Chapter 14

Vivienne forced a smile and sat down across from me. She was still in the same silk wrap dress I remembered from that morning at the brownstone.

But this time, she didn't wear it the same way.

Her hair was still pinned up, her makeup still careful, but the exhaustion had seeped through the foundation. Whatever the last few months had done to her, she'd lost whatever glow she'd started with.

Odd.

My leaving should have cleared the way for the two of them. They should have been flourishing.

Instead she looked worse than she had at the height of our shared life.

Was it possible that without me around to siphon from, the two of them couldn't function?

I didn't have to sit with the question long.

Vivienne cut to it, dropping the polite opening. "Josephine, I know what you saw between Richard and me hurt you. I never meant for it to happen."

"I am so, so sorry the two of you ended up like this because of me."

She said it with her eyes wet and a flicker of satisfaction behind them.

I said nothing. She kept going, the way guilty people do.

"Honestly, Josephine, you didn't have to take it that far. Richard and I — we had a connection, nothing more. It was never physical."

I gave a small, dry smile. "You slept in the same bed. The child I raised for thirty years is yours. If that isn't something, what exactly is?"

"Josephine, listen — when your first baby passed, Richard was devastated. When I told him I wanted a child of my own, he agreed. He thought your genetic side had been unlucky. I —"

"We never —"

I stood up.

I slapped her.

My hand has thirty years of kitchen work in it. The print came up on her face red and fast.

Her shock finally caught up with her. "Josephine — how dare you —"

I slapped her again, harder.

"How dare you? Who gave you permission to mention him?"

"If Richard hadn't insisted on taking our son out that Christmas, the baby wouldn't have been shocked into a collapse. The heart defect was not the end of him — the two of you were."

"And it wasn't just bad genes. It was you two, moving in on his grief while he was still mourning."

"You think you never had sex, so it wasn't cheating? Let me explain something to you, Vivienne."

"Emotional infidelity is still infidelity."

Her face went sheet-white.

I turned to leave.

She grabbed my wrist.

"Josephine — you've hit me. You got what you wanted. Will you take them back?"

"Take them both back and I swear, I swear, I will stay away from Richard forever."

"As for Ethan — you can have him. He's all yours."

"You raised him anyway. Just keep raising him. I'm giving them to you. I'm stepping aside. Honestly, you should be thanking me."

Her voice shook with the wrongness of her own certainty.

She was sure — completely sure — that I'd take her gift with my forehead to the floor.

After all, I'd served those two men for forty years.

The thought of being rid of them lit her face up like she'd already signed the papers.

I didn't know exactly what the last few months had been for her. But I knew those two men well enough to know they were garbage I'd dragged to the curb.

Normal people do not pick up their garbage and bring it back into the house.

I laughed. It wasn't kind.

"Don't you like them, Vivienne?"

"I'm gone now. You should be thrilled. Why would I go back and ruin your happiness?"

"Honestly. You deserve better. If you'd just told me forty years ago that you wanted Richard, I would've let you have him. Why'd you make yourself the mistress for thirty years?"

"Look at it this way — now that I'm out, you finally get the official title. Mrs. Sterling. Congratulations. Thirty years of mistress work and the promotion finally came through."

I yanked my wrist free and walked.

Behind me she was shrieking my name like she'd lost her mind.

"Josephine! Josephine! Get back here — come take them back — I can't live with them!"

By the end she had given up on dignity entirely.

I didn't turn around.