I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
Brielle stepped nearer.
“It means stop acting dramatic and give me the card.”
“No.”
Her expression hardened.
“Natalie.”
“I said no.”
“Give me the damn card.”
“Get out.”
For a moment, she looked genuinely shocked.
Then something ugly surfaced in her face.
“You’ve always thought you’re better than me.”
I blinked.
“Are you serious?”
“You have the business. The house. Grant. Now the perfect baby.”
Her voice cracked on the final word.
And suddenly I realized this was more than entitlement.
She hated me.
Not casually.
Not the ordinary resentment sisters sometimes carry.
There was something old and deeply rooted in her expression.
Something I had failed to see because I’d spent so much time fixing her problems that I never noticed she blamed me for having fewer of my own.
“I don’t think I’m better than you,” I said quietly.
“Yes, you do.”
“No. I think you’re asking a woman who was cut open yesterday to fund an eighty-thousand-dollar birthday party.”
“Stop saying it like that!”
“How else should I say it?”
She moved so fast that I barely registered what was happening.
Brielle lunged toward the bed and grabbed my forearm.
Pain shot through me as I twisted away.
“Don’t touch me!”
Clara woke screaming.
Panic tore through me.
I instinctively curled around her.
“Brielle!”
My mother rushed forward.
For one foolish, hopeful second, I thought she was about to pull my sister away.
Instead, Diane reached for Clara.
“Give me the baby.”
