From Betrayed Luna to Wolf Queen (Lillian) novel Chapter 81

CHAPTER 81

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Vivian sat up in bed, her hands shaking, her phone screen blurring as tears pooled in her eyes. She scrolled through message after message, each one colder than the last, each one driving another nail into the soffin of the life she had been living twenty four hours ago.

The friends who had praised her at the party. The women who had complimented her dress. The men who had offered partnerships and business cards and promises of future collaborations. Every single one of them had either gone silent or turned hostile.

She was alone.

The thought hit her with physical force, and she pressed the phone against her chest, her breathing shallow and rapid.

Then a different thought surfaced. Sharper. Angrier.

Brandon.

Brandon had caused this. Brandon had lied about Victor Kane. Brandon had taken credit for something he never arranged. Brandon had stood in that hall and pointed his finger at her and tried to save himself by destroying her.

Brandon owed her an explanation.

She grabbed the phone and dialed his number.

It rang once. Then the call dropped.

He rejected it. He actually rejected my call.

Vivian’s jaw tightened. She dialed again.

Rejected.

Again.

Rejected.

“Pick up the phone, you coward.” The words came out through clenched teeth, low and vicious. She dialed a fourth time, her thumb stabbing the screen hard enough to leave a mark.

Rejected.

A fifth time.

Rejected.

A sixth time.

The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Five.

Then Brandon’s voice came through, and it was nothing like the warm, confident tone she had grown accustomed to hearing. It was flat. Exhausted. Stripped of every ounce of the charm he had worn like a second skin for as long as she had known him.

“What do you want, Vivian?”

“What do I want?” Vivian’s voice climbed immediately. “I want to know what happened last night! I want to know why Victor Kane didn’t know who I was! I want to know why you lied to me about everything!”

“I didn’t lie to you.

“Brandon’s tone carried no conviction whatsoever. He sounded like a man reading from a script he no longer believed in. “I was given bad information. I passed it along. That’s all.”

“Bad information?” Vivian threw the covers off and stood up, pacing the length of her bedroom. “You told me your father

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