Chapter 42

Her eyes widened until they almost popped. Her chest heaved as she leaned forward across her thighs, her palms pressing hard into the polished wood.

“You what?” she asked, her voice laced with shock and fury. “You want to be a wife? To someone who already has a wife?”

Vivian leaned back against the sofa, her shoulders relaxed as if she had rehearsed this conversation a hundred times in her head. A slow sneer tugged at the corner of her lips.

“Of course,” she said, voice smooth and deliberate. “Is anything wrong with that?”

Claire nearly choked.

“Anything wrong with that? Vivian, are you even listening to yourself? You are talking about destroying a family, tearing apart a marriage, shattering a child’s home. And you are asking me if there is anything wrong with that?”

Vivian crossed her legs elegantly, picking up her wineglass again and swirling the deep red liquid.

“Families break all the time, Claire. Marriages fail every day. I’m not doin