I Slept With a Stranger to Forget Him

Chapter 5 His Fiancée Set Me Up

Rage blazed in Vivian's eyes as she glared at him, her chest rising and falling sharply.

Lucien raised a brow.

Sensing the shift in mood, the girl beside him hurried to undress. Within moments, her smooth pale skin was fully exposed.

"Mr. Graves," she purred as she slipped into his arms, "if Miss Yates doesn't enjoy this sort of thing, let me take care of you instead. I promise I'll make you feel very good."

Vivian stared at the way their bodies pressed together. Then she strode forward, yanked the girl away, and slapped her hard across the face.

"Get out."

"You!"

The girl clutched her cheek in shock, then turned to Lucien with watery eyes. "Mr. Graves, are you really going to let her treat me like this?"

Lucien merely spread his hands, his expression unchanged. "Can't be helped. I'm new to Ashcroft, and Miss Yates has quite the background. I wouldn't dare cross her."

The girl bit her lip in frustration, but in the end, she could only storm out.

Silence settled over the room.

Vivian kept her eyes on the door, trying to hide the faint tremor in her right hand. Then Lucien suddenly took it in his, his thumb brushing gently over her reddened palm as he massaged it.

"Does it hurt?"

She tried to pull away, failed, and turned her face aside instead.

"No need to be so angry. She's gone now, isn't she?"

"Who sent her?"

Lucien let out a low laugh. "You knew?"

Of course she knew. The Yates family had once been powerful, and Vivian was far from naive. She had seen the malice in that girl's eyes clearly enough.

But knowing the truth did not stop it from bothering her. So she answered flatly, "No idea. I only know she's not your type."

The moment the words left her mouth, Lucien leaned in, his burning gaze locking onto hers. Vivian instinctively leaned back, but he only tightened his arm around her waist.

"And what type do I like?"

She said nothing. Instead, she pressed down on the hand roaming at her waist and kept her eyes fixed on the spot on his chest where that girl had been clinging moments before.

Lucien sighed and released her. "Your dear brother sent her. Or rather, the Lancaster family did."

Vivian's expression hardened at once.

Victor Lancaster's influence reached nearly every corner of the city, from the underworld to high society. More importantly, he had a daughter named Fiona.

At the thought of that woman, all polished grace on the surface and madness beneath, Vivian clenched her fists until her nails bit deep into her palms.

A few days later, the Lancaster family held a grand banquet, and nearly everyone of status in the city attended. Vivian arrived on Adrian's arm.

"Behave once we're inside," Adrian warned. "I told you before, what happened to Evelyn wasn't intentional. Fiona was drunk that day. She didn't know what she was doing."

Vivian wore a simple white dress, but her figure made even modest clothing look dangerously alluring. She turned to the window and said nothing.

Adrian frowned.

The day he learned Vivian had gone into Lucien's room and thrown out the woman the Lancasters had sent, he had ordered the door broken down without hesitation. The Lancaster family was infamous for its methods. They would rather kill ten innocents than let one enemy slip away.

If Vivian stayed close to Lucien, a man of unknown origin who had arrived in the city with a private force and immediately stirred up chaos, she would inevitably be dragged into the storm.

The memory of Vivian and Lucien wrapped in each other's arms, kissing as if no one else existed, made Adrian's jaw tighten.

"Vivian, Victor wants to see you. About what happened before... forget it. I'm here. I'll protect you."

Vivian turned and let out a cold laugh. "If you can protect me, then why force me to come?"

"Vivian!" Adrian snapped. "Do you understand how serious this is? Lucien stormed into this city with armed men and has been causing trouble right under Victor's nose. His intentions are obviously not pure. How can you side with an outsider?"

"An outsider?"

Vivian had no idea who Adrian considered the outsider, but she knew one thing with absolute certainty: she and Fiona would never be family.

"In any case," Adrian said sharply, "watch your mouth when we go in."

"Oh."

The Lancaster Estate gleamed with wealth and grandeur, its halls crowded with an endless stream of distinguished guests.

The moment Vivian entered the reception hall, her eyes landed on Fiona, radiant and flawless in a custom designer gown. Fiona smiled warmly at her.

"Vivian. You're finally here."