But my eyes weren’t on the balloons, nor the carefully curated playlist of soft jazz. They were locked on Beatrice Thorne, David’s mother.

She was holding court near the dessert table, wearing a silk dress the color of champagne that rippled like water whenever she moved. She was smiling, laughing, and touching Emily’s belly with a possessiveness that made the fine hair on my arms stand up. To the casual observer, she was the picture of the doting grandmother-to-be, the matriarch of the wealthy Thorne dynasty welcoming an heir.

To me? She looked like a pathogen waiting to infect a host.