On me.
Expression tightening, he glanced back at Muriel and Maddy. “What did you do?” he demanded, but it wasn’t clear who he was asking.
“Ask your whore.” Muriel laughed, all sharp and brittle.
Maddy pointed. “She attacked me.”
“Please.” Muriel scoffed.
Edward ran a hand through his hair, looking ten seconds away from exploding himself.
“This ends now,” he said, voice low and dangerous. It was like hearing Archie speak in that same voice twenty years from now. It scared the shit out of me.
“Does it?” Muriel replied coolly, utterly unmoved by the lethal tone.
He turned on her. “Yes.”
The authority in his voice wasn’t affectionate or kind. It was a threat.
Jeremy released Muriel slowly.
“Muriel,” Edward said, jaw tight. “Go upstairs to our wing. We will discuss this privately.”
Muriel’s gaze cut to me one last time. “Enjoy the fantasy while it lasts,” she said softly.
Then she turned and walked toward the staircase, spine rigid, dignity stitched back into place like nothing had happened.
Maddy looked ready to lunge again.
Edward shifted toward her instead. “And you,” he said, voice heavy with warning, “will not put your hands on my wife in my home.”
My mother recoiled like she’d been struck. The words hung in the air.
My wife.
Archie’s fingers tightened around mine. I didn’t know which of us hurt more.
“Eddie,” Maddy said, her voice turning cutting and cold. “Don’t youdarespeak to me that way.”
The living room felt wrecked in more ways than one. Suddenly, the earlier heat between Archie and me felt very far away.
Edward’s jaw flexed. For a second, I didn’t see the man who’d been so happy to call me his daughter. Who’d wanted us to be a family. No—what I saw there was calculation.
“You,” he said to Maddy, pointing toward the hallway, “will go to my office.”
Her eyes flashed. “Excuse me?”
“You will go to my office,” he repeated, each word clipped and deliberate, “and you will stay there while I fix this.”
The wordfixhung in the air like a lie.
Maddy actually laughed — a disbelieving, jagged sound. “Fix this? She put her hands on me.”
“And you put yours on her,” he shot back.
Jeremy didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But his posture had shifted subtly—alert, braced.
Maddy took a step closer to Edward. “You think you can sideline me in my own?—”
