Emery’s POV
I find the new feeding schedule pinned to the nursery door like a declaration of war.
The handwriting is elegant, precise—Portia's personal assistant, no doubt, transcribing instructions I was never consulted about. The times have shifted. The portions have changed. Even the brand of formula has been swapped for something I've never seen before.
My hands shake as I tear the paper from the door.
"Mrs. Harris," I call, my voice carrying down the corridor. The housekeeper appears within moments, her expression carefully neutral. "Who authorized this?"
She hesitates, her eyes flickering toward Portia's wing before returning to mine. "Mrs. Remington Senior felt the previous schedule wasn't optimal for the baby's development."
"Mrs. Remington Senior isn't the baby's mother." I crumple the schedule in my fist. "I am."
"Of course, ma'am. I only meant—"
"I know what you meant." I step closer, ensuring my voice carries to the two other staff members who have appeared at the end of the hallway, drawn by the commotion. "Let me be absolutely clear, and I want everyone within earshot to hear this: all decisions regarding my daughter—her feeding, her schedule, her care—go through me. Not Mrs. Remington Senior. Not anyone else. Me."
Mrs. Harris's face pales. Her gaze darts again toward the main house, toward whatever authority she's been conditioned to obey.
"Do you understand?" I ask.
Silence stretches between us. I feel the weight of the moment, the way the staff members behind her are watching, calculating, deciding whose power they believe in.
"I said, do you understand?"
"Yes, Mrs. Remington." Her voice is barely audible. "Through you. All decisions are through you."
"Good." I hand her the crumpled paper. "Restore the original schedule. Immediately."
She takes the paper and hurries away. The other staff members scatter like startled birds. I stand alone in the corridor, heart pounding, feeling like I've won something small and lost something larger.
Victory carries a price. I just don't know yet what it will cost me.
* * *
By evening, I learn.
I'm walking toward our wing when I hear them—two maids in the linen closet, voices low but not low enough. I freeze outside the cracked door, my hand pressing flat against the wall.
"...can't believe the way she spoke to Mrs. Harris. In front of everyone."
"Difficult, that one. Mrs. Remington Senior has been nothing but gracious, and this is how she's repaid."
"Ungrateful. That's what my mother would call it."
A pause. The rustle of fabric being folded.
"I heard the staff in the east wing talking. They think she might be... you know." A meaningful silence. "Unstable. All that stress from the baby. Some women can't handle it."
My blood turns to ice in my veins.
I know this game. I recognize it now with terrible clarity. They won't break me with open cruelty anymore—that approach failed. Instead, they'll break me with perception. With whispers that spread like poison through the staff, through the social circles, through anyone who might one day be called as a witness to my character.
Difficult. Ungrateful. Unstable.
Three words, carefully planted, growing roots before I even knew seeds had been sown.
I push away from the wall and walk to Landon's study on legs that feel disconnected from my body.
He's on the phone when I enter, dark circles under his eyes, his tie loosened and hanging crooked. Papers cover every surface of his desk. He holds up a finger—one minute—and I lower myself into the chair across from him, waiting.
"...understand the concerns, but the quarterly projections don't support that timeline. I need another week to—" He closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Schedule the call for tomorrow. Eight AM sharp."
He hangs up and slumps back in his chair. "Sorry. The board is breathing down my neck about the expansion delays."
"Landon." I lean forward, hands clasped tight in my lap. "I need to tell you something."
His expression shifts immediately from exhaustion to concern. "What happened?"
"I overheard two maids talking about me." The words come out flat, clinical—the only way I can say them without my voice breaking. "They called me difficult. Ungrateful. One of them suggested I might be unstable."
His jaw tightens. "Who? Give me names."
"Does it matter?" I shake my head slowly. "This isn't about two maids, Landon. This is about what's being said when we can't hear it. The narrative that's being built behind closed doors."
"I'll talk to my mother."
"Will that fix it?"
The question hangs between us. He doesn't answer, and his silence tells me everything.
I watch him—really watch him—and see for the first time the weight pressing down on his shoulders. The company is hemorrhaging under pressure. Anonymous threats still arrive at his office. His mother wages war under his own roof while he tries to hold everything together with bare hands.
He's standing between two worlds, and both are trying to tear him apart.
"You don't have to fix this tonight," I say quietly. "I just needed you to know."
"Emery—"
"I mean it." I stand and cross to his side of the desk, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Handle the board. Handle the calls. I can survive whispers."
He catches my hand before I can pull away. "I will talk to her. I promise."
I nod, but I don't ask when. I don't push for more than he can give.
Some battles have to be chosen carefully. And tonight, I choose to let him rest.
Later, we lie in our bed in the darkness, close enough to touch but somehow miles apart.
Landon's breathing has evened out—finally asleep after hours of tossing. I stare at the ceiling and feel the distance growing between us like a living thing.
It's not his fault. I know that. He's fighting battles I can't see, carrying burdens I can only guess at. But the house is doing something to us. Something slow and invisible and impossible to name.
Every whisper about my instability plants a seed of doubt—not in me, but in him. Every time I push back against his mother, I become more difficult in the eyes of the staff, the board, the world. And every night we lie here, too exhausted for connection, the thread binding us together grows thinner.
They're not attacking our marriage directly. They don't need to.
They're creating conditions where it will simply... erode.
I turn my head and watch Landon sleep, memorizing the lines of his face, the way his chest rises and falls. I love him. I know that with absolute certainty.
But love isn't armor. Love doesn't stop poison from spreading through walls. Love doesn't prove to anyone that I'm not the unstable, difficult woman they're painting me to be.
I roll onto my side, facing away from him, and pull the blanket tight around my shoulders.
The house is turning us against each other. Slowly. Invisibly. And I cannot prove it to anyone. Not even him.