Camille went still.
Vivienne continued.
“You weren’t the woman who changed Gabriel. You were simply the woman standing beside him while he repeated himself.”
Camille’s face tightened.
“He chose me.”
Vivienne considered.
“Yes.”
The agreement surprised her.
Then Vivienne added, “And now he’s choosing someone else.”
Camille looked away.
Her eyes filled.
For a moment, Vivienne felt satisfaction.
Sharp.
Immediate.
The kind she had imagined for years.
She watched Camille struggle to contain her tears.
Then said the sentence she had rehearsed so many times that it felt almost inevitable.
“You thought being chosen made you special. It only meant you were next.”
Camille stared at her.
The words landed exactly as Vivienne had hoped.
And for one terrible moment, she enjoyed it.
Camille removed her sunglasses.
Her eyes were red.
She looked at Vivienne across the marble table.
“Does he tell you he loves you?”
Vivienne said nothing.
Camille laughed bitterly.
“Of course he does.”
She looked toward the street.
“Does he tell you I’m impossible? That I check his phone? That I’m suffocating him?”
Vivienne watched her.
“Yes.”
Camille closed her eyes.
For a moment, her expression was so nakedly miserable that Vivienne felt her satisfaction falter.
Then Camille looked back.
“He said those things about you.”
Vivienne went still.
Camille continued.
“When we started seeing each other. He told me you made him feel small. That you questioned every decision. That he could never do anything right.”
Vivienne looked down.
She had suspected as much.
Hearing it aloud was different.
Camille leaned forward.
“He told me I was the first person who believed in him.”
Vivienne laughed once.
A small, humourless sound.
“He told me that when we were twenty-five.”
Camille stared.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Camille whispered, “God.”
She looked down at her hands.
The pearls at her ears moved slightly as she lowered her head.
Vivienne watched her.
Here was the moment she had imagined as victory.
The woman who had taken her husband was finally discovering what it meant to live with him.
But the scene did not feel triumphant.
Camille looked devastated.
Not defeated in some elegant contest.
Simply devastated.
Vivienne felt an uncomfortable recognition.
She had spent months preparing to become the instrument of another woman’s humiliation.
Now, sitting across from her, she realised she had also returned herself to the centre of Gabriel’s life.
Again.
She had reorganised her time around his messages.
His visits.
His needs.
His marriage.
Even her revenge depended on him.
The thought disturbed her more than Camille’s tears.
Camille raised her head.
“Are you going to marry him again?”
Vivienne looked up sharply.
“What?”
“If I leave him. Is that what you want?”
Vivienne stared.
For the first time since arriving, she had no prepared answer.
Camille continued.
“Is that why you did this?”
Vivienne looked down at her coffee.
The surface had gone cold.
She thought about her apartment in Florence.
Her successful consultancy.
The restoration projects she loved.
The quiet evenings she’d once enjoyed.
Then she thought of Gabriel arriving with flowers.
The pleasure of making him wait.
The satisfaction of hearing him complain about Camille.
The imagined victory of being chosen twice.
She looked back.
“No.”
Camille’s expression changed.
“No?”
“I don’t want to marry him.”
“Then what do you want?”
Vivienne opened her mouth.
Stopped.
Camille watched her.
For the first time, the balance between them shifted.
Vivienne had no neat sentence.
No devastating conclusion.
Nothing sharp enough to disguise the truth.
Finally, she said, “I wanted you to know what it felt like.”
Camille stared.
Vivienne continued quietly.
“I wanted you to understand what you helped do to me.”
Camille’s face tightened.
“And now?”
Vivienne looked at her.
Camille’s eyes filled again.
“Now you want me to suffer because you suffered?”
Vivienne did not answer.
Camille leaned back.
For several seconds, she looked away.
Then she turned toward Vivienne with an expression that was no longer frightened.
It was furious.
“You didn’t take your life back. You put the man who ruined it back in the middle of it.”
Vivienne felt the words land.
Camille continued.
“You spent three years becoming someone who didn’t need him. Then you came back because you wanted to prove he still wanted you.”
Vivienne’s jaw tightened.
“Be careful.”
Camille gave a bitter laugh.
“Why? Because you’re better at this than I am?”
She leaned forward.
“Tell me something, Vivienne. When he leaves your bed and comes home to me, do you feel powerful?”
Vivienne held her gaze.
Camille’s voice shook.
“Or do you lie awake wondering whether he’s already telling someone else that neither of us understands him?”
For a moment, Vivienne could not speak.
Camille stood.
She picked up her handbag.
Then stopped.
She looked down at the woman she’d once considered her rival.
“You wanted me to become the wife you used to be.”
Vivienne stared.
Camille’s eyes filled, but her voice steadied.
“Congratulations. And you’ve become the woman you hated.”
She turned and walked away.
Vivienne remained seated.
The waiter approached to ask whether she wanted another espresso.
She shook her head.
For several minutes, she stared at the empty chair.
Then she looked toward her reflection in the café window.
She was beautifully dressed.
Perfectly composed.
No one passing the terrace could have known what had just happened.
She looked exactly like a woman who had won.
She had never felt less certain of what winning meant.
Gabriel called that evening.
Vivienne was standing in her Paris apartment, looking through a folder of drawings for the Antibes restoration.
Her phone vibrated on the table.
She let it ring.
Then answered.
“Gabriel.”
He spoke immediately.
“You met Camille.”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell her?”
Vivienne turned a page.
“The truth.”
He swore.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
She looked up.
For a moment, she was struck by how little he’d changed.
The same accusation.
The same assumption that the real problem was someone else’s decision to expose him.
“Yes,” she said.
“She’s talking about leaving.”
Vivienne remained silent.
“And Henri is furious.”
She looked toward the window.
“Is he?”
“Vivienne, this affects everything.”
She closed the folder.
“Your marriage?”
“My business.”
The words came too quickly.
He seemed to realise it immediately.
“I mean both.”
Vivienne smiled faintly.
“Of course.”
Gabriel sighed.
“Please. I need to see you.”
She considered.
For months, those words had pleased her.
He needed her.
He wanted her.
He was coming back.
Now she heard something different.
He needed somewhere to go where his choices did not have consequences.
She glanced at the time.
Then said, “Come tomorrow.”
He sounded relieved.
“Thank you.”
She ended the call.
For several moments, she stood still.
Then she took out a notebook.
Not to plan another confrontation.
Not to rehearse another cutting remark.
