The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 46

"Exactly! There is no excuse for getting physical..."

"Just apologize already! Quinn is such a sweet girl, how could you treat her so terribly..."

Sloane's lips parted slightly. She wanted to say something, but her ears were violently ringing. The headache that had just begun to subside flared up again, her temples throbbing relentlessly.

"Apologize!" Rosemary seethed, losing all her composure. "You need to apologize to Quinn. Right here, right now!"

Rosemary was usually a woman of restraint, but the wine from the banquet had loosened her tongue, allowing years of repressed disdain and dissatisfaction toward Sloane to finally spill over.

"Sloane, I don't know what underhanded tricks you used to marry into our Foster family, but in all these years, you've brought Garrison nothing but trouble! You can't even raise your own child right, and now you dare lay your hands on my family? Do you know how much the Fosters have done for the Taylors? And this is how you repay us? Huh?!"

"Mom!"

Garrison frowned, speaking up to stop his mother.

"Don't interrupt!" Rosemary was fully consumed by rage. She shot her son a vicious glare before turning her wrath back onto Sloane. "If you don't give me a proper explanation today and bow your head in apology to Quinn, this isn't over!"

"I hate Mommy! Mommy is a bad person!" Right at that moment, Archie, still being held by the nanny, screamed out with profound grievance. "Mommy made Quinn bleed! Mommy, apologize!"

With that, he burst into fresh, heartbreaking sobs.

Sloane couldn't have cared less about Rosemary's tirade or the irrelevant relatives' judgments, but hearing those words come from her own five-year-old son felt like a poisoned dagger plunging straight into her heart.

Riding the wave of public outrage, Rosemary shifted her gaze to her silently brooding son. "Garrison! You are her husband. You tell us—who is right and who is wrong here? Should she apologize or not?!"

In an instant, all eyes in the room zeroed in on Garrison.

Garrison's brow furrowed tightly. He looked down at Quinn, who was leaning weakly against his chest with gauze wrapped around her head, then scanned the room—taking in the disgruntled relatives, his furious mother, and his sobbing son. A suffocating wave of exhaustion washed over him.

He was a doctor; he was accustomed to resolving crises as efficiently as possible.

And right now, the fastest way to end this was...

"Sloane, you were in the wrong today... Regardless of what happened, you shouldn't have shoved her." Garrison avoided Sloane's eyes, his voice flat and clinical. "Just apologize to Quinn, and we can put this behind us."