The Poisonus whispers
1777 Words
The ballroom buzzed like a hive someone had just kicked.
Vivienne felt every stare like needles.
“Who is that tramp hanging off Raphael Moreau?”
“She looks like she mugged a rock star and stole his wardrobe.”
“Shouldn’t the future Madame Moreau at least pretend to be civilized?”
Raphael didn’t flinch. If anything, the whispers seemed to amuse him. He kept one possessive hand at the small of her back while he slid the engagement ring, an obscene cushion-cut sapphire surrounded by diamonds onto her finger as if it had always belonged there.
The applause that followed was thin, polite, and entirely for his benefit.
The second the orchestra struck the final note, Vivienne tried to escape. Three women in couture gowns materialised like perfumed vultures, blocking her path.
“Which family are you from, exactly?”
“That outfit is a crime against silk. Did you dress in the dark?”
“Do you honestly believe you’re fit to breathe the same air as Monsieur Moreau?”
Vivienne flashed a razor-sharp smile and stepped around them. Their leader, tall, blonde, dripping old money wasn’t finished.
“In terms of taste, darling, the three of us combined still wouldn’t qualify to polish Raphael’s shoes. But tell me, has he ever let you within arm’s length before tonight?”
“How dare you…”
The blonde smirked. “Exactly. Apologise, or we’ll make sure you never leave this room upright.”
Across the marble floor, a young man in a midnight-blue tux raised his glass toward Raphael.
“Zeke Valcour,” he called, grinning like a shark. “Where did you dig her up, cousin? Grandfather is going to have a stroke when he sees this one.”
Raphael’s voice was lazy, lethal. “He wants a granddaughter-in-law. I delivered one. Gender confirmed, pulse present. Mission accomplished.”
Zeke laughed. “As long as it’s warm and breathing, right?”
Vivienne’s fingers curled into fists inside the folds of her leather jacket. Raphael felt it; his thumb brushed once across her spine, a silent order to hold still.
The three vultures closed in again, phones already out, ready to immortalise her humiliation for every society page from Monaco to Saint-Tropez.
Raphael turned his head, just enough for the chandeliers to catch the ice in his eyes.
“Touch her,” he said, soft enough that only the people closest heard, “and I’ll ruin every last one of you before breakfast.”
The circle froze.
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
In the sudden hush, Raphael leaned down until his lips grazed Vivienne’s ear.
“Keep breathing, sauvageonne. The night is young, and I haven’t even started playing yet.”
Zeke clicked his tongue, swirling the champagne in his glass. “Out of every woman breathing, cousin, you had to pick that one?”
Raphael lifted his flute in a lazy toast, eyes never leaving Vivienne. “Her mouth tastes like rebellion. I’m partial.”
Zeke choked on his drink.
A sharp splash cut through the music. One of the three society vultures had “accidentally” flung her red wine straight across Vivienne’s jacket.
Zeke’s brows shot up. “Looks like your little wildcat is getting disciplined. Not stepping in?”
Raphael’s smile never wavered. “Watch.”
Vivienne didn’t flinch. Instead, with terrifying calm, she seized the blonde’s perfectly coiffed hair with her left hand, the brunette’s with her right, and slammed their heads together with a c***k that silenced half the ballroom.
The two women crumpled like silk handkerchiefs. The third stumbled backward, mouth open in a silent scream.
Vivienne dusted her palms together, stepped over the groaning heap, and flicked her wrist at the remaining woman.
“Move.”
The woman practically levitated out of her way.
Zeke let out a low whistle. “Now I understand the appeal.”
Raphael’s gaze had gone dark, predatory, and unmistakably pleased.
Lucien appeared at his elbow. “Sir, shall I escort her to change?”
Raphael didn’t answer him. He was already moving.
Vivienne found herself backed against a marble pillar, Raphael’s large frame blocking out the room. The air between them crackled.
“You’re insane,” she hissed.
“You just knocked out two heiresses with one move,” he murmured, voice velvet and smoke. “I’m in love.”
She glared up at him. “All I did was borrow your lips for three seconds and now I’m apparently engaged to you. Don’t you think you’re overreacting? A simple thank-you would’ve worked. Or money. I accept cash.”
His smile turned slow and dangerous. He braced one hand beside her head, caging her in.
“Name your price, sauvageonne. How much is a single kiss from Raphael Moreau worth to you?”
Vivienne studied the sharp cut of his cheekbones, the wicked curve of his mouth, the heat rolling off him in waves. For the first time that night, something that wasn’t anger flickered through her.
She rose on tiptoe, still nowhere near his height and let her lips hover a breath from his.
“More than you can afford,” she whispered.
Then she slipped under his arm and walked away, leaving him staring after her like a man who’d just been handed the one thing on earth he couldn’t buy.
Raphael’s eyes narrowed, amusement sharpening into something far more lethal.
“Name it,” he said, voice low. “And don’t insult me with a number under thirty million. You’re not a teenager, and we both know that wasn’t your first kiss. Make it worth my time.”
Vivienne laughed, short, incredulous, glorious. Lucien actually winced. Thirty million euros for a three-second kiss? The man was either insane or had never been told no in his life.
Raphael lifted one hand. Lucien stepped back instantly.
He hooked a single finger under Vivienne’s chin, tilting her face to his. The touch was light, but the air around them turned electric.
“You embarrassed me in front of the entire city,” he murmured. “Own it. Or run. Your choice.”
Vivienne’s smile turned feral. “Can I at least use the ladies’ room first, darling fiancé? Unless you want me to pee on your marble floor in protest?”
Raphael stared for a beat, then flicked two fingers at Lucien. “Take her.”
Five minutes later Lucien returned alone, face pale.
“Sir… she went out the window. Third floor. Security’s already chasing her through the gardens.”
Raphael didn’t move. He simply leaned back against the leather sofa in the private salon, stretched his long legs, and smiled like a man who had planned every second of this chaos.
“Good,” he said softly. “Find out where she lives. Have the gifts delivered before dawn. All of them.”
Zeke, lounging in the doorway, let out a low whistle. “You’re actually going to marry that hurricane?”
Raphael’s gaze was distant, satisfied. “Only a woman like her could survive me.”
Midnight had long since bled into the early hours when Vivienne finally slipped through the gate of the old Laurent villa in the Panier district.
The slap came before she even crossed the threshold.
Her father, stepfather, Étienne Laurent, loomed in the doorway, hand still raised. “The nerve of you! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Vivienne dodged the second swing with practiced ease.
Étienne’s face was purple. “You humiliated us! Dressed like a street rat, kissing some stranger in public, Margot is ruined! Every matchmaker in Provence will laugh us out of existence. On your knees. Apologise to your mother right now.”
Vivienne’s voice was ice. “She’s not my mother.”
“She’s the only mother you’ve got, and she’s trying to secure your future before I cut you out of the will completely. You think your real mother’s family money will save you? It’s mine now.”
Vivienne met his eyes, unflinching. “Keep it. I don’t want a single euro soaked in Margot’s perfume and your cowardice.”
She turned toward the stairs.
Étienne lunged again. This time Raphael’s voice cut through the night from the shadows of the courtyard gate low, calm, and utterly lethal).
“Touch her one more time, and they’ll be fishing your body out of the Old Port by morning.”
Étienne froze.
Raphael stepped into the light, flanked by four silent bodyguards and a fleet of black vans idling behind him.
In the driveway sat crate after crate stamped with the Moreau crest jewels, designer gowns, a midnight-blue Aston Martin with a giant white bow.
Raphael didn’t even glance at Étienne. His eyes were locked on Vivienne.
“The price just went up, sauvageonne,” he said softly. “Run again, and next time I won’t ask.”
Vivienne’s voice cut through the courtyard like a blade. “She’s just a stepmother who can’t wait to sell me off so she can keep every cent that should have been mine.”
Margot appeared in the doorway behind Étienne, eyes already brimming with perfectly timed tears. “Étienne, darling, don’t be angry with her. She’s young. She doesn’t understand. Her little tantrums… they’re my failure as a mother.”
Étienne’s fury wavered. He hated seeing his beautiful wife upset. “Ungrateful brat! Margot treats you like her own blood and you spit in her face!”
Margot dabbed at her cheeks with a silk handkerchief. “It’s all right, chéri. She can call me whatever she likes. I don’t mind if she calls me Aunt Margot. Really.”
Vivienne had seen this performance a hundred times. Margot could cry on cue, play the wounded saint, and have every man in the room eating out of her hand in seconds. Étienne, like all the others, was blind to the venom underneath the perfume.
Vivienne pulled a thick folder from her jacket and slapped it into Étienne’s chest.
“Since you’re so concerned about my future, why don’t you read what your loving wife has been arranging for me? Every ‘gentleman’ on that list is older than you, twice as rich, and three times as disgusting. If any of them actually interested me, I’d happily walk down the aisle tomorrow.”
Étienne tore open the folder. Photos, bank transfers, medical reports, men with criminal records, men with wives already, men who collected teenage mistresses like watches. His face drained of colour with every page.
Margot’s tears dried instantly.
Étienne’s hand trembled. The folder slipped from his fingers and scattered across the courtyard stones.
- Writer
