Ryan looked at Emily, his face turning pale, but he immediately stepped behind his mother, using her like a shield. “Emily… look, it’s not what it looks like—”
“Shut up, Ryan!” Emily screamed, the pain ripping out of her chest like a physical animal. “You are sleeping with my best friend! In your office! While your mother watches!”
“Watch your tone in front of my mother!” Ryan suddenly shouted back, his cowardice instantly transforming into an ugly, defensive anger as he took cues from Evelyn. “You drove me to this! You’ve been a miserable, cold, nagging wife ever since Ava was born! You never want to do anything, you’re always complaining about my mom, and you’ve totally let yourself go!”
“I am taking care of your newborn child!” Emily sobbed, her entire body shaking. “I am dealing with your mother invading my privacy every single day!”
“And that is exactly why you failed as a wife,” Evelyn interrupted, her voice cutting through the shouting like a guillotine. She stepped forward, looming over Emily with a chilling, absolute authority. “A good Texas wife knows how to keep her husband happy, Emily. She creates a peaceful, welcoming home. She doesn’t scream, she doesn’t demand ‘boundaries,’ and she certainly doesn’t make her husband feel like a criminal for loving his mother. You were entirely incompetent at keeping Ryan’s interest. You pushed him out of his own bed with your constant hysterics. If he found solace, warmth, and respect in Chloe’s arms, that is entirely your own fault. You simply didn’t know how to keep your man.”
“My fault?” Emily gasped, looking at Chloe, who was now calmly buttoning her shirt, looking at Emily with a smug, condescending pity. “She ruined my marriage! He broke his vows!”
“You ruined it the moment you thought you could dictate terms to this family,” Evelyn snapped coldly. “You brought this entirely on yourself. Don’t you dare play the victim here. You are the one who failed this household. Now, take the baby and get out of my son’s office. We have a family reputation to protect, and your public scenes are entirely unbecoming.”
Ryan looked away, refusing to meet Emily’s eyes, while Chloe smirked and leaned against his desk. They stood there—the unfaithful husband, the traitorous best friend, and the monstrous matriarch—a united front of wealthy, twisted arrogance.
Emily stumbled backward into the hallway, the sound of her own choked sobs echoing against the marble floors. She looked down at little Ava, who was finally quiet, staring up at her with big, innocent eyes. In that blinding, agonizing moment, Emily realized the ultimate, devastating truth of her life: in this entire grand, golden world they had built, she was never a wife or a partner. She was just a temporary inconvenience, an outsider who had been chewed up and spat out by a toxic mother and her puppet son, completely blamed for the very fire they had set to her life.
