Chapter 2 - Three Weeks Before Daniel
Emily had met Thomas Vale on a rainy Thursday night.
She remembered the date because it was the day her mother called to tell her that the bank had approved the final payment arrangement on the debt left behind by Emily’s father.
Emily had been twenty-eight.
Tired.
Underpaid.
Relieved.
She had stopped at a small café near St. Matthew’s Medical Center after visiting one of her former students.
Thomas was sitting alone near the window.
He looked out of place.
Expensive coat.
Silver watch.
No coffee.
He was staring at a medical envelope.
Emily would never have spoken to him if he had not dropped it.
Papers scattered across the floor.
She helped gather them.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
One sheet had landed face up.
Emily saw a hospital logo.
She immediately looked away.
“I didn’t read anything.”
Thomas gave a weak smile.
“Most people would.”
“I teach third grade. I already know more secrets than any human should.”
That made him laugh.
It was the beginning of a strange conversation.
Thomas told her he had just received medical news.
He did not explain.
Emily did not ask.
He asked what she taught.
She talked about her students.
He listened.
Really listened.
Before leaving, he bought her coffee.
They did not exchange numbers.
Emily assumed she would never see him again.
Two days later, they met accidentally in the same café.
This time Thomas had coffee.
They talked for an hour.
Then again the next week.
On the third meeting, Thomas finally told her his last name.
Vale.
Emily knew the name.
Everyone in the city did.
Vale Capital had once been one of the Carter Group’s biggest competitors.
Thomas Vale had been CEO until a sudden resignation two years earlier.
Business magazines had called it a health break.
Thomas called it something else.
“My family thinks power cures everything.”
Emily stirred her tea.
“Does it?”
“No.”
He smiled sadly.
“It just gives people more expensive ways to avoid the truth.”
The conversation should have ended there.
Instead, Thomas asked whether Emily could do him a favor.
His younger sister had died years earlier.
Her daughter, Sophie, was nine.
Thomas paid for Sophie’s schooling but rarely saw her.
He wanted advice about books.
Birthday presents.
Things a nine-year-old might actually enjoy.
Emily helped.
For three weeks, that was all their relationship was.
Coffee.
Conversation.
A lonely man asking questions about a niece he regretted not knowing better.
Then came the final afternoon.
Thomas called Emily unexpectedly.
He sounded frightened.
“Can you meet me at St. Matthew’s?”
Emily almost said no.
Something in his voice changed her mind.
When she arrived, he was outside near the private entrance.
He handed her a sealed envelope.
“If anything happens to me, I need you to keep this.”
Emily stared at him.
“What is it?”
“Something that belongs to someone else.”
“Thomas, you’re scaring me.”
“You should be scared.”
She tried to give it back.
He closed her fingers around it.
“Please.”
“Why me?”
“Because you have no reason to protect any of them.”
“Who?”
Thomas looked toward the street.
A black car had stopped near the curb.
His face changed.
“Go.”
“Thomas.”
“Emily, go.”
She did.
She walked quickly toward the corner.
Before turning, she looked back.
That was when someone took the photograph.
Emily standing beside Thomas Vale.
His hand around hers.
The envelope between them.
Three weeks later, she met Daniel Carter at a charity education event.
She did not connect Daniel to Thomas at first.
Daniel rarely talked about the rivalry between the Carter and Vale companies.
By the time Emily understood how closely the two families were connected, Thomas Vale was dead.
The official cause was cardiac failure.
Emily attended no funeral.
She opened no envelope.
She placed it in a locked box and told herself Thomas had chosen the wrong stranger.
Then Daniel asked her to dinner.
One dinner became ten.
Ten became a year.
Emily fell in love.
And every month that passed made the envelope harder to mention.
She never lied directly.
Daniel never asked whether she had known Thomas.
But silence became its own kind of lie.
And now Victoria had found evidence of it.
As Daniel drove away from the mansion after the disastrous family lunch, Emily sat beside him with one hand over her stomach.
He had not asked about Victoria’s accusation yet.
That frightened her more than anger would have.
Daniel stared at the road.
Finally he spoke.
“Who was she talking about?”
Emily looked out the window.
“Daniel.”
“Who?”
She closed her eyes.
“Thomas Vale.”
The car swerved slightly.
Daniel corrected it immediately.
Then he went very still.
“You knew Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“It’s complicated.”
Daniel laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Apparently.”
Emily turned toward him.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
She had no answer.
Daniel glanced at her.
May you like
For the first time since they had met, Emily saw something in his eyes she had never expected to see directed at her.
Suspicion.
