“But—”
“Just get the gravy,” he cut in, and turned back with a laugh that was meant to erase me. “Sorry. Pregnancy hormones.”
Mark chuckled, not quite meeting my eyes. “No worries.”
I walked back to the kitchen with my hands clenched so tight my nails bit into my palm, because if I let the tears come, Sylvia would call that weakness too. The truth was, I had chosen this silence. Not the cruelty—never that—but the secrecy. I had once been Anna Thorne, daughter of William Thorne, raised in rooms lined with books that smelled like power and old paper, surrounded by people who spoke in careful sentences because every word could shape a future. I had run from it. I wanted someone to love me without the weight of a name, without the shadow of a legacy. So when David asked about my family, I told him I was estranged. I let him believe my father was nobody special, just a retired man living a quiet life.
For three years, that lie had made me “safe.” It had also made me small.
When I carried the gravy back in, my legs trembled under me. The empty chair beside David looked like a lifeline. I didn’t even think. My body made the decision for me. I pulled it out.
The scrape of wood against the floor cut through conversation like a blade.
Sylvia’s head snapped toward me. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I need to sit,” I said, gripping the chair back. My voice didn’t sound like mine—more desperate, more tired. “Just for a minute. To eat.”
Sylvia stood so fast her chair nearly tipped. She planted her palm on the table, rattling silverware.
“Servants don’t sit with the family,” she hissed.
For a second, the room went too quiet, the kind of quiet that makes your ears ring. I stared at her, waiting for David to correct her, to laugh it off, to remind his mother that I was his wife.
“I’m not a servant,” I said, each word pushed out through pain. “I’m carrying your grandchild.”
Sylvia’s mouth twisted. “You’re a useless girl who can’t cook properly. You eat in the kitchen after we’re done. That’s how it works in my house. Know your place.”
I turned to David. My husband. The father of the baby pressing against my ribs.
“David?” I whispered, pleading.
David didn’t even look at me fully. He stared past me like I was a shadow on the wall. “Listen to my mother,” he said casually. “Don’t make a scene.”