Chapter 22 MOTHER IN-LAW
I could've given anything to have a peaceful day, but Julian’s mother just had to show up.
I heard the heels before I saw her.
Precise. Sharp. Expensive.
Like someone stabbing the marble floor on purpose.
I was in the living room pretending to read a magazine when the air shifted into something quiet, hostile, and cold. Julian stepped in first, his posture more rigid than usual.
Behind him…
her.
Victoria Thorne.
I’d seen pictures of Julian’s mother online: charity galas, political fundraisers, yacht luncheons with women who looked embalmed. But in person? She was worse. Ageless, tall, slim, wearing a black coat that probably cost more than a small house. Her hair was iron-gray and immaculate, her makeup perfect in that terrifying “I could slit your throat and not smudge my lipstick” way.
And when her eyes landed on me?
She looked like she’d walked in and seen a stray dog eating out of her china cabinet.
“Ah,” she said, voice crisp as broken glass. “So the husband is real.”
Great.
Off to a strong start.
Julian didn’t respond, which meant I was expected to… what? Smile? Bow? Run?
I stood slowly. “Hello, Mrs. Thorne.”
She didn’t offer a hand.
She didn’t even blink.
Her gaze moved from my hair, to my shirt, to my bare feet; as if cataloguing the ways I offended her existence.
“This is what you married?” Victoria asked Julian without looking away from me.
If she’d slapped me, the impact wouldn’t have been as clean.
Julian replied with a tone so neutral it was practically a blank sheet of paper.
“This is Eli.”
Victoria hummed; an elegant, judgmental sound that somehow made me feel cheaper than oxygen.
I forced myself to hold her gaze. She wasn’t intimidating because she was powerful. She was intimidating because she believed she had the right to be.
She walked a slow circle around me, examining me the way a jeweler inspects something they already know is fake.
Then she smiled.
False. Sharp. Beautiful in a venomous way.
“So tell me, Eli… how much?”
I blinked. “I—I’m sorry?”
“How much did you want?” she clarified, voice polite and vicious. “The allowance? The security? A yearly stipend?” She tilted her head. “Or was it simply the prestige of being Mrs. Julian Thorne?”
My stomach dropped.
“No, I— that’s not—”
“Victoria.” Julian’s voice cut clean through the room. “Enough.”
She didn’t stop looking at me.
If anything, she sharpened her stare.
“You didn’t marry for love,” she said. “You can’t expect me to assume you married for anything noble.”
My mouth went dry.
I wanted to defend myself, I really did, except I had no idea which part she was wrong about. My marriage wasn’t noble. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t even healthy.
But it also wasn’t about money.
Julian stepped closer to her, blocking part of her line of sight.
His voice stayed calm, collected.
“Mother. Sit.”
She raised an eyebrow but obeyed, as if to prove she could choose to. Julian sat beside her. I sat across, feeling like the world’s biggest intruder at my own dining table.
They exchanged obligatory pleasantries… about the company, politics, the stock market, which senator had embarrassed himself this week. Victoria spoke the way royalty might address the help: bored but expecting obedience.
I stayed quiet, exactly the way Julian preferred me in public.
Eventually, her attention snapped back to me.
“Tell me, Eli,” she said sweetly, “what do you bring to this marriage?”
I took a breath. “That’s—something private.”
“Oh, don’t be naïve,” she crooned. “Nothing is private when it affects the Thorne name.”
Julian didn’t intervene. Not a word or even a gesture from him. He just watched.
And somehow, that felt worse than her insults.
After a tense tea-and-small-talk session (by “small talk,” I mean she interrogated me about my family, finances, education, and why someone like Julian would ever “settle” for someone like me), Julian walked her toward his office.
I stayed in the living room, pretending not to listen.
Of course I listened.
The second the door clicked shut, Victoria’s voice sliced through the quiet:
“If your father were alive,” she said, “he’d never approve of… this.”
My chest tightened.
Me.
She meant me.
Julian’s answer was ice.
“He’s dead. And Eli is not your concern.”
I heard the soft hiss of her breath.
“You think this boy won’t bring trouble? You always underestimate strays. They bite when cornered.”
My blood ran cold.
She meant me again.
Julian didn’t reply immediately. When he did, his voice was quieter, darker.
“Leave it alone, Mother.”
Silence.
A chair moved.
Footsteps approached.
I scrambled to sit normally on the couch again just as the office door opened.
Victoria walked out first. She gave me one last look; one final assessment, like she was deciding whether to throw me out herself.
Her lips curled into a soft, elegant threat.
“Be careful, Eli.”
My pulse throbbed in my throat.
“Why?” I asked before I could stop myself.
She leaned in slightly.
“Because people who don’t belong in this family,” she whispered, “never stay in it for long.”
Then she walked away, heels clicking like countdowns.
Julian followed her to the door.
He didn’t speak to me.
He didn’t look at me.
The moment it closed, I exhaled hard.
The room felt heavier and colder.
Like Victoria had rearranged the molecules with hate alone.
Julian’s voice finally broke the silence.
“Don’t take her seriously.”
I let out a hollow laugh.
“She thinks I married you for money.”
“You didn’t,” he said simply, removing his cufflinks. “So it doesn’t matter.”
“But you didn’t defend me.”
He paused.
His back stayed turned.
“That wasn’t the battle worth fighting.”
My stomach knotted.
“And what is?”
Julian finally looked at me, and the expression on his face wasn’t anger, or softness, or even annoyance.
“You’ll understand,” he said, “when you need to.”
My breath stalled.
When I need to?
Victoria’s warning echoed in my skull:
Stray dogs bite when cornered.
The terrifying part?
I was starting to understand why she said it.