"Mia." She set her fork down with deliberate precision. "I understand that you didn't have any parents to teach you basic things, but are you just plain stupid? Eating something that spicy in your second trimester?" Her eyes narrowed, and the candlelight caught the diamonds at her throat. "Do you not care about the baby at all? No wonder Xavier has had to go to such lengths to protect you from yourself."
"Like he is protecting me right now against your relentless attacks?"
The words left my mouth before I could catch them, and the entire table fell silent. The clinking of glasses stopped. A fork hovered in midair. Jane Salvatore's mouth opened, then closed, her face draining of color as though no one had dared speak to her that way in the thirty years she'd ruled this household. Xavier froze beside me, his hand suspended over his wine glass, and when he finally turned to look at me, there was nothing in his expression but raw confusion.