CHAPTER 7.

Grace’s POV.

The moment dinner began, the dining room transformed into a courtroom. The air was so heavy that every breath felt like it required permission. Their stares pressed against my skin, heated and invasive, making me acutely aware of my trembling hands resting on the cold mahogany table.

Ryan watched me with a predatory focus that made my stomach churn. Beside him, Chloe wore an expression of resentment that needed no translation.

Sebastian sat to my right. Though he hadn’t spoken again, the quiet strength in his posture offered a fragile shield. I kept replaying his warning from the car: Control your mouth. I could not afford to prove Ryan and Chloe right. I had to bury Grace and become Isabella.

Chloe broke the silence first.

"I am trying to understand this farce," she said, her eyes landing on me with the weight of a slap. "I have come to a realization: she can't be this 'Isabella Reed' you claim. She is unequivocally the Grace my husband was having an affair with.”

Sebastian slammed his palm flat on the table. "Silence, Chloe! I have already legally verified her identity and shut down the matter. What more are you trying to prove?"

“No, Sebastian, I can't be silent," she insisted, leaning forward. "You bring a woman with a questionable identity into this house and expect us to embrace her? She isn’t just an imposter. She is Ryan’s ex. A woman like her sitting at this table... it stains everything the Knight name stands for."

Her words were precise darts, thrown with such confidence that I felt small—a sensation I hadn't felt in a long time. I fixed my gaze on my empty plate, willing myself to turn to stone. Even if I wasn't Isabella, I was a daughter of the Reeds. I had a right to exist.

Before I could retaliate, Sebastian’s voice severed the tension.

"Enough, Chloe."

He didn't shout. He didn't have to. His tone carried a baritone firmness that sucked the oxygen out of the room. "You will stop this now."

The atmosphere shifted. Chloe blinked, startled by his directness, and even Ryan shifted in his seat. My heart gave a strange, quiet flutter of gratitude, but I kept my head down.

Chloe, however, wasn't ready to retreat. "I’m only pointing out what everyone with eyes can see. She is not—"

"Chloe," Sebastian warned, the single word leaving no room for argument.

She clenched her jaw, her gaze snapping back to me. "You stay silent because you know I’m right. You sit there, mute, letting him fight battles you’ve already lost."

She reached into her purse and slid her phone across the polished table. It spun to a stop in front of her father. On the screen was a photo of me—Grace.

"Look closely, Father. Sebastian. This is Grace, Ryan’s ex-girlfriend. Tell me how the woman sitting beside you isn't the exact same person I confronted earlier today? The same grifter I warned to stay away from Ryan."

Sebastian exhaled slowly, a sound threaded with dangerous impatience. He placed his napkin beside his plate with terrifying calm.

"I have already provided legal verification of her identity. What more do you want? Doppelgängers exist, Chloe. If you continue to use your personal vendettas to harass my wife, I will take it personally. And you know exactly what that entails."

"This conversation ends now."

"No," a smooth voice interjected from the doorway. "It is just the beginning."

My blood ran cold.

Victoria, Ryan’s mother, glided toward the table. I recognized her from the pictures Ryan used to show me, but they hadn't done justice to her beauty. She looked elegant, preserved by money and ice, her eyes missing nothing.

She offered a polite, razor-thin smile. "I understand your protectiveness, Sebastian," she said, taking her seat. "But Chloe and Ryan are right to question a stranger who wears a familiar face."

She paused, locking eyes with me. "Fortunately, there is a far simpler, immediate way to resolve this suspicion."

The table’s attention gravitated toward her. Chloe sat back, a smirk touching her lips. Ryan leaned forward in anticipation.

Victoria continued, her voice light and conversational. "Ryan once mentioned that his ex-girlfriend had a severe, anaphylactic allergy to strawberries."

My breath hitched in my throat. The faint ringing in my ears swelled, making the room sound like it was underwater.

"If this young woman is truly who Sebastian claims," Victoria said, signaling the maid standing in the shadows, "then she will have no objection to dessert."

The maid stepped forward, placing a porcelain dish in the center of the table.

"Strawberry tart," Victoria announced.

Everything inside me chilled. My palms grew damp. I felt myself sinking into the floor. Ryan watched me, waiting for the crack in my armor. Chloe looked satisfied like the executioner watching the guillotine blade rise.

I stared at the tablecloth, afraid that if I looked up, the sheer terror in my eyes would confess for me. Breathing was no longer an autonomic process, I had to force air into my lungs.

Sebastian moved first.

"Enough with this madness."

His chair scraped loudly against the floorboards as he stood. His anger filled the room, not wild, but contained—a pressure vessel ready to burst.

"No one is testing my wife like a lab rat," he declared. "This dinner is over."

He reached down, his hand enveloping mine. His grip was iron-strong, steady, pulling me back from the edge of panic. I stood on shaky legs, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Ryan rose as well. "Sebastian, don't be a fool. She is not who you think she is. You are walking into a trap."

"Father, do you hear him?" Chloe added, her voice shrill. "He cannot be allowed to leave. He will bring ruin to this family."

Sebastian ignored them, turning his back on the table. We began to walk toward the exit.

We almost made it.

"Stop."

The voice was deep, gravelly, and absolute.

Mr. Gerald, the patriarch who had been a silent statue until this moment, finally spoke. The authority in that single word rooted my feet to the floor. Beside me, Sebastian halted, tension radiating off him in waves.

Gerald sat with his hands folded on the table, completely unbothered.

"Walking out now means breaking our dinner agreement," Gerald said. He did not raise his voice, yet the weight of the entire Knight Empire rested on every syllable. "You know the consequences, Sebastian."

Sebastian turned slowly, his jaw set. "You expect me to sit here while they interrogate my wife?"

"It is not interrogation. It is due diligence," Gerald replied coldly. "If neither of you has anything to hide, you will allow your wife to prove them wrong. One small bite."

His gaze touched me briefly, weighing me without emotion, as if I were an asset on a spreadsheet.

My chest caved inward. He made it sound so simple, so reasonable. But for me, that one bite was a death sentence—or a confession.

Silence swallowed the room. The scent of the strawberry tart wafted toward me, sweet and sickening. My stomach tightened painfully, and a phantom itch started at the back of my throat.

The Knight Empire stood behind Gerald's ultimatum. My allergy stood behind my fear.

Sebastian was trapped between them.

I looked up at him, waiting for the verdict, a heavy truth settling like lead in my chest.

If he chose his empire, I would be exposed.

If he chose me, he would lose everything.

I stood in the center of the blast radius, waiting to see which world would crumble first.