The CEO's Wife Refuses to Stay

Dinner proves to be quite the affair, with everyone gathered around the massive dining table. Lirael's showing an appetite that would put a rugby team to shame, having skipped the traditional first-trimester misery entirely. Mae watches in mild amusement as she goes for thirds.

"Mark my words," Joanna declares, swirling her wine, "it's twin boys. Has to be, with an appetite like that."

Lirael pauses mid-bite to arch an eyebrow at her mother.

"Oh, don't give me that look," Joanna takes an elegant sip of her wine. "Your brothers were perfect angels in the womb—barely a flutter. You, on the other hand," she points her fork accusingly at Lirael, "made my life absolute hell for three months straight. I couldn't keep down so much as a water biscuit."

Mae sides with Joanna on the gender prediction. Who's she to argue with someone who's actually experienced the joys of hosting tiny humans?

Throughout dinner, the siblings trade barbs, while Delphine and Theron occasionally surface from their wedding-planning bubble to contribute to the conversation. Mae's acutely aware of Eli's gaze periodically landing on her, heavy with unfinished business. His hand keeps finding its way to her thigh under the table, checking her temperature like some sort of concerned thermometer. It's both oddly endearing and completely mental, but she decides to let him have this one aberrancy. After all, what's he going to do with the earth-shattering revelation that her siblings are arseholes? That tidbit's hardly breaking news in London's upper circles.

When it's time to leave, Mae's making her rounds of goodbyes when William catches her arm, pressing a business card into her palm. "This is a mate of mine— renowned curator, mad for new talent. Eli mentioned your art cave, and well, that Mother's Day piece can't be the only masterpiece you've got tucked away, yeah?"

"Oh... thank you, Will," she manages, caught off-guard the unexpected show of support.

"Not a bother. Give us a shout if you need anything else." He offers a warm smile that makes her understand why Lirael's so besotted with him.

Before she can process this, Eli's at her side, steering her toward the car with urgency. When he opens the passenger door instead of the back, Mae's stomach does an uncomfortable flip. No Jenkins tonight, then? Hell—he's actually planning to have this conversation.

The moment they're clear of the driveway, Mae decides to head him off at the pass. "I don't understand your sudden obsession with this. You can't honestly expect me to believe you didn't know my siblings were complete tossers? You literally call Maliah 'the viper'—did you think Evander was any better behind closed doors?"

"Excuse me for not being well-versed in society's bloody gossip," Eli bites out, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. "Being arseholes is one thing, but that waste of oxygen threatened to kill you. And Maliah kicked you? Have they been physically—" he cuts himself off, as though the words themselves might choke him.

Mae crosses her arms, finding the passing traffic fascinating. "Sometimes."

"Sometimes?" The word explodes from him like a bullet. "Define 'sometimes', Mae. How long has this been going on?"

"Why do you even care?" She hates how small her voice sounds. "It's ancient history now. Nothing's happened since we married—well, until that fever incident." She offers the small comfort, though she's not entirely sure why she feels compelled to soothe his apparent rage.

Eli's breathing heavily through his nose, jaw working overtime, when he suddenly pulls over. The Thames glitters in the distance, a silver ribbon under the city lights.

"And you didn't think to mention any of this?" His voice is deadly quiet. "Don't you dare say it doesn't matter, or question why I care. You're my wife. No one—and I mean no one—gets to lay a finger on you under my watch."

"And if I had told you?" She turns to look at him finally, "Would you have hurt Maliah for me?"

A cold smile curves his lips. "I've already had investors pulled from her precious Birchwood spa project. The whole thing went up in smoke within the hour. I wouldn't hurt the self-righteous cow—I'd destroy her."

The ruthlessness of his statement shouldn't stir such tenderness in her chest, and yet somehow, it does. "Oh," she breathes.

"Evander's next," he declares with grim satisfaction, pulling back onto the road.

"If possible," she ventures carefully, "could you maybe... not burn down the entire Chamberlain empire? Roscoe, Timothy, Ardere, Sera— they're actually decent people. Being illegitimate makes everything harder for them, especially with Father being... well, Father. If you're going to kneecap Evander and Maliah, perhaps do it... selectively?"

"Why are you worried about people you barely know?" 

"I might not be close to them, but I understand them. We're all just lights being dimmed in Evander and Maliah's spotlight. It'd be nice to see them succeed for once."

Eli scoffs but doesn't argue, which from him is a ringing endorsement.

Mae bites her lip to suppress a smile, her heart unexpectedly light. She turns to the window, trying to conceal what she knows must be an embarrassingly soft expression. The silence stretches between them as she grapples with this bizarre turn of events— Eli Parrish, germaphobe extraordinaire, transforming into her unlikely champion. The irony isn't lost on her, the same man who once discarded a perfectly good shirt over a single sneeze is now plotting corporate warfare on her behalf.