Chapter 6: The Aftermath of the Show
Vivienne didn’t move from the shadows for a long time. The cold from the deck seeped through the soles of her shoes, a grounding counterpoint to the feverish flush on her skin. Inside, the party’s murmur continued, oblivious. She could still see the imprint of Sasha’s hand against the dark wool of Ben’s trousers, the exact pressure of it.
When her teeth began to chatter, she forced herself to walk, not back inside, but around the side of the lodge, following a path of rough-hewn stone. She needed the night air to scour her mind clean. It didn’t work.
Around the corner, a sliver of light from a service door cut across a small, asphalted smoking area. Two figures were silhouetted there, the orange glow of their cigarettes tracing arcs in the darkness. She recognized them: Liam from accounting and Theo from IT. Both in their late twenties. Both, from the slightly unsteady slope of their shoulders, pleasantly drunk.
She was about to retreat when Theo’s voice, lazy and carried on the thin mountain air, pinned her in place.
“…seen Moreau tonight? Jesus. That’s a workplace hazard.”
A low chuckle from Liam. “Tell me about it. The way she talks to you, it’s like she’s already undressing you with her voice. Wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers.”
“You wish. You haven’t got a chance, mate.”
“And you do?”
Theo took a long drag. “Nah. She’s playing a different game. I saw her with Ben earlier. Looked like she was explaining quantum physics to him and he was just staring at her tits. Poor bastard never stood a chance.”
They fell into a comfortable, bawdy silence. Vivienne held her breath, pressed against the cold wood siding. She should leave. This was beneath her. It was vulgar.
Liam spoke again, his tone shifting to something more contemplative. “You know who I don’t get, though? The Boss.”
Vivienne’s heart stuttered.
“Devereux? What about her?”
“Just… she’s like a fucking museum piece. All perfect and locked behind glass. You ever wonder what that’s about?”
Theo snorted. “She’s about a hundred years old, Liam. She’s somebody’s stern aunt.”
“She’s forty-nine, you idiot. I saw her HR file when I was setting up the new server. And look at her. Properly look. That hair. Those cheekbones. She’s still got the body of a… a racehorse. All tense and bred for winning.”
“A racehorse?” Theo laughed. “You’re pissed.”
“I’m serious!” Liam insisted, his voice a conspiratorial stage-whisper. “All that ice-queen, CEO shit. The way she looks at you in a meeting, like you’re a speck on her shoe. Imagine being the one to melt that. Imagine being the guy who makes her… forget herself. Makes her messy. That’s the real trophy. Moreau’s a fun weekend. Devereux? That’s a lifetime achievement.”
Theo considered this. “You’re a deviant.”
“I’m an artist. It’s about the… the deconstruction of a monument. The hotter the fire, the harder the steel, right? Bet she’s a wildcat underneath it all. All that control has to go somewhere.”
“Probably goes into making our lives hell with budget reviews.”
They laughed again, the moment passing. Theo flicked his cigarette butt into a metal bucket. “Come on, last call’s probably soon. I need another whiskey to survive the trust-fall exercises tomorrow.”
Their footsteps receded, the service door swishing shut, leaving Vivienne alone in a profound and ringing silence.
The cold was gone. In its place was a spreading, liquid warmth that started in her stomach and flooded outwards, making her fingers tingle. Her face burned.
‘A wildcat underneath it all.’
‘The real trophy.’
‘Makes her forget herself. Makes her messy.’
The words were crude, reductive, objectifying. They should have infuriated her. They did infuriate her. A sharp, familiar spike of indignation rose in her chest. How dare they? She was their CEO. A landmark. Not a… a conquest to be speculated about by drunk children.
But beneath the outrage, a darker, more truthful current pulled. It wasn’t outrage she felt humming in her veins. It was recognition.
Liam, with his drunkard’s philosophy, had sketched the outline of her own secret fantasy. To be unraveled. To be made to forget the clockwork precision of her life, the performed composure, the decorative loneliness. To be deconstructed. He made it sound cheap, a vulgar prize. But the core of it… the core of it was what she craved with a shame that now felt twice as heavy.
Sasha knew. Sasha had always known. She didn’t see a monument. She saw the hairline fractures, the rust under the gilt. And she wasn’t speculating from a distance with a beer in her hand. She was here, applying precise, irresistible pressure. Ben on the deck had been a demonstration. A preview.
The warmth between Vivienne’s legs was a blunt, undeniable fact. It was there, stirred by the graphic, disrespectful conversation as much as by the memory of Sasha’s control. The two things were braiding together in her mind, shame and arousal becoming indistinguishable.
She finally pushed off from the wall, her legs unsteady. She didn’t go back to the main lounge. She couldn’t face the light, the questions, the sight of Ben trying to avoid her eyes, or Sasha’s knowing glance. She took the exterior stairs up to the guest rooms, her hand shaky on the rail.
The corridor was deserted, hushed. Her room was at the far end. As she passed Sasha’s door, she stopped.
It was just a door. Pale oak, like all the others. A sliver of warm light glowed from underneath. Was she inside? Was she alone? Was she thinking about the deck, about Ben, about the woman listening from the shadows?
Vivienne’s hand lifted, almost of its own volition. Her knuckles hovered an inch from the wood. Her breath hitched. What would she say? ‘I heard them talking about me.’ ‘I saw what you did.’ ‘I’m the monument. Can you make me forget?’
The silence from within the room felt watchful. Expectant.
With a shuddering exhale, Vivienne let her hand fall. She fled to her own room, locking the door behind her as if chased. She leaned against it, chest heaving. In the mirror across the suite, she saw a stranger: hair slipping from its chignon, eyes too wide, too dark, color high on her aristocratic cheeks. She looked flustered. She looked messy.
A wildcat. A trophy.
The words echoed, no longer just Liam’s. They were her own now. She walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, staring out at the black void of the valley. Her reflection ghosted over the landscape, a pale, trapped thing.
Down below, illuminated by submerged lights, the infinity pool glistened, a rectangle of impossible, turquoise calm. The mist from the lake below curled around its edges.
And there was a figure, alone, cutting a slow, silent lap through the water. A sleek head, strong shoulders moving with fluid grace. Sasha.
She swam with the same effortless command she did everything else. Vivienne watched, her forehead cool against the glass. She watched until Sasha reached the far edge, pulled herself up in one smooth motion, and stood, water streaming from her body in the moonlight. She didn’t look up. She simply stood there, gazing out at the mountains, a statue of self-possession.
Then, as if feeling the weight of the gaze from above, she turned her head slowly. She looked directly up at the bank of windows, directly, it seemed, at Vivienne’s dark pane.
She couldn’t possibly see her. The light was wrong. It was an illusion.
Sasha lifted a hand. Not a wave. A simple, slow raising of her fingers in silent acknowledgement. Or a summons.
She stood there for five more seconds, then turned and walked away, disappearing into the shadows toward the sliding doors of the pool house, leaving only ripples on the water’s surface.
Vivienne remained at the window, her reflection now fused with the image of the empty, glowing pool. The warmth inside her had crystallized into a hard, desperate knot of want. The conversation on the smoking terrace, the scene on the deck, the silent figure in the water—it was all a single, continuous thread. And she was following it, helplessly, towards a cliff she could no longer pretend she didn't see.