She Used Me for a Dare… Now I Own Her Mother

Chapter 314: The Parrot

”Me time?” Jennifer repeated, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. Her jaw dropped, her mind reeling at the absurdity.

”Yes,” Vivienne murmured, finally stepping away from the window. She moved with a slow, deliberate cadence, her silk robe whispering against the plush carpet. ”Don’t you think I deserve it?”

She walked past the bed, trailing her fingers along the black silk, heading toward the silver ice bucket on the side table.

”I have spent my entire life carrying this family on my back,” she continued, her voice calm and rhythmic, contrasting sharply with Jennifer’s panic. ”I have bled for politics. I have starved for the stock price. I have been a CEO, a politician, a martyr, and a monument to duty.”

She reached the table and picked up the heavy bottle of vintage champagne. She poured a small amount into one of the crystal flutes... not a full serving, just a splash.

She lifted the glass to the candlelight, inspecting the golden hue, watching the bubbles rise with a critical, narrowed eye.

”Don’t I deserve a single night to... indulge?”

She brought the rim to her lips. She didn’t drink to quench a thirst. She took a tiny, calculated sip, letting the liquid rest on her tongue for a second, judging the temperature, the vintage, the crispness.

She closed her eyes and hummed a soft, satisfied note. Perfect.

”Indulge?” Jennifer’s voice cracked, rising to a scream. ”This isn’t about losing a contract, Mother! This is extinction! Richard Blackwood is at the gates, the board is ready to hang us, and the entire empire is collapsing into dust while you stand here taste-testing wine!”

”Shhh.”

Vivienne placed the glass back down with a soft clink. The test was complete. The prop was ready.

She turned fully toward Jennifer, her eyes losing that distant look of appraisal and sharpening into focus.

She began to close the remaining distance between them. She moved slowly, her hips swaying with a languid, predatory grace that Jennifer had never seen in the boardroom.

Jennifer stiffened as her mother invaded her personal space. The scent of jasmine and musk became suffocating, a physical weight pressing against her chest. She wanted to step back, to retreat, but her pride rooted her to the spot.

Vivienne stopped inches from her face. She looked Jennifer up and down, her dark, amused eyes scanning her daughter’s frantic expression, her disheveled hair, her trembling hands.

Then, Vivienne reached out.

Her hand... cool and perfectly manicured... brushed against Jennifer’s shoulder.

Jennifer flinched, a reflex of pure nerves, but Vivienne didn’t pull away. She carefully, deliberately pinched the fabric of Jennifer’s blazer, as if picking off a speck of invisible lint. She smoothed the lapel, her touch gentle but undeniably condescending.

”You’re vibrating, darling,” Vivienne whispered, her voice laced with a cruel sweetness.

She leaned in closer, her breath warm against Jennifer’s ear.

”It looks like the weight of the crown is a lot heavier than you expected, isn’t it?”

Jennifer froze, the insult piercing her armor.

Vivienne pulled back, a smirk playing on her lips. Her eyes drifted past Jennifer, looking at the room behind her... at the black silk sheets, the scattering of rose petals, the flickering candles. The stage she had curated with such precision.

”Tell me, Jennifer,” Vivienne asked softly, her voice dropping to a husky purr.

She looked back at her daughter, her eyes gleaming with a strange, dark anticipation.

”Since you are here... give me your opinion. Do you think it’s... good enough?”

​”Good enough?”

​Jennifer choked on the words, a laugh of pure disbelief tearing from her throat. It wasn’t a happy sound; it was jagged, broken.

​She stepped back, looking at the black silk sheets and the scattered rose petals with open revulsion. The cloying scent of jasmine and vanilla suddenly made her stomach turn.

​”Is that... is that really what you’re asking me?” She shook her head, her face twisting into a sneer of profound disappointment.

​”God, I was so stupid,” she whispered, the words trembling with rage. ”I idolized you. Do you know that? I modeled my entire life after you. I wanted to be just like Vivienne Vanderbilt... the Iron Queen. The woman who never flinched. The woman who married the business.”

​Jennifer’s eyes filled with angry tears, but she refused to let them fall.

​”Every time Aunt Cassandra told me you were cold... every time she said you didn’t care about us, only about your own comfort... I defended you. I told her she was wrong. I told her, ’My mother is a titan. She sacrifices everything for the House.’”

​She gestured violently at the room... at the candles, the champagne, the seduction stage.

​”But she was right, wasn’t she? You aren’t a titan. You’re just... selfish.”

​Jennifer took a step closer, her voice dropping to a hiss.

​”The family is in chaos. Richard Blackwood is threatening to destroy everything we’ve built. And you? You ran away. You threw your own daughter to the wolves just to save your own skin.”

​She pointed a shaking finger at Vivienne’s chest.

​”You are letting him take me. You are letting him turn me into a trophy wife, ending my career before it even starts, just so you can hide here and... what?”

​Jennifer looked around the room again, her expression curdling with disgust.

​”So you can play ’Mistress’? You trade your daughter’s future for a weekend fling? And then... you have the audacity... the sheer, twisted sickness... to ask that same daughter if your sex den is decorated well enough?”

​Vivienne didn’t interrupt. She stood there watching Jennifer’s meltdown with the detached curiosity of a scientist observing a lab rat.

​”You are pathetic,” Jennifer spat. ”I knew you were arrogant, Mother. But I didn’t know you were this cheap.”

​She spun toward the bathroom door, her eyes blazing. She had figured it out. The smell of cologne. The second glass. The secrecy.

​”Who is he?” she demanded, her voice shrill.

​She sneered, a cruel, mocking expression twisting her beautiful features.

​”Let me guess. Some twenty-year-old fitness instructor? A pool boy? Someone young enough to make you feel like you still have power? Does he even know who you are? Or does he just like the way your credit card swipes?”

​Vivienne’s eyes flashed... not with anger, but with a sudden, dark amusement.

​”Jennifer...” she warned softly.

​”No!” Jennifer shouted. ”I am done respecting you. You want to act like a teenager? Fine. But I’m the adult now.”

​She turned to the closed bathroom door and screamed at the wood.

​”You can come out now! The fun is over! I don’t care who you are... grab your clothes and get out before I have security drag you out!”

Vivienne watched her daughter spin toward the bathroom, watched her scream at the closed door, watched her chest heave with rage and humiliation and desperation.

And for the first time since Jennifer had burst into the bedroom, Vivienne’s expression softened.

Not with affection. With pity.

”Look at you,” Vivienne whispered, her voice carrying genuine pain now. She gestured at Jennifer... at her wild eyes, her trembling hands, her desperation. ”Running around my bedroom, screaming at shadows, calling your own mother ’cheap.’”

She shook her head slowly.

”What have they done to you?”