“They’re mean, they’re going to be horrified by your job, and they’re completely self-involved,” she said succinctly, taking the glass from him. “The wedding is probably going to be one tiny nightmare after another on top of the larger nightmare of the wedding itself. I have a few normal family members, but mostly picture the worst family relationship scenarios you can imagine and then extrapolate from there.”

Jake chuckled. “So... inbreeding?”

She snorted, nearly choking on her wine. “Maybe not quite that bad, but... kind of close. My parents’ generation all had what amounted to arranged marriages. Most of them are desperately unhappy but refuse to divorce. My parents get along pretty well but it’s more a business relationship than anything else as far as I can tell.”

“You’re not close?”

“I try to spend as little time with them as possible.” It was better for everyone that way. “I don’t really do family. At least, not my family.”

“Huh.” Jake’s forehead wrinkled, and Sharon could feel herself pulling behind the facade she often employed when dealing with anything to do with her family.

“We don’t get along,” she said lightly.

“Why not?”

“Well, they want me to be a society princess, marry someone who will make a good business connection, and behave all the time. I want none of that. Fortunately, my trust came from my grandma so they haven’t had any control over me for a really long time.”

“But they’re your parents… it sounds like they love you and want the best for you, as they picture it.”

“Sure,” she said with a sigh. This was not a topic she wanted to spend any time on.

It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t get it. This was why she kept things light. Without Kate here to bolster her, or anyone else who had seen her family firsthand, she knew she sounded a little bitchy to someone who didn’t understand. People who had warm, loving families that supported them just didn’t get it. To them, family was family, through thick and thin, and even when you hated them you loved them.

Sharon understood that, intellectually. She’d seen how other families worked, seen how their children struggled with the idea that sometimes people were so toxic that it didn’t matter if they were related to you by blood. Heck, Sharon even understood the impulse to keep up the family ties, otherwise, she would have completely cut contact with hers years ago.