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“You must—be mistaken,” I had protested.
Da had little patience, and none for his only daughter.
“Don’t be an empty-head. Can’t you see he’s crazy about you?”
But I couldn’t see that. Had never seen that. It didn’t matter. I would have married him even if he’d hated me.
That’s why my brain was slow to accept what Étienne was accusing me of.
“I think it’s pretty clear from this condom wrapper what was going on,” he snarled.
“No—absolutely not—Mano—”
But my brother-in-law only shrugged.
“I didn’t think anyone would come in.”
With an inarticulate roar of fury, Étienne tore his brother away from the door and closed big fingers around his throat.
“What has happened?” I heard the voice of my brother Réjean calling out. “We are outside waiting for the gifts to be opened.”
Étienne turned around, his movements sleek, predatory, deadly.
There was complete and utter silence as I desperately tried to cover myself up.
“When I made a marriage agreement with the Pinoteaux family, I was promised a faithful wife. Not a slut.”
“What?” Réjean thundered. “She has not been unfaithful. I’d vow on the ancestors she hasn’t been.”
“Your sister Léonie is pregnant. But I no longer know if I’m the father.”
“Impossible.”
“I just caught her here in my brother’s arms.”
“No—” I choked out, but he ignored me.
“The Pinoteaux family name is shamed. I went into this marriage with good faith and a good name. You have wronged me. You have shamed my family with this deception. It is an insult I must respond to or lose status.”
The silence was crushing, the guilt seeping into my soul.
Even though I knew it wasn’t my fault. Couldn’t have been my fault.
In our culture, honor and family name were everything. And Étienne had just humiliated my brother and, by extension, the whole Pinoteaux family.
Réjean could not let this go, or lose even more face.
“I didn’t do it—” I burst out.
“Silence,” Étienne snarled.
Réjean’s nostrils flared.
“Perhaps we should have given her to Mano instead,” my brother said. “Perhaps he would have taken a firmer hand with her.”
Wait, what? Mano wanted me?
I was so shocked I could only stare at Étienne’s brother, and, to my discomfort, Mano was looking at me, too, with an expression on his face that I couldn’t figure out.
