Then Fiona appeared in the doorway.
For a moment, she simply stood there.
No one moved a chair.
No one invited her to sit.
Brenda noticed her.
Their eyes met.
Then Brenda deliberately turned away and continued speaking to the woman beside her.
Fiona’s expression barely changed.
She lowered her eyes and quietly disappeared into the kitchen.
Damian watched her walk to the refrigerator.
She pulled out a container holding leftovers from the previous evening.
She placed them in the microwave.
Waited.
Then carried the plate to the small wooden kitchen table.
And sat down alone.
Damian stared through the narrow opening in the hallway, unable to process what he was seeing.
His wife—the woman who had sacrificed everything for him when he had nothing—was eating yesterday’s leftovers by herself.
Meanwhile, his mother, sister, and their guests were drinking expensive wine at a table inside the house Fiona had helped him build.
Only a few feet separated them.
It might as well have been miles.
Something inside Damian shifted.
But that wasn’t the moment that changed everything.
A few minutes later, voices drifted in from the dining room.
Fiona had already finished half her meal when Brenda laughed and said something Damian would never forget.
“She still hasn’t understood, has she?”
Gertrude responded quietly.
“Understood what?”
Brenda lowered her voice, but Damian could still hear every word.
“That she was never really part of us.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
He almost stepped into the room.
Almost.
Then Helena entered the kitchen carrying a large envelope.
She placed it beside Fiona.
“These came today, ma’am.”
Fiona immediately covered the envelope with her hand.
Damian noticed.
So did Brenda.
“What’s that?” Brenda called from the dining room.
“Nothing important,” Fiona answered.
But Damian could see the tension in her shoulders.
Later, after everyone had gone upstairs and Fiona stepped outside to take a phone call, Damian entered the kitchen.
My millionaire husband secretly followed me because he believed I was hiding something from him. Instead, he discovered me sitting alone in the kitchen, eating reheated leftovers while his mother and sister raised glasses of expensive wine only a few yards away.
