Chapter 14 – Vivian
“Heiress Heroine Saves Rusnak Empire.”
I stare at the headline Sienna sent me, the words loud even in the silence of my room. My thumb scrolls before my brain fully catches up. There it is—my face plastered beneath a golden filter, eyes wide, lips parted, the media’s favorite new fantasy:
Vivian Laurent: The Knight. The Savior. The Wife Who Stood Tall Beside Her Husband.
If only they knew.
My stomach twists as I swipe to the next notification.
More articles.
More headlines.
More angles of my body hitting the ground as Dimitri shoved me out of the line of fire.
People online are worshipping him for protecting me.
People online are worshipping me for standing beside him.
Nobody understands what really happened.
Nobody understands what I felt.
The humiliation.
The terror.
The whiplash of a man who spent hours treating me like a burden—then used his own body to shield mine.
How do you reconcile that? How do you breathe around that?
I sigh, drop my phone onto the bed, and let myself collapse backward beside it. The ceiling is plain, white, still. Unlike my mind.
Where’s Dimitri?
Has he seen the news?
Does he care?
Or is this what he wanted all along—another headline to bury the truth?
I don’t know the last time we slept in the same room. I don’t know the last time he touched me without anger in his bones.
I sit up eventually, dragging myself into the bathroom. The chilled tiles bite at my feet. My reflection stares back at me, pale and exhausted.
Elara and the other wives had texted earlier, asking if I wanted to go shopping today. They sent laughing emojis, photos of outfits, plans for brunch. I declined immediately.
Someone tried to shoot me days ago. I’d be stupid to step one foot outside the safety of this house. I close the bathroom door behind me and lean my forehead against it.
Everything feels too loud.
The world, the news, even my own thoughts.
But today…today, I’ll make myself happy. No one is coming to rescue me. No one is going to pull me out of my head or my loneliness. I think about texting Elara and the girls to ask them to come over instead of going shopping. I know they’d drop everything for me. They’re good like that. Kind.
But they sounded so excited. Laughing about outfits, teasing each other, making plans. Dragging them here would feel selfish. And I’m tired of needing people.
So after breakfast, still barefoot, still quiet, I wander through Dimitri’s penthouse until I end up in a room I’ve never seen before.
The piano room.
My breath catches when I step inside.
Dark wood. Warm light. A polished grand piano sitting like a memory waiting to be touched.
Music was my mother’s oxygen. Her soft rebellion. Her sanctuary in a world that demanded too much. Our family buried that part of her, just like they buried everything else they couldn’t control.
I sit at the bench slowly, almost reverently. My fingers hover over the keys, shaky at first, then brave enough to press down. A single note blooms into the silence. Then another.
I try to remember my mother’s favorite chord, but all I have are fragments—her humming in the kitchen, her tapping rhythms on my shoulder, her smile softening every time she heard a melody she loved.
It hits me out of nowhere.
I don’t miss my parents.
I don’t miss home.
I’m here, in this cold place, with a man who barely speaks to me…yet somehow, painfully, I miss him instead.
Pathetic.
I exhale shakily and let my fingers drift across the keys, playing whatever they want—sometimes clumsy, sometimes beautiful, sometimes both.
For the first time in days, something inside me unclenches.
The music doesn’t care about scandals.
It doesn’t care about gunshots or headlines or Dimitri’s mood swings.
It just…is.
And for a moment, so am I.
I begin to play softly, my fingers trembling.
The sound wavers, fragile, like it might dissolve if I breathe too hard.
Then—there it is. The chord aligns. Perfect. Familiar. My mother’s chord. The sound hits me like a memory I didn’t agree to feel. My throat tightens.
Tears blur the keys before I can blink them away.
Maybe in her next life, she’ll choose something quieter.
A middle-class family. A tiny home with neighbors who bring food over the fence.
Maybe she would’ve become the music prodigy she was meant to be, instead of a corporate wife buried under other people’s ambitions.
Maybe she would’ve birthed me somewhere softer—somewhere I could grow, instead of being kept in a glass box.
A tear slips off my chin and lands on a white key. A tiny, perfect drop of grief. I wipe it away quickly with my thumb, sniffing.
But I don’t stop playing.
For the first time in my life, I’m not performing.
I’m not pretending.
I’m not trying to please my father, or repair my family name, or survive Dimitri’s storms.
I’m just…here.
Falling apart softly, quietly, honestly.
In a room where no one is watching.
Or…I think.
Because when the melody ends, soft and trembling, someone claps. I whirl around so fast the bench screeches.
Dimitri stands in the doorway—hands in his pockets, tie loose, eyes unreadable. But the softness in them? I feel it like a warm hand around my ribs. He steps forward slowly.
“You play beautifully,” he says, his voice rough, like he hasn’t spoken in hours.
I shrug, wiping my cheeks with the back of my wrist. “It’s the only thing I know that doesn’t lie.”
He pauses, the line hitting him somewhere deep. Then he sits beside me on the bench, close enough that our knees touch. His thumb brushes under my eye, wiping a tear I missed.
Gentle. Too gentle.
“I didn’t know you liked music.”
I swallow. “It was my mother’s passion. It…reminds me of her.”
“You miss your mom?” he asks quietly. “I can take you to see her.”
I blink. Hard. He’d risk that? After what happened? After everything he said?
“Even after finding out my family was involved in the shooting?”
He nods, jaw tight, eyes steady. “Yes. As long as it’ll make you happy.”
As long as it’ll make me happy?
What version of Dimitri is this?
I don’t trust it. I don’t know it. But I feel it.
I shake my head. “Let’s hold on until we get to the bottom of this. I don’t want to put you in danger too.”
He studies me for a long moment. Then—
“Can I show you something?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
He chuckles softly, like he expected me to say no.
Then he turns to the piano, rests his fingers on the keys—and plays. God. The music that pours out of him steals the air from my lungs. Rich. Dark. Devastatingly beautiful.
I gasp, hand flying to my chest.
“Dimitri,” I breathe. “I didn’t know you could—”
He keeps playing, eyes on the keys, voice low and almost shy. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
Apparently.
I lean against the side of the piano, arms folded, pretending I’m not completely disarmed by the softness in his tone. The melody curls through the room. It’s warm, steady, intimate, and for a moment I feel like I’m intruding on something private.
He stops playing abruptly, like he catches himself being too vulnerable. The last note hangs in the air before fading.
I clap—loud, dramatic, absolutely unnecessary.
“Wow. Look at you. Virtuoso.”
He snorts, shaking his head as he rubs his palm down his thigh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You play as good as my mom.”
He laughs. Full, shocked, bright. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It is,” I say, nudging him with my knee. “She’s insanely good.”
He tilts his head, studying me.
“You like music?” I ask.
“Of course I do.” He shrugs. “I like it a lot.” He hums, leaning back on the stool. “But specific types, though. I think most contemporary music is trash.”
I gasp dramatically. “Oh my God. Finally. Finally, someone says it.”
His mouth twitches, and I know I’ve amused him.
“That bad?”
“Worse. Take me back decades, and I’ll play the songs for hours. Give me old-school soul, jazz, anything with passion.” I gesture at the piano. “I also like—what do they call them—piano pieces.”
He lifts a brow. “Pieces?”
“Yes,” I say, lifting my chin. “Piano pieces. Or compositions. Or arrangements. Something classy. Something that makes me sound like I know what I’m talking about.”
He chuckles, turning back to the keys. “You can call them piano pieces. Or maybe a prelude, nocturne, sonata…depending.”
I blink at him. “Ah. So you’re not just showing off. You’re actually a nerd.”
He flips his hair back in that annoyingly elegant way of his, like he’s used to being looked at. “Of course I’m a nerd. You know, I spent all my teenage years reading in a boarding school in London. Then I pursued my BSc, my master’s, and my PhD in business.”
His fingers tap the piano lid lightly. “I am a nerd.”
I stare at him longer than I mean to. Something warm and stupid blooms in my chest before I can stop it. “I wanted to pursue my master’s,” I say quietly. “But I couldn’t.”
His hands still completely. “Why?”
I swallow. The answer sits heavy on my tongue, thick with old bitterness.
“My father said I wouldn’t need it,” I breathe. “He said my husband would prefer me to stay silent. More education means more opinions.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw. “That’s bullshit.”
I laugh, but it’s a small, sharp sound. “Welcome to the family tree. Generations of men who believe women should come pre-silenced.”
He turns fully toward me, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on mine—soft, furious, and unbearably sincere. “You deserved better.”
That shouldn’t hit me the way it does, but it does. Hard.
I look away, focusing on the piano keys instead of the heat in his gaze. “It’s not just about education. It’s…everything. Expectations. Reputation. Who you’re born as. What you carry.”
“Legacy,” he says quietly.
I nod. “Legacy.”
He leans back, exhaling like the word tastes familiar to him too.
“I really don’t like your father,” he says.
I let out a humorless laugh. “I know that much.”
But something in his tone is different this time—less sharp, less performative. Calmer. Honest in a way he usually avoids.
His fingers drift over one of the piano keys, pressing down lightly just to hear the soft note bloom and fade.
When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper.
“My revenge against your family….” He pauses, jaw flexing. “It’s not just business.”
My stomach clenches. I search his face, but his eyes are on the keys, already far away.
“It’s personal,” he finishes.
The air shifts. It presses against my skin. Suddenly, I’m too aware of the space between us—small, fragile, dangerous.
“What do you mean?” I ask softly.
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t have to.
“The Laurent Bank scandal destroyed more than companies,” he says. “It ruined lives. Hundreds of them.”
A breath catches in his throat. Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just…there.
“I lost someone,” he murmurs. “One of my oldest friends.”
My heartbeat stumbles.
He finally lifts his gaze to mine, and I swear the room tilts. There’s a rawness in him I’ve never seen—no armor, no calculation, no rage. Just…pain.
“I was young,” he continues quietly. “He was, too. His family lost everything when the scandal hit. His father committed suicide. His mother followed two months later.”
He swallows hard. “He…didn’t make it either.”
The words hit me like a punch.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It feels small compared to the weight he’s carrying, but my voice cracks anyway.
He shrugs, but it’s the kind of shrug that isn’t a shrug at all—just a failed attempt at control. “It’s been a long time. But some losses don’t age. They stay.”
I reach out before I even realize I’m doing it—my fingers brushing his wrist, light as breath.
He doesn’t pull away.
“I didn’t know,” I say.
“I didn’t intend for you to,” he replies, his voice quiet.
“Then…why didn’t you ever go after my father directly? Why come after me?”
He finally lifts his eyes, and the answer is already there—raw, unfiltered.
“I thought you knew,” he says. “About the evil the scandal caused. The lives that were lost. When your father went on all those press conferences to defend himself and clean up his name, you were always there.” His jaw tightens.
“Smiling. Nodding. Standing beside him like you believed every word he said.”
My stomach sinks, cold and heavy.
He inhales sharply, as if the confession tastes like blood. “I wanted to punish you.”
I gasp. “Dimitri….”
There’s no venom in his voice. No heat. No triumph. Only exhaustion—years of it, worn into him like an old bruise. My chest tightens painfully.
God. This whole time, I thought he hated me because he simply…hated me. But this—this is grief dressed as cruelty, sorrow sharpened into a weapon.
“I’m so sorry, Dimitri,” I whisper. And I mean it. With everything in me.
He doesn’t say anything, but something flickers in his eyes—surprise, maybe. Or disbelief. Or the faintest crack in the wall he’s spent a lifetime holding up.
I suck in a shaky breath. “I wish my family had never been like that. So brutal. So obsessed with winning. I wish…none of this had happened. That you didn’t have to lose anyone because of them. That we weren’t standing here carrying their sins.”
I reach for him again, slowly, giving him time to pull away. He doesn’t.
“I wish I could make all those wrongs right,” I whisper. “I can’t rewrite the past, but I can try. I will try. At least that much.”
His throat works, and for a moment he looks like he might say something—confess something—reach for something he’s never allowed himself to want.
But instead…he moves.
It’s barely a shift at first—just a tilt of his head, a breath closer, a soft tightening of his fingers beside mine on the piano bench. And then his mouth is on mine.
Not hungry.
Not demanding.
Not the Dimitri I know.
This kiss is…a surrender.
His lips brush mine gently, like he’s afraid I’ll break. Like he’s afraid he’ll break. His hand slides up to the side of my face, thumb trembling just slightly, and something in my chest folds in on itself.
Heat blooms behind my eyes.
Tears.
Again.
Because I know, this time, we’ve just given each other a second chance.