CHAPTER 7: Chapter 7 - The Mask Falls

For a moment, Vanessa looked genuinely stunned.
"You are not serious."
"I am."
"Because of this? Because I lost my temper one time?"
Ethan shook his head. "No. Because this is the one time I walked in early enough to see it."
Vanessa's face hardened. The softness she had worn for him, the charm she used around strangers, the sweetness that had fooled him for two years, vanished completely.
"Fine," she said. "You want the truth? Your mother is exhausting. She calls too much. She needs too much. She acts helpless so you will keep running back. I was trying to make her understand that after we got married, I would come first."
"A wife should matter," Ethan said. "But a wife who demands love by humiliating my mother does not understand love at all."
Vanessa laughed bitterly. "You are unbelievable. I waited for you. I planned your life while you were away. I handled everything. And now you choose a crying old woman over me?"
Margaret flinched.
Ethan stepped in front of her.
"Do not call her that again."
The warning in his voice finally made Vanessa take a step back. Aunt Linda stood beside Margaret and took her hand.
Vanessa looked around and realized no one was on her side.
Her confidence cracked.
"Ethan," she said, softer now, "please. I was angry. I did not mean it."
But everyone in the room had already heard the truth in her voice.