hard to fabricate evaporated like mist. Her features were delicate, fine-boned, entirely Vivian’s. There was no trace of the solid, stubborn O’Malley jaw, no hint of my own stormy grey eyes in her warm brown ones. er hands, curled on the pillow, were slender and elegant. They were the hands of Jake Turner. The tennis pro. The ghost.
A summer fling, conducted in the Hamptons while I was raw and hollowed out from burying my father. Vivian had chosen her moment with the precision of a sniper.
“She looks so peaceful,” Vivian whispered from the doorway, her voice dripping with a saccharine tenderness that made my skin crawl. “She’s everything, Greyson. Everything I ever wanted.”
“I know she is,” I replied, my voice low. I turned from the sleeping child, the sight of her now a complicated knot of pity and resentment. She was the innocent anchor holding me to this shipwreck. “That’s why this can’t go on.”
Back in the cavernous living room, the tension was a physical presence. Vivian felt it. She moved to the bar, the ice clinking in the crystal tumbler unnaturally loud in the silence.
“Drink?” she offered, a classic stalling tactic.
“No.”
She poured herself a generous measure of whiskey, her back to me. I could see the rigidity in her shoulders. She knew a confrontation was brewing, but she believed she held all the cards. She always had.
I didn’t wait for her to sit. I needed the high ground. I reached into my jacket and pulled out the two folders. The first, a standard manila, was thick with legal jargon. The second, a sleek black portfolio, contained a thermonuclear truth.
I placed the manila folder on the glass coffee table with a definitive thud.
Vivian turned, her eyes flicking from my face to the folder. “What’s that?”
“Our divorce papers,” I said, the words hanging in the air, stark and irrevocable. “I need you to sign them. Tonight.”
She let out a short, incredulous laugh, but it was too high, too tight. “Don’t be absurd, Greyson. We’ve been through this. It’s not that simple. We have a child. A family.”
“We have a legal fiction,” I countered, my voice dangerously calm. “And it ends tonight.”
She strode forward, abandoning her drink. “A fiction? Is that what you call your daughter? A fiction? How can you be so cold? After everything I’ve been through… after everything we’ve built…”
This was her stage. The wounded mother, the betrayed wife. I had watched this performance for two years, and I was done being her audience.
“What we’ve built, Vivian, is a house of cards. And I just found the gust of wind that’s going to knock it all down.” I tapped the black portfolio. “It’s time for the truth.”
Her bravado faltered. A flicker of genuine fear crossed her features before she masked it with outrage. “What truth? What lies has Cassie been whispering in your ear? I knew letting you go back there was a mistake. She’s always been jealous, always wanted to destroy what we have!”
“This has nothing to do with Cassie,” I said, my voice dropping, becoming lethally quiet. I opened the black portfolio. The first page was a photograph. “This is about Jake Turner.”
The name was a trigger. The color drained from her face so completely it was shocking, leaving her a stark, white mask against the dark city behind her. She took an involuntary step back, her hand fluttering to her throat.
“I don’t… I don’t know who that is,” she stammered, the lie pathetic and transparent.
“Jake Turner,” I repeated, relentless. “Twenty-eight. Tennis pro. Blond hair, blue eyes, charming smile. Quite the favorite with the ladies at the Hamptons Country Club the summer you decided to die.” I advanced a step, holding her terrified gaze. “He has a small, crescent-shaped scar on the web of his left hand. A childhood injury. A very distinctive, very hereditary little mark.”
I let the silence stretch, letting the implication sink in. I saw the moment her mind made the connection, the moment she remembered the identical scar on Emma’s tiny hand. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed onto the white sofa as if the strings holding her up had been cut.
“How…” she breathed, her voice a ragged whisper. “How did you…?”
“It’s all here, Vivian,” I said, gesturing to the portfolio. “Pictures. Bank records from your secret account—the one you drained before your ‘death.’ The private investigator’s report. And the one piece of evidence you can’t explain away.” I pulled out the final document, holding it up. It was the paternity test. The results were highlighted in cold, clinical yellow. Probability of Paternity: 0.00%.
“Emma is not my daughter.Liam isn't my son too . ”
The words weren’t a question. They were a verdict.
Vivian stared at the document, her body trembling with silent sobs. The performance was over. The facade had crumbled to dust. We stood there, locked in the wreckage of her lie, the only sound the frantic, ragged pull of her breath. The gilded cage door was open, but the escape was going to be more brutal than I had ever imagined.