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“You will be getting married tomorrow”

“I told you that’s not going to be the case,” Steph said

“Listen toon this sofa for six hours waiting for you to come home Six Hours You left me to wonder if you were alive or dead, if you’d run away and would never return, any number of terrible possibilities, and I wouldn’t have knohat had happened to you because you refused to answer your phone After all this, you coe we arranged for you What do you think I plan to do about that?”

Steph quivered at herdown over her entitled anger She hadn’t meant to make her mother worry She’d just wanted a e she hadn’t chosen for herself

“I’h her voice shook

Her mother stared her down, but Stephto look away

“Moe isn’t what I want I want to fall in love with a man that I choose, not you”

Hermanner, all of it He was exactly thein her dreams Why should she be forced to do otherwise?

“You think I wanted to be married to your father?” Elora hissed

Steph’s eyes widened in shock Her mother had never used that tone with her, ever It was clear she hispering to keep her father fro up, but the venom behind it was all too real

“He was a foreignI didn’t want to marry him at all I was in love with another lad I did”

Her expression softened a little, even as anger bubbled beneath the surface

“It took some time, but I eventually fell in love with your father He is a kind and loving man, and he deserves to be loved back in the same way So, too, you will find love I understand why you ran away, and I don’t bla me sit here and worry, but I do not blame you for your fears”