Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
FRANKIE
The drive back felt charged in the best possible way.
Not frantic. Not reckless. Just… inevitable.
Archie’s hand stayed on my thigh most of the way home, fingers flexing absentmindedly like he needed the reminder that I was real. That we were real. Every time his thumb brushed higher, heat sparked through me all over again.
We didn’t talk much.
We didn’t need to.
The air between us felt newly uncaged.
By the time the garage slid open and the Ferrari rolled, my pulse was racing again. He killed the engine, turned toward me, and that look in his eyes made my stomach drop in the best way.
“My room?” he asked softly.
I swallowed then licked my lips. “Your room.”
We were barely inside before his hand found mine again, lacing our fingers together as we moved through the side room that connected the garage to the kitchen. The air felt too electric. Too hot. Too—
“You have some nerve.”
The voice cracked through the air like a whip.
We both froze.
“You really thought I wouldn’t come back?”
Muriel’s voice cut through the foyer like crystal snapping.
Archie went still.
I didn’t need to see her to know it was her. Her voice was sharper, colder. A blade wrapped in silk.
Archie’s grip tightened around my hand.
She had always been almost cruelly polite to me. The kind of woman who smiled without warmth and asked about your future like she was assessing whether you deserved one.
From the first day I met her and she asked about my family, I got it. She didn’t like me or my mother. She definitely didn’t think I belonged in her house or anywhere near her son and she never bothered pretending otherwise.
We stepped into the living room.
Muriel stood near the fireplace, immaculate in cream and pearls, posture carved from marble. Her expression was ice.
And facing her—
My mother.
Maddy’s expression wasn’t polished the way it usually was. It was tight. Defensive. Furious.
“You don’t get to walk back into this house and start making demands,” Maddy snapped.
Muriel tilted her head slightly. “Did I?” Her gaze flicked briefly toward us then back to Maddy. “You do realize the house is community property, don’t you?”
The temperature dropped ten degrees.
Archie’s fingers tightened around mine.
“Community property,” Maddy scoffed.
“Yes,” Muriel said with a soft and vicious laugh.
“You might be wearing a ring now, but he is still married to me. He chose me first and I can make that divorce take the rest of your life.” Something utterly dark and vicious slid through her expression.
“In fact, I should do just that. I wouldn’t want you to get too comfortable considering you thought you had a revolving door to my marriage anyway. ”
My mother actually laughed. “You don’t get to pretend you won something. You got pregnant. That’s not a victory. That’s leverage.”
The words cracked like a gunshot.
Archie went rigid.
Muriel’s composure faltered for half a second — not grief.
Rage.
“You don’t get to rewrite history,” Muriel said quietly. “Edward and I were together.”
“You were convenient,” Maddy shot back. “Eddie wanted to get even with me, he fucked you. Just because you don’t understand birth control, don’t try and romanticize it.”
Archie shifted slightly in front of me — subtle, instinctive — but enough that his body blocked part of my view. Shielding.
I felt something ugly twist low in my stomach.
Because I knew this story.
Maddy and Eddie had been together before Muriel.
Then Muriel got pregnant.
Then Archie was born.
And suddenly Maddy wasn’t the one standing next to Eddie anymore.
“You couldn’t hold him,” Muriel said softly. “You never could. You still can’t. That’s why you keep circling.”
“Circling?” Maddy stepped closer. “You trapped him.”
Muriel’s smile sharpened. “He stayed.”
The air felt brittle.
Jeremy stood near the doorway, posture tight but composed.
“Ms. Curtis. Mrs. Standish,” he said evenly. “Perhaps we can—”
“Stay out of this, Jeremy,” Maddy snapped. “You shouldn’t have let her in in the first place.”
Jeremy did not react — but I saw the flicker of disapproval.
Muriel’s gaze dropped to our joined hands.
A shiver went through me at the shifting expression on her face. Recognition. Calculation. Then disgust.
“So,” she said slowly, eyes sliding to Archie. “You’ve decided to follow in your father’s footsteps.”
My heart kicked.
“Careful,” Archie said quietly.
Muriel’s lips curved. “You think you’re different? You think this is romantic? It’s just history repeating itself—be sure to glove up son. You don’t know where she’s been.”
Maddy lunged forward before I could process the insult.
“Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “You don’t get to judge me.”
Muriel turned fully toward her. “You’ve spent your entire life blaming me for your choices.”
“You stole him.”
“He chose me.”
“You got pregnant.”
“And he stayed.”
The slap came fast and clean. Maddy’s hand struck Muriel’s cheek with a sharp crack.
Jeremy stepped forward instantly. “Ms. Curtis.”
Muriel did not flinch. She slowly turned her head back. Then she slapped Maddy.
Harder.
The sound echoed across marble and glass.
Archie’s arm snapped around my shoulders, pulling me back without thinking.
“Mr. Archie,” Jeremy said sharply, attempting to get between the women as Maddy surged forward again. “Please take Miss Frankie upstairs.”
But it was already unraveling.
“You’ve always been trash,” Muriel said through clenched teeth. “Wealthy, loud, insecure trash.”
“At least I didn’t build a marriage by trapping him with a pregnancy,” Maddy spat.
Muriel’s composure cracked fully then and her smile turned absolutely vicious. “And at least I didn’t spend twenty years waiting to beg for scraps.”
Something in my mother snapped. She didn’t lunge this time. She launched.
They collided hard enough to knock a side table sideways. A crystal vase tipped, wobbled—
—and shattered on the marble floor.
The sound was violent. Sharp. Explosive.
Muriel grabbed a fistful of my mother’s hair. Maddy shrieked — not delicate or remotely dignified — and drove forward, shoulder first, slamming Muriel backward into a set of shelves.
A framed photograph crashed down. Glass splintered.
“Enough!” Jeremy barked, moving fast — faster than I’d ever seen him.
But they were past words.
Muriel’s nails raked across my mother’s cheek, leaving thin red lines in their wake. Maddy responded by shoving her — hard — and they stumbled into the coffee table, sending another spray of crystal across the room.
I couldn’t breathe.
This wasn’t cutting remarks anymore.
This was feral.
Archie’s arm tightened around me, pulling me back another step as Muriel swung wildly and missed, catching the edge of a lamp instead.
It toppled.
Shattered.
Shards of glass skidded across the floor — spinning, glinting —
Too close.
Too close to my feet.
Archie moved before I did.
He pivoted, moving me bodily before shifting to be in front of me again and acting like a barrier as another picture frame smashed into the wall where we’d been.
“Mr. Archie—” Jeremy warned, trying to restrain Muriel without hurting her as she thrashed in his grip.
“Let go of me!” she shrieked.
“You don’t get to put your hands on me—” Maddy snarled, shoving forward again.
Another crash. Another spray of glass.
It happened so fast — Muriel breaking free of Jeremy’s grip just long enough to swing again, Maddy responding with a shove that sent them both careening into the liquor cart.
Bottles fell.
Exploded.
The smell of alcohol filled the air.
One bottle shattered so close to me that fragments skittered across the marble and struck Archie’s shoe.
That was it.
Something in him changed. He stepped forward. Cold. Controlled. Utterly pissed.
“Enough.”
The single word cut through the chaos like a blade.
Both women froze.
I’d heard him use that tone before, the last time had been at the party when Jake outed my relationship with Mathieu. He didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t have to.
Muriel’s breathing was ragged. Maddy’s chest heaved. Jeremy stood between them, hands raised, jaw tight.
Archie didn’t look at either of them right away.
He looked at the glass near our feet.
Then he looked at them.
“You will not throw things in this house,” he said evenly. “You will not put your hands on each other. And you will definitely not do this in front of her.”
His voice didn’t waver. Didn’t shake. Didn’t ask.
Muriel blinked first.
Maddy followed a half-second later.
“You don’t get to tell me—” Maddy started.
“Yes,” Archie cut in quietly. “I do.”
The room went still.
Even Jeremy seemed momentarily stunned.
Archie took another step forward — subtle, deliberate — forcing space between me and the wreckage.
“If you want to destroy each other,” he continued, eyes hard, “do it somewhere else. But you don’t get to turn this house into a battlefield.”
Muriel’s mouth opened — then closed.
For the first time since we’d walked in, she looked at him like she was seeing something she didn’t expect.
Maddy looked furious, and embarrassed.
The silence stretched.
Jeremy cleared his throat. “Mrs. Standish,” he said calmly. “Ms. Curtis. I believe this discussion has concluded.”
Muriel smoothed her hair slowly, regaining composure molecule by molecule. “This isn’t over.”
“It is for tonight,” Jeremy replied.
Maddy shot Muriel one last venomous look before stepping back, adjusting her blouse like dignity was something she could put back on. Not that she could cover the bloody marks on her cheek.
I realized my hands were shaking.
Archie turned to me immediately.
“Are you hurt?”
I shook my head.
But my throat felt tight. My stomach twisted.
Because this wasn’t just a fight.
It was the dark history between them, an old wound that had festered and festered. Raw. Ugly. Violent.