{"id":22102,"date":"2025-12-01T14:28:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T14:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/?p=22102"},"modified":"2025-12-01T14:29:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T14:29:28","slug":"22102","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/?p=22102","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

But my eyes weren\u2019t on the balloons, nor the carefully curated playlist of soft jazz. They were locked on\u00a0Beatrice Thorne<\/span><\/strong>, David\u2019s mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2019s 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\u00a0Thorne<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0dynasty welcoming an heir.<\/span><\/p>\n

To me? She looked like a pathogen waiting to infect a host.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But my eyes weren\u2019t on the balloons, nor the carefully curated playlist of soft jazz. They were locked on\u00a0Beatrice Thorne, David\u2019s 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\u2019s belly with a…<\/p>\n

Read More “”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":169,"today_views":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22114,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22102\/revisions\/22114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}