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"Business is business, Edward. If you're suggesting I somehow planned—"
"I'm not suggesting anything." I opened the second folder, methodically building my case like I would against any defendant. "I'm stating facts supported by documentary evidence. Exhibit B: your text to Daphne, dated nine weeks ago." I slid the phone record across the polished mahogany. "'Do bring your American friend home for a proper visit. The staff quarters will suit her perfectly. It's time Edward met someone who could appreciate our world and facilitates the speed of the acquisition.'"
The color began draining from Mother's perfectly powdered cheeks. "That proves nothing more than hospitality—"
"Exhibit C." I was hitting my stride now, channeling every courtroom victory, every moment I'd made opposing counsel squirm under cross-examination. "Thompson Private Investigations' invoice. Quite detailed in their billing practices." I pulled out the highlighted document. "'Subject surveillance, photography package, media contact facilitation.' This line item is particularly interesting: 'Paparazzi coordination—additional fee for guaranteed publication in three major outlets.'"
She stood abruptly, pacing to the window, her composure cracking like ice over a spring thaw. "You don't understand the pressures I face, the responsibilities—"
"Oh, but Idounderstand." I leaned back in my chair, steepling my fingers—a gesture I'd learned from watching her dominate boardrooms. "You saw an opportunity to eliminate a perceived threat to your control while simultaneously positioning your firm to benefit from a lucrative acquisition.Two objectives, one strategy. Rather efficient, actually." My voice dropped to a whisper. "I might even admire the tactical precision if it hadn't destroyed the woman I love."
"Love?" The word exploded from her lips with genuine revulsion. She whirled to face me, her mask finally slipping completely. "Edward, you've known that girl for mere months. This isn't love—it's infatuation. Lust. A momentary lapse in judgment that I've helped you correct before it ruined everything we've built."
"What exactly did Lili do to deserve your hatred?" The question came out sharper than I'd intended. "What crime did she commit beyond existing in your world?"
Mother's face contorted with something ugly. "Crime? She committed the crime of thinking she belonged here. Of believing that enthusiasm and charm could somehow compensate for generations of breeding and education. Of making you forget who you are, what you represent."
"She never asked to belong here," I said quietly. "She came as Daphne's guest. She was polite, respectful, kind to our staff—"
"Kind to the staff?" Mother laughed bitterly. "Edward, she befriended Mrs. Worthington's daughter. She sat in the kitchen drinking tea with the cook. She acted as if there were no social boundaries, no proper order to things."
"And that threatened you how, exactly?"
"Because you watched her do it!" Mother's composure cracked entirely. "You watched her treat everyone as equals, and I saw your face, Edward. I saw you questioning everything I'd taught you about maintaining proper distance, about understanding your position in society. She was turning you into someone who might actually believe that bloodlines and breeding don't matter."
I thought of Lili's easy laughter with the groundskeepers, her genuine interest in Mrs. Worthington's stories about hergrandchildren, the way she'd helped clear dishes after dinner despite the staff's protests. "Maybe she was turning me into someone better."
"Better?" Her's voice rose to a pitch I'd never heard. "Better than four hundred years of Grosvenor leadership? Better than Oxford education and royal connections? Better than everything I sacrificed to maintain?" Mother pressed her hands to her temples. "That girl represented everything I've spent my life fighting against—the idea that background doesn't matter, that proper breeding is just snobbery, that anyone can simply decide they belong in our world."
"She never decided she belonged in our world," I said, my voice deadly quiet. "She was trying to find her place in it because she loved me. She was building her own life, chasing her own dreams, trying to make something of herself through hard work and determination." I leaned forward. "Everything you taught me to respect, she embodied. And you destroyed her for it."
Mother stared at me as if I'd slapped her. "I destroyed her because she would have destroyed you. Do you know what I see when I look at that girl? I see my Mother."
The admission hung in the air like smoke from a snuffed candle. I'd never heard her mention her own Mother with anything but respectful distance.
"Your Mother?"
"Margaret O'Sullivan," she whispered. "Irish. Working class. Pretty as a picture and determined to better herself by marrying above her station." Mother’s hands trembled as she touched her pearls. "She convinced my Father that love was more important than lineage. That her dreams of belonging in society were worth more than centuries of careful breeding."
"And?"
"And she spent thirty years trying to fit into a world that never quite accepted her. Every charity luncheon was aperformance. Every social interaction was a test she might fail. She died exhausted from pretending to be something she wasn't, and my Father died heartbroken that he'd asked her to become it." Mother's voice broke. "I watched them both suffer for their romantic notions about love conquering all."
The pieces clicked into place with horrible clarity. "So when you saw Lili—"
"I saw history repeating itself. I saw you falling for the same beautiful lie that destroyed my parents' happiness." Mother straightened, trying to reclaim her dignity. "I was protecting you from a lifetime of watching someone you love struggle to become something they're not."
I thought of Lili's confidence at the charity auction, her natural grace with high society, her intelligence that needed no polish. "But Lili wasn't struggling to become anything. She was exactly who she was supposed to be."
"Until she wasn't." Mother's voice turned cold again. "Until the pressure mounted and the cameras flashed and the gossip started. How long do you think her small-town confidence would have lasted under real scrutiny? How long before she started to crack under the weight of being Lady Grosvenor?"
I thought of Lili's empty room, her hastily packed suitcase, no single word she'd left for me. The ache in my chest sharpened to something physically painful. "So you made sure she'd crack immediately. By destroying her business? By having her photographed in private moments? By orchestrating a public humiliation designed to drive her from the country?" I stood, placing my palms flat on the desk, leaning forward like a predator closing in. "Mother, you didn't just manipulate me—you committed corporate espionage, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and quite possibly securities fraud."
Mother's breathing became shallow, rapid. "I protected this family! That girl would have been your ruin, Edward. A shopping channel host? A nobody from nowhere with no breeding, no connections, no understanding of what's required to maintain what we've built—"
"What's required," I said, standing to my full height and feeling every inch of the authority she'd spent thirty-four years teaching me to wield, "is honor. Integrity. Basic human decency." I moved around the desk, and for the first time in my adult life, she took a step back. "Qualities you've demonstrated are utterly foreign to you."
For a moment, the only sound was the fire crackling and the grandFather clock ticking away seconds of her destruction.