Chapter 7 - Diane Had Invited Me to Humiliate Me Publicly
There was a reason I was at the family lunch instead of meeting Brendan in an attorney’s office.
Diane arranged it.
She called two days earlier.
“Come for lunch,” she said. “We should settle things like adults before the baby arrives.”
I nearly declined.
Then Brendan’s attorney confirmed he would be at the villa during Northstar’s scheduled property meeting.
Combining the meetings seemed efficient.
I made one mistake.
I assumed Diane’s invitation was sincere.
It wasn’t.
She had learned I was coming to discuss the final divorce-transition issues and decided the lunch would become a demonstration.
She wanted Jessica sitting at her table.
Brendan beside her.
Me isolated.
She ordered the staff away before I arrived, claiming “family privacy.”
That was why she had been holding the mop bucket herself.
The floors had just been cleaned near the foyer.
Jessica later admitted Diane joked before I arrived:
“Maybe Cassidy finally needs to see where she belongs.”
Then I walked in.
Pregnant.
Alone, as far as they knew.
Diane began with small insults.
How tired I looked.
How expensive the villa was to maintain.
How beautifully Jessica had “settled into Brendan’s life.”
Then she told me the chair at the head of the table was no longer mine.
I said:
“It was never mine.”
That irritated her.
Because I refused the role she wanted me to play.
The jealous ex-wife.
The discarded woman.
The dependent outsider.
When verbal humiliation didn’t produce a scene, Diane reached for the bucket.
She wanted me broken.
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Instead, she accidentally washed away the last reason I had to treat their delusion gently.
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