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I kept my $17,500 monthly salary a secret from my fiancé. To him, I was just a girl living simply with a baby. I wanted to see how he treats a poor single mom, so I pretended to be broke and naive. He invited me to the family dinner, but as soon as I walked through the door…
The Morrison case was huge. The kind of project that built reputations, the kind of opportunity that didn’t come often.
I texted back: Can’t tonight. Family thing.
The reply was immediate. Bethany, this is a career-defining case. Are you sure?
I looked at Graham across the table. I looked at Patricia’s smug smile. I looked at Rosie in my arms.
I’m sure, I typed. Handle it without me.
I was sacrificing my career for a test, and I still wasn’t sure if it would be worth it.
The rest of dinner passed in a blur of subtle insults and pointed silences. By the time we left, I was emotionally exhausted.
Graham kept apologizing in the car. “They just need time to warm up to you. Mom is protective. That’s all.”
Protective, right?
Patricia Whitmore wasn’t protective. She was a guard dog with a designer handbag and a vendetta against anyone who threatened her vision of the perfect family.
But I didn’t say any of that. I just nodded and held Rosie and wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake.
I almost ended it that night. Sitting in Graham’s car outside my apartment building, Rosie asleep in her car seat, I came within inches of telling him everything—the truth about my job, my income, my elaborate test.
I was exhausted from pretending and tired of being humiliated by people who thought they were better than me.
But then Graham took my hand and said something that stopped me.
“I’m sorry about my family. They were awful tonight, and you didn’t deserve any of that. But I need you to know something.” He turned to face me, his eyes serious. “They don’t define me. Their opinions don’t decide my future. You do. You and Rosie.”
It was the right thing to say. But I’d heard right things from Bradley, too. Right up until he left.
“I just need time to process,” I told him. “Tonight was a lot.”
He nodded, kissed my forehead, and let me go.
Two days later, Graham’s family threw a small gathering at the mansion. A casual get-together, he called it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, but Graham was so hopeful that I couldn’t say no.
The casual get-together was not casual at all. It was another production, another opportunity for Patricia to remind me of my place.
But something unexpected happened that night—something that changed everything.
I was standing on the back patio away from the crowd, watching the sunset and questioning all my life choices, when Nana June appeared beside me. She moved quietly for a woman her age, and she had a glass of whiskey in her hand that suggested she wasn’t here for small talk.
“Beautiful evening,” she said.
Continued on the next page
