Chapter 8
Cesare did not confront Diane with the messages.
Not yet.
Instead, he asked Julian to reconstruct the entire relationship.
Not romance.
Dates.
Decisions.
Arguments.
Vanessa announced the pregnancy six weeks after Julian told her he was not ready to remarry.
Two days afterward, Diane began encouraging Julian to bring Vanessa to foundation events.
A month later Ethan submitted his security proposal.
When Julian rejected it, Vanessa accused him of disrespecting her family.
When Julian delayed marriage discussions, Diane warned him he was emotionally trapped in the past.
When Julian spent extra weekends alone with Avice, Vanessa complained that the child was becoming possessive.
The timing was too consistent.
Julian looked sick.
“They used Avice against me.”
Cesare corrected him.
“They used your fear of failing Avice.”
That was more accurate.
Julian had been terrified of becoming emotionally unavailable after Caroline died.
So whenever Vanessa suggested he was not building a healthy new family, he overcorrected.
He gave her more time.
More access.
More authority inside his home.
Diane reinforced every concern.
Avice became the only person who did not adjust her behavior to please the adults around her.
She simply said what she saw.
The pillow.
The cloakroom.
The missing stomach.
That was why she became dangerous.
That afternoon Helen Avery brought Cesare one final piece of the gala preparation schedule.
Diane had changed Avice’s assigned seat three times.
Originally, the child was seated beside Cesare.
Then Diane moved her to the children’s donor table.
Julian objected.
Diane moved her back.
On the morning of the gala, she changed the place card again.
Cesare looked at the chart.
“Why?”
Helen shook her head.
“She told me Vanessa needed the seat beside you because she was carrying the next generation of the family.”
Cesare slowly looked up.
A fake baby had been given a real chair.
Avice had been removed to make room for it.
That explained Diane’s words.
That seat is for family. Not begging.
Diane had not spoken in anger.
She had spent months deciding that Avice represented something inconvenient.
The past.
Caroline.
Julian’s caution.
The child who kept noticing things.
Cesare folded the seating chart.
For the first time, he understood why the attack on Avice happened exactly when she tried to sit beside him.
May you like
Diane had not merely lost her temper.
She was enforcing a hierarchy she had already created on paper.
