“Just sat down for dinner.”
Taking several deep breaths to boost her courage, Quin tightened her grip on Waryn and Glyma’s hands, then strode purposefully toward the dining room. She wasn’t a statue. She wasn’t marble or stone, or metal or steel. She was not titanium, and she was not plastic. She was flesh and bone, which meant she would feel everything. Every hit, every barbed word. She would feel it, she would survive it, and she would stand tall anyway.
Because that was what made her strong. That was what made herreal.
So she took one more fortifying breath and clung to the family she’d found and built for herself. Then they stepped into the dining room as one.
Chapter twelve
Game, Set, Match
Quin
A long, grand tablestretched before them. Her mother sat at the head, her father to her right. Quin had always sat to her left, but that seat was vacant and would, now, always remain so.
Thyro Duboi was reading the newspaper, a lit cigar between his lips. Her mother hated it when he smoked indoors, but it was the one singular way he defied her. After so many years together, her mother had mostly stopped complaining about it.
He noticed them first, expression conveying surprise, then confusion, then a somewhat horrified understanding when his eyes landed on Quin and Glyma’s laced fingers. Setting his paper down on the table, he arched a questioning brow.
“You sure you want to do this, Quinnie?”he seemed to say.
She jutted her chin, and he nodded. Just once.
He had never been a good father. He never once stepped in to defend her against her mother’s tirades. He never stood up to her mother at all. He kowtowed, same as Quin, because that was what was expected. He was Claryn’s trophy husband, and he enjoyed his privilege too much to risk it for Quin’s sake.
She knew he would be no help to her, but she didn’t need him. She had Glyma, and she had Waryn. And she had herself. She didn’t need anything else.
“Mother,” Quin said, and Claryn Duboi looked up from the tablet she was working on in mild surprise. It turned to shock as she took in the three of them, a united front line standing at the ready for the first hail of bullets.
Like her father, her mother zeroed in on Quin and Glyma’s clasped hands, and her mouth thinned into a pinched line.
“What is this?” she said, devoid of the usual animation she employed for Waryn’s sake.
“I’ve come to tell you that—”
“Do speak up, Quin,” Claryn barked. “Always with the mumbling. It drives me mad.”
Off kilter now, Quin cleared her throat and licked her lips. “Um, I, uh, I came to tell you… uh—”
“Well, do get on with it, dear. I have a meeting later.” Claryn leaned back in her chair and folded her hands under her breasts. Her posture was complete ease, but her eyes were hard as nails.
Quin’s fingers shook, and Glyma squeezed again, so hard it hurt. Because she was real. She was flesh and bone, and she was so fucking real.
“Then I won’t take up any more of your precious time,” Quin said, voice clear and nearly too loud in the hollow room. “I’m here to reject your offers, both of them. Waryn and I will not be getting married, nor will I marry any woman of your choosing. I’m going to be with Glyma. She—” She looked at Glyma, whosmiled so beautifully. “She’s my girlfriend, and I am entirely besotted with her.”
Facing her mother again, she said, “We’re not going to hide or lie. We don’t care what you tell the papers or what you say at your galas to protect your precious image. We’re going to be happy together, and while I hope you can accept that, I don’t need you to. I know who I am, and I know what I want. This is the life I choose, and you…” Her stomach cramped horribly, but she breathed through it. “Well, you’ll just have to learn to live with it.”
Waryn’s thumb rubbed soothingly over the back of her hand, and Glyma was practically bouncing on her toes, her tail tangling with Quin’s between their bodies. Quin didn’t turn away from her mother, though. She stared right into her blood-red eyes.
Claryn Duboi inhaled slowly through her nose, index finger tapping, calculating, formulating her next move. But Quin didn’t care. She was done playing by her mother’s rules. She was finally ready to make her own.
“You stupid girl,” her mother said, and try as she might, she couldn’t completely hide her flinch. “One night of eating snatch, and you’ve suddenly grown a backbone.”
“I did most of the eating, actually,” Glyma said, bringing an undignified noise from Quin. “Though, Quin did a great job, too.”
Waryn smothered a laugh behind his hand, disguising it poorly as a cough. Quin gaped, and Glyma waggled her eyebrows unfairly and winked. Quin snuffled a laugh, and Glyma giggled.
“You,” Claryn Duboi said, leaning forward in her chair to give Glyma an almost bored onceover, “are an insignificant fly.”
