"You... you let me," Jennifer whispered, her voice barely a thread of sound.
The rage that had been sustaining her evaporated, replaced by a hollow, sucking vacuum of humiliation.
Helena was right.
No one had dragged her to this villa in chains. No one had forced her to climb those stairs or spy through that curtain.
She had walked into this trap with her eyes wide open, thinking she was the hunter when she'd been prey all along.
"Exactly," Vivienne said, her voice cool and clinical.
She stepped closer to the table, her naked form moving with the confidence of a woman who'd won a war her daughter hadn't even known they were fighting.
"We simply provided the stage, darling. Your own desperate need to prove yourself did all the rest."
She stopped beside Jennifer's trembling form, looking down at her daughter with something between pity and contempt.
