“Is this dress appropriate?” Vivian whispered to Benedict while keeping her eyes directly to the front.
“It’s very beautiful,” Benedict said confidently with a slight smile. To be honest, he was overwhelmed when Vivian emerged from the fitting room dressed in that. When he regained his senses, he realized that Vivian William was merely a faded memory now. Vivian Morrison was a completely new person.
Vivian William was beautiful, yes, but she was insecure; it took a long time of being around her to realize the beauty within her that she had trouble expressing. But now, she was able to grab and hold the attention of an entire crowd with the way she held herself. The pain that she had endured all this time had been turned to her advantage after all. It was now the strength that bore her confidence, and that confidence made her shine like a star.
“So this is the true Ms. Morrison. My God, she is beautiful.” The men in the crowd were transfixed.
“Yes. Look at the way she carries herself. Wow”
“Mrs. Litt, I think that she’s a good match for your son,” the woman who was flattering Mrs. Litt said. “If they ended up together, it would be a match made in heaven.”
Mrs. Litt looked on and nodded in approval.
There was another attendee, a young lady, who stood studying Vivian’s silhouette with doubt in her heart. This Ms. Morrison looks awfully familiar. Where have I seen her before? But that was impossible. She was sure that she had never met Ms. Morrison before today.
The longer she stared, the more she felt certain that she had seen her before. She searched hard in her memory. Got it! “I remember now!” the girl yelled.
The crowd had their attention fully fixed on Vivian. At the sound of her voice, everybody jumped and turned to look at her accusatorily. What if Ms. Morrison gets offended at the interruption?
At the realization of her volume and the disturbance she had caused, the girl frantically apologized to those who stood nearest to her. However, she was still excited as she said, “I know where I’ve seen Ms. Morrison before. Wasn’t she Finnick Norton’s wife, Vivian William?”
Though she had never met Vivian William, but she had seen photos of her on Twitter. As she was infatuated with Finnick at that time, she paid special attention to what his wife looked like. She thought that Finnick had poor taste in women, that he had selected such a plain-looking woman to be his wife.
But as she gazed at the woman standing in front of her, she had to admit that her features had not changed much. Why is she breathtakingly beautiful today to be able to capture the attention of an entire hall?
At her declaration, the crowd turned to stare at Vivian in surprise.
“Finnick Norton’s wife? How is it possible that she is the Morrison girl?”
“I don’t know. What’s going on?”
“I heard that she had divorced Finnick five years ago, and then vanished. How did she suddenly become Ms. Morrison?”
“What an unexpected plot twist. She switched identities with Evelyn Morrison,” someone in the crowd said as they scoffed.
“What do you mean?” The people around the speaker turned to look at him.
“You mean you don’t know?” The man looked surprised, then excited when he realized that he had gossip that no one was aware of. “I’ll tell you. I had a friend who knew Finnick. Turns out that Evelyn is currently living with him. What do you think their relationship is?” He looked around smugly as if to say ‘if you know what I mean’.
“Are they married?”
“Not as far as I know of, but they’ve been living together for several years. The wedding should happen any time now.”
“I see.”
The crowd looked astonished. They glanced over at Vivian again. Though they were still captivated by her beauty, they had the malicious glint of gossip in their eyes.
Vivian and Benedict listened to all that had transpired. He tugged lightly at Vivian’s arm. “Vivian,” he whispered. “Don’t take this personally.”
“It’s nothing, Ben,” she replied as she turned to return his smile. Since she was already here, it meant that she had made the preparations to endure the gossip about her past. If she was not capable of handling even this, then she wouldn’t even have considered returning.
