"You’re pathetic, Vivian. Even your voice sounds like it’s been dragged through the New York gutters."
Lucian’s words hit me like a physical strike, knocking the breath from my lungs. I stood in the center of that dark, suffocating library, my heart hammering against my ribs until I thought they might snap. The air was thick with the scent of peaty scotch and old, expensive leather. I had just delivered my first line—the line that cost me my soul—and his response was pure, unadulterated venom.
"I… I told you, Lucian. I haven't been well," I said, forcing that breathy, Mid-Atlantic lilt back into my throat. My voice was trembling, but I had to make him think it was guilt, not the sheer terror of being found out. "I came back because I couldn't breathe without knowing you were okay."
"Liar!" he roared, standing up so abruptly his heavy mahogany chair hit the floor with a deafening thud.
He navigated the shadows with a terrifying, predatory grace. He didn’t need sight to make me feel small. He stopped just inches from me, his heat radiating through my thin silk dress. "You came back because the credit cards in Paris finally declined? Or did your latest fling realize what a hollow, designer shell you are?"
"Lucian, please—"
"Get out!" He pointed toward the door, his hand shaking with a rage that felt tectonic. "I don’t want your pity. I don’t want your rehearsed excuses. Get out of my sight—if only I had the luxury of saying that for real. Out!"
I didn’t wait for a second invitation. I bolted. My heels skidded on the hardwood as I scrambled out of the library, the heavy doors slamming shut behind me with the finality of a tombstone. I didn't stop until I reached the grand hallway, where Emelia was waiting, leaning against a marble pillar with a glass of Bordeaux.
"Well," she said, her eyes tracking my disheveled state with clinical boredom. "That went exactly as I expected. He’s always had a flair for the dramatic when he’s hurting."
"He hates her," I gasped, clutching my chest, my real voice cracking through the mask. "He hates her so much, Emelia. This won't work. He’ll smell the lie eventually."
"He hates her because he’s obsessed with her, you fool," Emelia snapped, pushing off the pillar. She stepped toward me, her heels clicking like a countdown. "And you aren't going anywhere. The wire transfer to the Metropolitan went through ten minutes ago. You’re bought and paid for, Celeste. Now, get in the car."
An hour later, I was standing in a high-rise penthouse overlooking the glowing veins of Manhattan. It wasn't the mansion, but it was just as cold.
Emelia slammed a thick, leather-bound book onto the glass coffee table. Beside it sat a tablet and a small, crystal flacon of perfume.
"Vivian’s private journals. Her scent profile. Every 'Story' she ever posted on Instagram," Emelia listed, her voice clipped. "Study them. If you don't know the name of her first polo pony or exactly how dry she likes her martinis by sunrise, we’re both finished."
I picked up the journal. The handwriting was loopy, arrogant, and filled with exclamation points. "I’m a voice actress, Emelia, not a deep-cover operative. How am I supposed to learn a whole life in a single night?"
"You don't have a choice," Emelia said, stepping into my personal space. She reached out and grabbed a lock of my long, chestnut hair. "And we need to do something about this. You look like a grad student. Vivian was a predator."
"What are you doing?" I flinched as she pulled a pair of heavy professional shears from her bag.
"Changing the silhouette. Lucian is blind, but his hands aren't. He will touch you. He will feel the length of your hair, the line of your jaw. If he detects a single inconsistency, he’ll realize he’s being played."
I watched in the mirror, paralyzed, as she hacked away at my hair. The long strands fell to the floor like dead leaves. When she was done, I had a sharp, shoulder-length bob—the exact, chic cut Vivian had debuted in her latest Paris paparazzi shots.
"Look at the screen," Emelia commanded.
I swiped through the videos. Vivian at a gala in the Hamptons. Vivian insulting a waitress at Balthazar. Vivian laughing at a joke Lucian made in an old CNBC interview. I played the clips on a loop, humming along to her speech patterns until my throat ached.
"Oh, Lu, don't be so dramatic," I mimicked, pitching my voice to that specific, nasal-sweet frequency.
"Again," Emelia said.
"Oh, Lu, don't be so dramatic."
"More breath. Less heart," Emelia corrected. "Vivian didn't care about his feelings; she cared about her lighting. Pitch it higher."
I spent the night in a fever dream of loopy handwriting and artificial laughter. I memorized the way she called him 'Lu' when she wanted a favor. I memorized the scent of her perfume—white lilies and something sharp, like ozone before a storm.
Around 3:00 a.m., I dropped the tablet, my eyes burning. I looked at Emelia, who was sitting across from me, watching me like a hawk.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked, my real voice coming back, scratchy and exhausted. "You clearly despise her. Why bring a ghost back to haunt him?"
"Because he’s a CEO who refuses to sign the merger with Carter Telecom because he’s 'mourning,'" Emelia said, her lip curling. "The Aldridge legacy is bigger than his broken heart. If a fake Vivian is the only thing that makes him functional enough to lead, then that’s what he gets. I need a puppet, Celeste. Not a poet."
"He’s your son," I whispered.
"He is the Chairman," she corrected. "Now, back to the journal. What was the name of the florist they used for the engagement party at the Pierre?"
The sun was barely bleeding over the East River when the town car pulled back into the Aldridge Estate in Westchester. My skin felt tight under the expensive foundation, and the bobbed hair felt foreign against the nape of my neck. I was dressed in a silk robe over a lace slip—the kind of effortless "morning-after" look Vivian was famous for.
"Remember," Emelia whispered as we stood outside the library doors. "The voice is your only weapon. If you falter, if you sound like a girl from Queens for even a second, the game is over. And so is your brother."
I pushed the doors open. The room wasn't pitch black today; the heavy drapes were parted just enough to let in a dismal, gray morning light. Lucian was sitting at a small table, a silver tray of untouched breakfast in front of him.
"You’re still here," he said. He didn't turn, but I saw his shoulders lock.
"I told you, Lu. I’m not leaving," I said, injecting that playful, catty lilt back into my voice. I walked over and sat across from him, my heels clicking with purpose. "And you really need to eat. You look ghastly. Like a Victorian ghost."
Lucian let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "Ghastly? That’s rich coming from the woman who put me in this chair."
I reached across the table—a risky, calculated move—and placed my hand near his. I didn't touch him, but I let him feel the proximity. "I know you're angry. You have every right to be. But I'm here now. Let me help you."
Lucian’s hand shot out with the speed of a viper, catching my wrist. His grip was like iron. He pulled me forward until I was halfway across the table, his clouded eyes searching for a face he could only remember.
"Help me?" he hissed. "You want to help me sign those papers, don't you? That’s why my mother brought you back. She thinks I’m a broken toy she can just wind up with the right voice."
"Emelia didn't bring me back," I lied, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "I came because I heard about the surgery. The one you're refusing out of spite."
Lucian’s thumb brushed against the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse. I prayed he couldn't feel the lie vibrating through my skin. He leaned in, his nose inches from my neck, sniffing the air.
"Lilies," he muttered, his voice dropping an octave. "You always did smell like a funeral."
"It’s your favorite," I chirped, my voice steady despite the sweat trickling down my spine.
He let go of my wrist so suddenly I almost hit the back of my chair. "Sit down and shut up, Vivian. If you're going to stay, be quiet. I can’t stand the sound of your voice right now. It's like nails on a chalkboard."
"But that’s why you loved me, remember?" I teased, following the cues in the journal. Vivian always poked at his bruises. "You said my voice was the only thing that could calm the beast."
Lucian flinched. He stood up, knocking his sterling silver fork to the floor. "The beast is awake, Vivian. And he’s hungry. Don't push your luck."
He walked toward the window, staring out at the mist-covered grounds. I watched him, the guilt gnawing at my stomach. He was so profoundly alone. Even in his rage, he was reaching for a ghost, and I was the one haunting him.
"I’ll stay," I said, my voice softer now, almost reaching for Celeste. "Even if we’re quiet. I’ll just... stay in the room."
"Do whatever you want," he growled. "You always did anyway."
I sat there in the heavy silence, watching the man I was supposed to 'tame.' I picked up a copy of Vogue from the side table and started reading aloud—not because he asked, but because the journal said Vivian used to read him the gossip columns to annoy him into talking.
"Stop," he said after ten minutes.
"Why? Don't you want to know who got snubbed at the Met Gala?"
"Your voice," he said, his back still turned to me. "It sounds... different."
My blood ran cold. I gripped the magazine until the glossy pages crinkled. "Different? How?"
"Vibrant. Less... bored," he mused. He finally turned his head toward me, the gray light catching the scars at his temples. "Did the air in Paris actually give you a soul, Vivian? Or are you just trying harder to lie to me today?"
"Maybe I just realized exactly what I lost, Lucian," I said, my voice trembling for real this time.