NOVGO.NET Chapter 300: The Gift
Chapter 300: The Gift
“Where is he?” Vivienne repeated, her voice echoing slightly in the empty foyer.
She spun around, scanning the living room, the hallway, the entrance. Nothing. Just the stillness of a house that had been abandoned.
Helena frowned, her gaze drifting to the antique grandfather clock standing sentinel near the entrance. She squinted, her mind struggling to interpret the position of the hands.
“Vivienne…” Helena whispered, her eyes widening. “Look at the time.”
Vivienne followed her gaze.
The gold hands of the clock were unmistakable. The short hand was past the four. The long hand was near the three.
“Four fifteen?” Vivienne muttered, confusion knitting her brows. “In the morning? But the sun…”
She looked at the windows. The light wasn’t rising. It was heavy. Golden. Slanting low across the floor.
“It’s not morning,” Helena breathed, a wave of shock washing over her face. “It’s afternoon. Late afternoon.”
“What?” Vivienne gasped. “That’s impossible. We… we slept the whole day?”
They looked at each other, total bewilderment in their eyes.
They were high-functioning women. CEOs. Assistants who managed billion-dollar schedules. They survived on four hours of sleep and espresso. The idea that they had passed out for nearly twelve hours straight… was inconceivable.
Then, the bewilderment shifted.
Vivienne shifted her weight, and a sharp, sweet ache shot up her thighs. She felt the bruised sensitivity of her skin, the deep, exhausted heaviness in her muscles.
Her cheeks flushed a deep, crimson red.
It wasn’t that they were lazy.
It was him.
“He…” Vivienne’s voice trembled, dropping to a whisper. “He didn’t just tire us out, Helena. He shut us down.”
Helena lowered her head, embarrassed but unable to hide the small, satisfied smile tugging at her lips. “He broke us so hard our bodies literally forced us into a coma to recover.”
The realization hung between them. They hadn’t just been fucked; they had been dismantled. Alex had driven them so far past their limits that their systems had simply collapsed the moment he stopped touching them.
“But why didn’t he wake us up?” Vivienne complained, a note of childish petulance entering her voice. She felt a sudden, irrational spike of neediness. “He could have woken us. He could have…”
She bit her lip.
“He just left us there? Unconscious?”
“Maybe he tried,” Helena suggested softly, though she looked just as disappointed.
“Come on,” Vivienne commanded, though her voice lacked its usual ironclad certainty. She grabbed the banister, her knuckles whitening slightly. “Let’s… let’s clean ourselves up. We look like wrecks.”
She turned sharply, starting back up the stairs, her naked form moving with a mix of soreness and determination.
But beneath the bravado, a cold knot of anxiety tightened in her stomach. She felt a pang of abandonment she hadn’t expected. It was irrational… she was Vivienne Vanderbilt, she didn’t need anyone… but right now, the silence of the house felt suffocating.
She didn’t want silence. She wanted him here. She wanted him to wake up, grab her hair, and take them again. She needed the reassurance of his weight.
Helena followed close behind, faring no better.
They reached the top of the stairs and hurried down the hall, their bare feet silent on the plush runner.
The room was exactly as they had left it… a disaster zone of tangled sheets and musk… but the man who had created the chaos was gone.
The bathroom door stood open, revealing dark tiles and dry towels. No steam. No sound.
Then, she saw it.
It was a splash of white against the dark wood of the nightstand, propped up deliberately against the empty wine bottle.
A piece of heavy, cream-colored cardstock.
“There’s a note,” Vivienne said, snatching it up.
Helena crowded in close, pressing her cheek against Vivienne’s naked shoulder to read over her arm. The handwriting was bold, sharp, and commanding… exactly like the man himself.
To my favorite conquests,
You two were dead to the world. I didn’t have the heart to wake you… yet.
I’m giving you the rest of the weekend to recover. Use the time wisely. Fix yourselves up. Ice what needs icing.
And plan.
I’ll be back on Sunday evening. Have the “gift” ready for me.
P.S. When I come back, wear something easy to tear. Because I’m going to eat you both alive.
— ALEX.
“Eat us alive?” Helena shivered violently, her thighs clamping together with an instinctive, desperate need for friction.
“Oh god…” she whimpered, biting her lower lip until it turned white. “Why… why does that make me so wet?”
Vivienne felt the exact same rush… a hot, heavy pool of liquid desire settling low in her belly, making her knees weak.
He wasn’t abandoning them.
He was starving them.
He was letting them marinate in their own need, letting the anticipation build and twist until they were begging for him to break down the door.
She let out a long, shaky sigh of relief, the paper fluttering from her fingers onto the ruined sheets.
“The gift,” Helena repeated, testing the weight of the word on her tongue.
Then, the dark reality of the instruction settled in. She looked at the empty spot on the bed, then up at Vivienne, her eyes widening.
”He means Jennifer.”
The name hung in the air, heavy, complicated, and dangerous.
Vivienne didn’t answer immediately. She turned away, walking to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the estate. She wrapped her arms around her naked waist, staring out at the manicured grounds. The afternoon shadows were lengthening on the lawn, stretching out like grasping, dark fingers.
”Vivienne…” Helena’s voice was soft, hesitant behind her. “Are we… are we really going to do this?”
Helena moved closer, her reflection ghostly in the glass beside Vivienne’s.
”I mean… she’s your daughter. And Alex… well, we know what he is. He’s a predator. He’s going to break her. He’s going to do exactly what he did to us.”
Vivienne turned slowly, a dark, amused smile playing on her lips.
”Tell me, Helena,” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Are you regretting it?”
She stepped closer, tilting her head.
”He broke you. He used you like a toy. Do you wish he hadn’t?”
Helena opened her mouth to argue, but the words died instantly in her throat. She froze. She looked at the ruined bed, feeling the phantom weight of his hands still on her body.
Did she regret it?
God, no.
She didn’t regret it a single second. In fact, she was craving him. Even more.
”But… But…” Helena stuttered, her voice weak, grasping for a moral defense that had already crumbled to dust.
Vivienne didn’t wait for her to finish. She knew the answer.
She turned away, walking back to the tall windows that overlooked the estate, her naked silhouette framed against the dying light.
”You know the situation, Helena,” Vivienne said finally, her voice cold and pragmatic.
”The vultures are circling. My brothers… Richard… they’ve been meeting in secret for weeks.”
She turned from the window, her eyes hard, stripping away the sentimentality.
”They want the empire. They want to swallow it whole. Richard even had the audacity to ask me to marry him. Can you imagine?”
She scoffed, the memory bitter. “He actually thought he could tame me with a ring. That I would just hand over my shares like a blushing bride.”
She turned back to Helena, her expression hardening.
“Who do you think he will target next, Helena? What will his next step be?”
Helena’s breath hitched as the political map clicked into place.
”Jennifer,” she whispered.
”Exactly,” Vivienne hissed.