She rushed out of the room, her robe dragging behind her, and ran down the stairs.
She picked up the old phone in the sitting room and prayed, "Please let this be about anything else. A fire, a robbery, aliens, just not the party."
"Hello?" she said, trying to sound calm.
Silence. Then, her father sighed. It was a heavy, disappointed sound.
"What is all this news?" his sharp voice barked.
"What news?" Vivien asked, acting like she didn't know she was the talk of the whole city.
"Don't play dumb," her father snapped. "You embarrassed us again. I told you to behave, but you just can't do it, can you?"
"I...wait, that's not what happened-"
"I don't want excuses! If Dante cancels this engagement, our deal with the Moretti family is dead."
There it was. He didn't care if his daughter was okay. He only cared about money and power. To him, she was just a tool for business.
"If you ruin this," he said, his voice cold as ice, "you ruin everything we've built. You're costing us millions. Do you understand?"
In the background, her mother started screaming. "She's a disgrace! How did I have such a daughter? You're not a child. you're a walking disaster!"
Vivien gripped the phone until her knuckles turned white. She wanted to scream back. She wanted to tell them she tried to be invisible.
But she just closed her mouth. What was the point? They wouldn't believe her anyway. In the end she knows why Viella always hated them.
Her father continued, not even bothering to pause. "Look at the news. Fix this mess before it kills our business."
Vivien reluctantly grabbed the tablet from the coffee table and pulled up the headlines
"The Most Famous Lady Vielle Strikes Again. This Time, An Innocent Waitress Bears the Burn."
"Mafia Tycoon Dante Moretti Publicly Loses His Temper on Fiancée , Is This the End of Their Bloody Romance?"
"Tragedy at the Gala: Lady Vielle pushed an innocent person, Causing Her to Fall and Bleed"
Her eyes widened.
"Wait, what?! That wasn't even my fault!" she whispered furiously.
She was pushed. Shoved, actually. Someone from behind some gossiping noble had lost balance and knocked her into the Female Lead. She barely had time to register it before the FL slipped, fell, and cut her hand on a broken glass.
But of course, the narrative demon spun it differently. The public loved the heroine. Viella? She was born to be the villainess.
Even Dante hadn't let her explain.
He'd looked at her with those cold, unreadable eyes, jaw tight, as if she had intentionally caused the accident just to get attention.
Her throat tightened at the memory.
"I'm not even the villain," she whispered. "But somehow, this plot keeps shoving the costume on me."
Back on the line, her father's voice rumbled like thunder. "Didn't I warn you last time? This is your FINAL warning. I covered this up again, but this is the last time. And another thing.."
"...what now?" she said, already dead inside.
"Your mother, your sister, and I are coming to your estate tomorrow."
Vivien sat up so straight her back cracked. "Wait what?! Why? NO!"
"I didn't ask you. I'm telling you. Prepare for our arrival."
And with a final, icy "Arrivederci," he hung up.
(Arrivederci - Goodbye)
Click.
She sat there, phone still pressed to her ear,
A beat passed.
Then
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
She launched the phone across the couch, stood in the middle of the room, threw her arms up dramatically and looked straight up to the heavens.
"ARE YOU WATCHING, GOD?!" she yelled. "DO YOU SEE ME? IS THIS WHAT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IS SUPPOSED TO FEEL LIKE?! BECAUSE IT SUCKS!"
The staff all peered into the room. One butler whispered, "She's looking up again."
Another maid muttered, "She's talking to God this time. That's new."
Vivien spun around and pointed. "EVERYONE. LISTEN UP."
The maids jumped to attention.
"My family is coming. My family. Which means I want this house looking like a Pinterest board threw up. Hide the wine. replace curtains. Replace every fork with gold. My mother thinks stainless steel is a poor peoples shit"
A maid gasped. "Is Lady Marcella coming too?!"
Vivien looked at her grimly. "Yes."
The maid shivered. Another whispered, "She made me cry by just asking what tea I brewed."
The staff scattered into panic.
Vivien fell back into her chair "Great. My terrifying family's coming, Dante hates me, and the internet thinks I tripped the nation's sweetheart on purpose."
She looked up again.
"I swear, if Dante shows up with that stupid smirk and more psychological trauma, I will lock myself in the wine cellar."
ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈
Later That Night…
Vivien lay on her bed, her eyes wide open. Sleep was the last thing on her mind.
She began flipping through the pages of her diary, her eyes scanning the messy handwriting.
She has been reading the same page for past 10 minutes.
Suddenly, she noticed a pattern. According to the diary, Dante and Viella had met before the "official" start of the book.
Even today at the party, he said things to her that were never in the original plot.
And now, her parents were visiting. That was the biggest shock of all, in the novel, they were almost never mentioned and certainly never showed up at her estate.
"What changed?" she whispered to the empty room. "Did my arrival trigger the book to start changing? If the plot is different now... does that mean I can actually change my fate?"
A tiny spark of hope flickered in her mind. For the first time, she felt like she wasn't just a passenger on a sinking ship. But at the same time, a nagging feeling pulled at her like she was missing one very important piece of the puzzle.
She tried to think, to remember every detail of the novel, but her brain was exhausted. Her eyelids grew heavy, the diary slipped from her hand, and she finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
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TO BE CONTINUED