A shiver went through me at the shifting expression on her face. Recognition. Calculation. Then disgust.
“So,” she said slowly, eyes sliding to Archie. “You’ve decided to follow in your father’s footsteps.”
My heart kicked.
“Careful,” Archie said quietly.
Muriel’s lips curved. “You think you’re different? You think this is romantic? It’s just history repeating itself—be sure to glove up son. You don’t know where she’s been.”
Maddy lunged forward before I could process the insult.
“Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “You don’t get to judge me.”
Muriel turned fully toward her. “You’ve spent your entire life blaming me for your choices.”
“Youstolehim.”
“Hechoseme.”
“You gotpregnant.”
“And he stayed.”
The slap came fast and clean. Maddy’s hand struck Muriel’s cheek with a sharp crack.
Jeremy stepped forward instantly. “Ms. Curtis.”
Muriel did not flinch. She slowly turned her head back. Then she slapped Maddy.
Harder.
The sound echoed across marble and glass.
Archie’s arm snapped around my shoulders, pulling me back without thinking.
“Mr. Archie,” Jeremy said sharply, attempting to get between the women as Maddy surged forward again. “Please take Miss Frankie upstairs.”
But it was already unraveling.
“You’ve always been trash,” Muriel said through clenched teeth. “Wealthy, loud, insecure trash.”
“At least I didn’t build a marriage by trapping him with a pregnancy,” Maddy spat.
Muriel’s composure cracked fully then and her smile turned absolutely vicious. “And at least I didn’t spend twenty years waiting to beg for scraps.”
Something in my mother snapped. She didn’t lunge this time. She launched.
They collided hard enough to knock a side table sideways. A crystal vase tipped, wobbled?—
—and shattered on the marble floor.
The sound was violent. Sharp. Explosive.
Muriel grabbed a fistful of my mother’s hair. Maddy shrieked — not delicate or remotely dignified — and drove forward, shoulder first, slamming Muriel backward into a set of shelves.
A framed photograph crashed down. Glass splintered.
“Enough!” Jeremy barked, moving fast — faster than I’d ever seen him.
