“I didn’t ask him to say that,” I say.
“You never ask,” my mother snaps. “You never have to. You stand there looking wounded and helpless, and somehow everyone ends up giving you what should have gone to your sister.”
Something inside me cracks.
That one lands where all the old ones live.
“What should have gone to her?” My voice shakes, but I force the words out. “Wesley was mine first. He left me for Lydia. I didn’t take him from her.”
“And now you bring your boss here, parade him around the hotel, and suddenly Wesley remembers he loved you?” Her eyes cut over me, sharp and cold. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
My throat closes.
Her hand lifts.
I see it coming.
I still do not move fast enough.
Someone else does.
Elegant fingers close around my mother’s wrist midair. Diamond bracelet. Perfect red nails. A cloud of expensive perfume and absolute authority.
A woman I vaguely remember seeing in magazines stands between us like she has been placed there by a very stylish act of war.
“I wouldn’t,” she says.
My mother stares at her. “Excuse me?”
The woman smiles, and the temperature of the entire dining room seems to drop. “You were about to strike my future daughter-in-law in public. I am advising against it.”
Future daughter-in-law.
My brain trips over the phrase and stays down.
“Who are you?” my mother demands.
“Vivienne Richmond.”
The name moves through the room like a match catching silk.
Jordan arrives behind her, furious, his gaze cutting through the dining room until it finds me. For half a heartbeat, the fury in him softens.
Then he looks at my mother.
“You do not deserve her,” he says.
The words are quiet enough to be controlled and sharp enough to cut through the room.
My mother pales.
Jordan steps closer, his hand settling at my lower back. “You do not get to blame Natalie because a man realized too late what he lost. You do not get to make her small because your other daughter is hurting. And you sure as hell do not put your hands on her.”
Lydia hiccups through a sob. “Jordan, please.”
He does not look at her.
My mother’s mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
