I said nothing. I just listened, with no intention of cutting in. She had the waiter refill her cup and then continued.
"When I was twenty-four, Zachary and I began thinking seriously about the future. I let myself imagine what our life together would look like after marriage. It felt worth wanting. But reality has its own rules. Children born outside the right bloodlines rarely earn genuine respect no matter how hard they try. There are those who are born into certain families and carry something in them that others simply cannot acquire. A presence, an ease, a kind of natural authority that flows down through generations of power and standing."
She looked at me with something cool and assessing in her eyes. "Very few people are born with that quality. It lives entirely in the blood."
I felt my brows pull together slightly but let her keep going.
