Page 61 of Iridescent
I straighten to my full height. “I’m telling the truth,” I say, each word measured and taut. My heart slams against my ribs, adrenaline pushing me toward violence or the door. “For once, someone needs to. You all act like I threw away some fairy tale with Isabel, when the truth is you engineered it. And you would rather see me miserable with the right woman than happy with one you do not approve of.” I jab a finger toward the door Yara walked out of. “That is my reality.”
Around the table, no one dares breathe. My father’s glare turns lethal. “You worthless, ungrateful son of a—”
My mother lifts a manicured hand, silencing him, though her eyes never leave mine. “All this for her? For a woman who has spent years in your bed and still failed at the only thing this family ever needed from her.”
My blood turns to ice.
“Everyone here has tiptoed around it long enough. Your wife cannot give you a child, Xavier. She is worthless.”
My palm slams into the table hard enough to rattle crystal and silver.
“Watch it.” My pulse thunders in my ears. “You do not speak about my wife like that.”
“Your wife?” she spits, as if the word itself offends her. “How is that a wife? That girl waltzed into this family with nothing and has given nothing in return. No child. No future. Nothing but years wasted on a marriage that should never have happened.”
I do not even realize I am moving until my chair screeches across the marble behind me. In the next second, I am a foot from her. My voice drops to a whisper only she can hear. “Keep her name out of your mouth. I swear to God, Mamá—one more word, and I do not care that you gave me life. I will make you regret ever thinking you could treat Yara this way.”
A collective intake of breath moves around the table. My mother’s eyeswiden at the promise in my tone. Then she rises, meeting me head-on. Beside her, my father stays seated, his jaw set like stone.
“Let me remind you, chérie. Your wife is barren. Instead of facing that truth like a man, you stand here defending her as though loyalty could undo what she is. It cannot. Her body has already made the decision for you. What you need now is a solution.”
Barren.
The word drifts through the room like poison. My vision tunnels. I cannot think. Cannot breathe. There is only rage.
I drag in a breath and force it out, fighting the urge to put my fist through the wall. All the guilt, fear, and fury of the last few weeks surges up at once, mixing with a lifetime of resentment.
“Yara is my wife. Not this family’s incubator. Not some womb for you to inspect and judge. She is a Navarro by marriage, and you will treat her with the respect she deserves. If you ever reduce her to what her body can or cannot do again—if you ever treat her as anything less than my partner—you will lose far more than my respect.”
My mother’s face goes pale, then flares red. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a fucking promise,” I snap.
One I intend to keep. I have given her enough warnings already. Another word about my wife’s body and I forget she is my mother.
For one suspended moment, no one moves. My mother and I glare at each other, years of unspoken war blazing between us.
I think she might slap me.
Part of me is ready for it. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe if someone knocked some sense into me, I would finally grow a spine. I caused this. All of it.
Geneviève Navarro forces a brittle smile. “Go after her, then.” She nods toward the door. “Run to your wife. Beg her forgiveness. Play the devoted husband for the rest of the night.”
My whole body is wound too tight. I do not trust myself to move or speak. I just watch her, hatred burning so hot it feels surgical, and wait for the next blow. Because I know it is coming.
“But if you walk out that door before I am finished, I will say something inthis room that your marriage will not survive.”
The words land like a guillotine.
“What did you do?”
She tilts her head, a cruel glint entering her eyes now that she has the upper hand again. “Sit. Down. Xavier. Unless you want Yara to find out tonight that Isabel is the least unforgivable part of what you’ve been hiding.”
Ice floods my veins, followed almost instantly by a brutal wave of panic.
She knows.
How?
