Vivienne's POV
He called at nine forty seven.
I was still in the dress from the launch. Heels off. Sitting on my sofa with a glass of water I hadn't touched and the city doing its late night thing outside the window. His face across that crowded room was still sitting in my chest. That expression. The urgency in it.
My phone lit up.
I picked up before the second ring.
"Vivienne."
I knew immediately.
Not from the word. From the quality underneath it. I had spent months learning the different versions of Charles's voice. The easy version. The warm version. The careful version he used when he was giving me something real but keeping the rest of it back.
This was none of those.
This was new.
Not fear exactly. Something sitting right next to it. The sound of a man who had been holding
