“And this is how you honor her at your wedding.”
The words I’d long to hear someone say hung in the air between us.
Validation finally from someone who mattered.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Viven snapped, her composure finally cracking completely.
“You don’t know anything about our family dynamics.”
Theo’s laugh was cold.
“I know enough.”
“I know that Eleanor was seated in the back row like an afterthought.”
“I know that your society friends have been whispering about her all afternoon while you did nothing to defend her.”
“And I know that neither of you bothered to ask if she needed anything or anyone today.”
“She had an escort,” Brandon protested weakly.
“We assumed she was bringing someone.”
“You assumed wrong,” I said quietly.
“But then, you haven’t asked me much of anything lately, have you, Brandon?”
The hurt in my voice must have gotten through to him because for the first time all day, my son really looked at me.
Not through me, not past me, but at me.
What he saw there made him take a step back.
“Mom, I didn’t realize.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
Theo cut him off.
“You didn’t realize, but I did.”
“And now I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
That’s when Viven made her fatal mistake.
“Well, we’ll just see about that.”
The threat in Viven’s voice was unmistakable, and I watched Theo’s expression shift from politely amused to genuinely dangerous.
Whatever my daughter-in-law thought she knew about power dynamics.
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