Landon’s POV
I don't knock.
The door to my mother's wing crashes open with enough force to rattle the antique frames lining the corridor. My heart pounds against my ribs, fury coursing through my veins like something alive and hungry.
She's seated at her desk when I enter, reviewing documents with the same measured calm she brings to everything. Her fountain pen pauses mid-signature, but she doesn't startle. Doesn't flinch.
As if she'd been expecting me.
"Landon." She sets down the pen with deliberate precision. "I wasn't aware we had an appointment."
I cross the room in three strides and throw my tablet with the tabloid article onto her papers. The pages scatter across her pristine desk, disrupting her careful order.
"Tell me the truth." My voice comes out raw, stripped of any pretense. "Did you plant this?"
She glances at the article without touching it, her expression shifting into something that might pass for confusion on a less practiced face. "I've already told Emery I have nothing to do with anonymous gossip."
"I don't believe you."
"That's your prerogative." She rises from her chair and moves to the sideboard, pouring herself a glass of water as if we're discussing the weather. "But not believing it doesn't make it true."
"Stop." The word comes out harder than I thought. "Stop lying to my face like I'm still a child who can't see through you."
Her hand pauses on the crystal decanter. For just a moment—a fraction of a second—I see something flicker behind her eyes. Recognition. Calculation. The acknowledgment that her usual tactics won't work here.
"I know about Marian." I step closer, watching her carefully. "I know you've been communicating with her. Coordinating. The two of you have been circling Emery like predators waiting for weakness."
The mask slips. Just for a heartbeat. Then she recovers, setting down the decanter and turning to face me with an expression of wounded maternal concern.
"Landon, darling." Her voice softens into something almost gentle. "I understand you feel protective of your wife. It's admirable, truly. But you need to think about what you're sacrificing for this... attachment."
"Don't."
"Your position at the company. Your reputation. The legacy your father and I spent decades building." She moves toward me, her hand reaching out to touch my arm. "Everything you've worked for, everything you're meant to become—you're willing to throw it all away for a woman who doesn't belong in our world?"
The words land where she intends them. I feel the old pull rising in my chest—the instinct to submit, to keep peace, to be the son she raised me to be. The boy who learned early that opposing Portia Remington cost more than compliance ever did.
"She's trying," I say, but even I hear the weakness in my voice.
"Of course she is." My mother's tone drips with false sympathy. "She's trying to hold onto something she was never equipped to handle. And you, my darling son, are so blinded by whatever this is that you can't see the damage she's doing. To you. To this family. To that child."
I close my eyes and see Emery's face. Not the warrior she's become, but the woman from last night—the one who sat on our bed and offered to leave. Who was willing to take our daughter and disappear just to ease the pressure on me.
She was ready to sacrifice herself. To protect me.
The realization hits me like cold water. While Emery was willing to give up everything, I've been hedging. Balancing. Trying to keep one foot in each world like I could somehow satisfy everyone.
My mother watches my expression shift and presses her advantage. "She doesn't understand what it means to be a Remington. She never will. But Marian—"
"Don't." I open my eyes and straighten my spine, feeling something inside me lock into place. Something final. "Don't say her name to me."
"Landon—"
"I'm going to say this once." I step back, putting distance between us, breaking the spell of her proximity. "If you come for my wife again—through tabloids, through Marian, through any of your games—I will choose her."
My mother's expression hardens. "Think carefully about what you're saying."
"I am thinking." I hold her gaze without flinching. "I'm thinking more clearly than I have in years. Emery is my wife. Elsie is my daughter. And if you make me choose between them and this family, I will choose them. Over everything."
The silence that follows is absolute. I watch the transformation happen—the maternal concern evaporating, replaced by something cold and reptilian. The real Portia Remington, finally unmasked.
"Choices have consequences, Landon." Her voice has lost all its warmth. "You should know that better than anyone."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a fact." She picks up the scattered pages of the tabloid article and stacks them with mechanical precision. "You think you can protect her from everything that's coming? You think love will be enough to shield her from a world that chews up women like her and spits out the bones?"
"I think I'm done playing by your rules."
"My rules are the only reason you have anything worth protecting." She sets the papers aside and meets my eyes with a gaze that could freeze fire. "The company. The name. The empire that will one day belong to your daughter. All of it exists because I understood what you refuse to accept—that sentiment is weakness, and weakness gets destroyed."
I take another step back, toward the door, away from everything she represents. "Then maybe it's time for something new."
"Something new." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You'll come crawling back. They always do. And when you do, when this little rebellion of yours has burned itself out, I'll be here. Rebuilding what you've ruined."
I turn and walk toward the door, my footsteps echoing in the cavernous room.
"Landon." Her voice stops me at the threshold, sharp as a blade. "When you lose everything—and you will—remember that I gave you a choice."
I don't turn around. I don't give her the satisfaction.
Instead, I walk out and let the door close behind me with a sound like a judgment.