The family home was a testament to "old money" stability. It wasn't flashy, but every piece of dark wood furniture, every silk rug, and every oil painting of a dead ancestor was chosen to convey permanence. It was a house that smelled of lemon oil and the faint, sweet scent of her mother's rose garden. It was the scent of judgment.
Eunice had always felt like a high-tensile wire strung through its quiet, carpeted rooms. Tonight, she felt she might finally snap.
"The roast is perfect, Mother," she said, pushing a piece of carrot around her plate. The Sunday dinner was a non-negotiable ritual.
"Thank you, dear," her mother, Eleanor, replied, dabbing her lips with a linen napkin. "Robert, your firm's gala is next month, isn't it? Who are you taking this year, Eunice? I do hope it's not that dreadful Arthur son. He has a weak chin."
Robert, her father, grunted from the head of the table, engrossed in carving more meat than anyone could possibly eat. "Arthur's firm is solid. Good portfolio. A weak chin is hardly a financial liability."
Eunice laid her fork down. The clink of silver against porcelain sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room. Both her parents looked up.
"I'm not going with Arthur," Eunice said, her voice perfectly level. "I'm bringing someone."
Eleanor brightened, sensing a social development. "Oh? Someone new? From the firm?"
"No. His name is Karlman Dowman."
Her father paused, the carving knife halfway through a slice of beef. "Dowman. Dowman Analytics. The one who made a fool of Harrison at the keynote."
"He didn't make a fool of him, Dad. He corrected him. He was right."
"He's a disrupter," Robert said, and he didn't mean it as a compliment. "All noise and no foundation. His company is a startup. It's smoke and mirrors, Eunice. A gamble."
"I think his projections are brilliant," Eunice countered, her spine stiffening.
"Oh, a 'brilliant' protégé," Eleanor chimed in, her tone laced with a sudden, icy suspicion. "That's... nice. What's he like? Is he..."
Eunice knew the question before it was asked. Is he one of us?
"He's important to me, Mother. Very important."
"Eunice, darling, what does that mean?"
Here it was. The moment the wire snaps. Eunice looked her mother in the eye. "It means I'm in love with him."
Eleanor's wine glass stopped halfway to her lips. Her father set the carving knife down with a heavy, final thud.
"In love?" Eleanor's voice was a thin whisper. "Eunice, that's a... that's a terribly strong word for a business acquaintance. He's... what? Your age?"
Eunice took a slow, deep breath. She felt the blood draining from her face. "He's twenty-three."
For a full ten seconds, the only sound was the grandfather clock in the hall, ticking away the seconds of her former life.
Her father spoke first, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Twenty. Three. Are you out of your mind?"
"Robert, please," Eleanor hissed, but her face was pale with horror.
"No, I want to hear this. You, a senior strategist, my daughter, are throwing yourself away on a child? He's four years younger than you. He's barely old enough to rent a car."
"He's old enough to build a multi-million-dollar analytics firm from scratch," Eunice shot back, her voice shaking but rising. "He's old enough to be smarter than every man you've ever tried to set me up with. He's old enough to know what he wants."
"And what he wants is you!" her father roared, slamming his palm on the table. The water glasses shivered. "Your name, your connections, your money! My God, Eunice, are you that naive? He's a parasite, and you're letting him sink his hooks into you!"
"That is disgusting," Eunice said, standing so fast her chair screeched on the hardwood floor.
"What's disgusting," her mother cut in, her voice no longer whispering but sharp as a shard of ice, "is the scandal. What do you think people will say, Eunice? A twenty-seven-year-old woman and this... this boy? It's not just a bad look; it's a reputational crisis. They'll say he's using you, or worse, they'll say you're... desperate."
"I don't care what they say!"
"You will care!" Eleanor stood up, a mirror image of her daughter's fury. "You will care when your clients hear the whispers. You will care when your friends stop inviting you to dinner. You will care when you are a social pariah, all because you couldn't control some... some unsuitable infatuation. His class, his background... he has nothing, Eunice! He's not our kind!"
"He's my kind!" Eunice was shouting now. "He's the first person I've ever met who is! The first person who doesn't see me as a 'merger' or a 'reputational asset'!"
"Then you're a fool," her father said, his voice flat and final. He sat back down and picked up his napkin. "This is a mistake. A temporary, pathetic mistake. End it. End it before you ruin the name we've worked so hard to build."
Eunice looked at them. Her father, already turning back to his ruined roast. Her mother, whose face was a mask of cold disappointment. There was no love in this room. Only strategy. Only permanence. Only the crushing weight of their expectations.
"I didn't come here for your permission," she said, her voice dropping to a cold, shaking whisper. "I came here to tell you. I'm through. With all of this."
She grabbed her purse and walked out, not stopping when her mother called her name. She made it to her car, the polished black sedan that was a symbol of her success, before her legs gave out. She fumbled the key, hands shaking so violently she dropped it twice. When she finally got the door open and fell into the driver's seat, she let out the sob she'd been holding in. It wasn't a cry of sadness. It was a roar of rage.