Landon’s POV
The phone vibrates against the nightstand like a warning.
I reach for it before Emery stirs, my fingers closing around the screen in the gray light of early morning.
The notifications cascade down the display—news alerts, text messages, missed calls from my assistant. Each one carries the same weight, the same dread that settles into my stomach before I've read a single word.
The headlines are everywhere.
"Remington Bride's Gala Meltdown: Sources Reveal Hostile Confrontation"
"Foreign Wife Attacks Beloved Philanthropist at Charity Event"
"Emery Remington Unhinged: Witnesses Describe 'Aggressive' Behavior"
I scroll faster, my heart hammering against my ribs. Anonymous sources describe my wife as aggressive. Unhinged. Her voice raised, her composure shattered, her behavior so erratic that guests near their table exchanged uncomfortable glances.
One article claims she publicly insulted Marian's charitable work. Another suggests she caused a scene that embarrassed the entire Remington family. A third questions whether she's mentally stable enough to attend public events, let alone raise a child.
The photographs are worse.
Someone captured Emery mid-gesture, her hand raised, her expression caught in an unfortunate angle that makes her look wild-eyed and desperate. Next to it, a shot of Marian—composed, graceful, wounded. The perfect victim accepting congratulations while chaos unfolds across the table.
I remember the moment differently.
I remember glancing over during dessert, pulled from my conversation with Whitmore by some instinct I couldn't name.
I remember catching the end of their exchange—Emery's calm expression, the slight curve of her lips, the way she lifted her wine glass with perfect composure.
I remember Marian's cracked smile, the tension in her jaw, the way her hands weren't quite steady when she reached for her own glass.
I had thought Emery handled it perfectly. I had felt pride swelling in my chest at the woman she'd become—steel wrapped in silk, unmoved by every weapon they aimed at her.
Now I realize the truth.
They were never going to let her win. The game was rigged before she sat down. The photographers were positioned, the journalists briefed, the narrative written before the first course was served. It didn't matter what actually happened at that table. The story was already decided.
"Landon?"
Emery's voice is soft with sleep, her body shifting against the sheets. I feel her hand find my arm, her touch warm and trusting.
"What time is it?" she murmurs.
I don't answer. I can't. The words are trapped behind the weight in my chest, crushed by the headlines still glowing on my screen.
She reads my face before I can speak.
Her eyes travel from my expression to the phone in my hand, and something in her shifts. The softness of sleep evaporates, replaced by the vigilance that lives beneath her surface now—always watching, always calculating, always prepared for the next blow.
"Show me," she says.
"Emery—"
"Show me."
I hand her the phone.
She sits up slowly, the sheets pooling around her waist as she scrolls through the articles in silence. I watch her face, searching for the crack, the fissure, the moment when she finally breaks under the weight of what they've done.
It doesn't come.
Her expression hardens into something I barely recognize. Not rage. Not despair. Something colder. More contained. The last traces of the woman I married—the one who cried when she was hurt, who trusted that truth would eventually prevail—disappear behind a mask I'm not sure she can remove anymore.
"They had photographers waiting," she says flatly. "The angles are too perfect. These weren't candid shots."
"I know."
"The sources are planted. Probably staff members on Portia's payroll." She scrolls further, her thumb moving with clinical precision. "This one quotes a 'concerned guest' who witnessed my 'erratic behavior.' Ten dollars says that the guest doesn't exist."
"Emery, look at me."
She doesn't. She keeps scrolling.
"This photo of Marian was staged. Look at the lighting. Look at her expression. She knew exactly when that camera would flash." Her voice is steady, analytical, stripped of any emotion. "They spent months building a narrative, and last night was just the climax. The evidence they needed to make the story stick."
"I'm sorry," I say, because I don't know what else to offer. "I should have—"
"Should have what?" She finally looks at me, and I see it—the steel she's forged from every attack, every whisper, every night she lay awake wondering if she'd survive this family. "Stopped them? You didn't know. I didn't know. That's the whole point."
"I could have protected you—"
"From what? From women who smile while they destroy you? From a mother who weaponizes everything she touches?" She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You can't protect me from this, Landon. You never could."
The words hit like physical blows.
She sets down the phone and swings her legs over the side of the bed. The morning light catches her profile as she rises—jaw set, shoulders straight, every line of her body radiating determination that terrifies me.
"Emery." I reach for her hand, but she's already moving. "Where are you going?"
"Elsie's waking up." As if on cue, a small cry drifts from the nursery down the hall. "She needs me."
"We need to talk about this."
She pauses at the doorway, one hand on the frame. When she turns back, her expression is unreadable.
"Do you still believe playing defense will save us?"
I open my mouth to answer. To promise her that we'll fight back. That I'll fix this. That love and loyalty will be enough to survive what my family has built.
But the words won't come.
Because I don't know anymore. I don't know if there's any defense against people who control the battlefield, who write the rules, who own the referees and the scoreboard and the very definition of victory.
My silence is its own answer.
She nods slowly, something shifting in her eyes. Not anger. Not blame. Something worse—acceptance.
"That's what I thought," she says quietly.
Then she's gone, her footsteps fading down the hall toward our daughter's cries.
I sit alone in the wreckage of morning light, my phone still glowing with headlines that bear no resemblance to truth. The bed still holds her warmth, her scent, the indentation of her body beside mine. But something has fractured between us—not love, I don't think. Not the bone-deep need that draws me to her like gravity.
Faith.
She is becoming someone new. Someone harder, fiercer, more capable of surviving the war I failed to prevent. And I'm terrified—of how far she might have to go. Of the woman I might lose in the process.
Of the day she looks at me and sees not her partner, but another person she has to fight.