Chapter 7
Linda stopped trying to hide the ambition.
If anything, she seemed offended that James did not already understand it.
“You have no sons,” she said. “Emily is your only child. The baby changes everything.”
Emily stared at her mother-in-law.
“You’ve been planning around my baby?”
Linda rolled her eyes. “Don’t make it ugly.”
“It already is.”
James remained quiet.
That allowed Linda to keep talking.
People revealed more when they mistook silence for permission.
“Ryan belongs inside Bennett command,” she continued. “Not because he married Emily. Because he is building the branch that comes after you.”
Marco almost laughed.
“The child isn’t even born.”
“Exactly why this should have been settled early.”
Emily’s face changed.
Suddenly a dozen small arguments made sense.
Ryan insisting on choosing the baby’s last name presentation.
Linda demanding the nursery be in the penthouse instead of the family estate.
Ryan becoming furious whenever James offered additional security.
None of it had been domestic preference.
It was territory.
Emily looked at her husband.
“You weren’t trying to get me away from Dad because you thought he controlled me.”
Ryan hesitated.
“You were trying to make sure you controlled access to him.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Then explain the gifts.”
Silence.
“Explain the letters.”
Nothing.
“Explain why you told Dad I wanted space while telling me he was ashamed of me.”
Ryan looked toward Linda.
Emily saw that too.
“Stop looking at her.”
He turned back.
“You were supposed to stop running to him every time we fought.”
“I wasn’t running.”
“Yes, you were.”
Emily’s voice became quieter.
“I was asking for help.”
Ryan’s face hardened.
“And every time you did, I became smaller in my own house.”
There it was.
Not love.
Competition.
James looked around the luxury penthouse his family had paid for, at the hidden Bennett gifts and the bruises on his daughter’s arms.
Ryan believed Emily’s connection to her father diminished him.
May you like
So he had begun erasing it.
And the unborn child had given him a reason to believe that, once the erasing was complete, James would eventually have to come back through Ryan.
