Chapter 1 - Ten Minutes Before the Wedding)
Ten minutes before Daniel Carter was supposed to marry Rebecca Hayes in front of nearly two hundred guests, he found his seven-year-old daughter curled into a ball behind the half-open chapel door.
Emily was crying so hard she could barely breathe.
One side of her little flower crown had slipped down into her light-brown hair. Several white blossoms had fallen onto the polished marble beside her shoes. Her white flower-girl dress was wrinkled around her knees, and both of her hands were wrapped around a crumpled sheet of paper.
Daniel stopped dead.
The noise from the chapel continued behind him.
A string quartet was warming up.
Guests were laughing softly.
Someone was testing the microphone near the altar.
But Daniel heard none of it.
He dropped to one knee.
“Emily, what the hell happened?”
She looked up.
The fear in her eyes changed something inside him.
Emily had been frightened before. She had cried after nightmares. She had cried when she broke her wrist falling from a swing. She had cried at her mother’s funeral four years earlier.
This was different.
This was terror.
She pushed the crumpled paper into his hand.
“Rebecca said I have to leave after you marry her.”
Daniel stared at her.
“What?”
Emily’s fingers curled into the lapel of his tuxedo.
“She said there won’t be room for me anymore.”
Footsteps clicked sharply against the marble.
Daniel looked up.
Rebecca appeared at the other end of the hallway in her lace wedding gown, her dark hair arranged perfectly above diamond earrings.
For the briefest second, her expression changed when she saw the paper in Daniel’s hand.
Panic.
Then it disappeared beneath the sweet smile Daniel had seen a thousand times.
“There you are,” Rebecca said. “Everyone’s looking for you.”
She moved toward Emily.
“Give her to the nanny. She’s ruining my damn wedding.”
Emily recoiled.
Her entire body pressed against Daniel’s chest.
Daniel stood slowly and placed himself between them.
Rebecca stopped.
“What did you just say?”
Rebecca blinked.
“She’s overwhelmed. Look at her. She needs to calm down somewhere else.”
Daniel unfolded the paper.
Rebecca reached for it.
He pulled his hand away.
“What is this?”
Before she could answer, another pair of heels sounded from the chapel entrance.
Margaret Hayes hurried toward them.
She looked from Daniel to the paper and then down at Emily.
Her face hardened.
“This is ridiculous,” Margaret said. “That child has spent the entire week demanding attention.”
Emily flinched.
Margaret pointed toward her.
“Someone needs to teach her that the world doesn’t revolve around her.”
Rebecca suddenly bent down.
Before Daniel understood what she was doing, she pulled the remaining loose flowers from Emily’s hair.
The white blossoms scattered across the marble.
Emily gasped.
Rebecca dropped the flowers at her feet.
“She needs to understand she’s not the center of this family.”
Something inside Daniel went completely still.
Not rage.
Not yet.
Something colder.
He looked down at the note.
Rebecca’s handwriting covered the page.
Emily stared up at him.
“Daddy.”
Her voice shook.
“Read what she wrote about Mom.”
Rebecca lunged.
Daniel moved the paper out of reach.
A second folded sheet slipped from behind it and landed on the floor.
Margaret’s face lost all color.
Daniel saw it.
He looked down.
Margaret moved first.
“Daniel, don’t.”
He bent and picked up the second sheet.
Rebecca grabbed his wrist.
“That isn’t yours.”
Daniel looked into her eyes.
“You put it in my daughter’s hands.”
“I didn’t give her anything.”
Emily shook her head violently.
“I found it in Rebecca’s room.”
Rebecca turned.
“You went through my things?”
Emily hid behind Daniel.
Daniel unfolded the first note completely.
Rebecca stopped speaking.
The first sentences were enough.
Emily,
After tonight, things are going to change.
Your father needs a real family now. You will be going somewhere that can help you adjust. Do not embarrass me today.
Your mother had her chance to control this family.
She failed.
When I become Mrs. Carter, her photographs, her clothes, and everything else keeping her in this house will be removed.
If you love your father, you will stop making his life harder.
Daniel read the final sentence twice.
Your mother ruined my family years ago.
Now I am taking hers back.
His eyes lifted.
“What family?”
Rebecca’s lips parted.
Margaret whispered, “Rebecca.”
Daniel opened the second paper.
It was not handwritten.
It was a photocopy of an old legal document.
At the top was the name of a charitable organization Daniel had not heard in years.
Bellweather Children’s Foundation.
Beneath it was a formal complaint signed by Daniel’s late wife.
Laura Carter.
The complaint accused a financial officer named Margaret Whitmore of diverting charitable funds into private accounts.
Daniel’s eyes traveled down the page.
Margaret Whitmore.
Former married name.
Current legal name.
Margaret Hayes.
Daniel slowly looked at the woman standing beside his bride.
Four years after Laura’s death, he finally understood why Margaret had always refused to discuss where she had worked before moving to Connecticut.
He looked at Rebecca.
“You knew Laura.”
Rebecca said nothing.
“You knew who my wife was before you ever met me.”
Guests nearest the chapel doors had started noticing the confrontation.
Whispers moved through the entrance.
Rebecca lowered her voice.
“Daniel, this is not the place.”
Daniel laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You’re right.”
He glanced toward the chapel.
Two hundred guests waited for him to marry a woman who had just told his daughter that her dead mother had ruined her family.
Daniel turned back.
“This wedding is over.”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“No.”
Daniel took Emily’s hand.
Margaret stepped forward.
“Think carefully before you humiliate my daughter.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I’m thinking more clearly than I have in two years.”
Rebecca grabbed his arm.
“You walk through those doors and cancel this wedding, you cannot undo it.”
Daniel stared at her hand until she released him.
Then Emily tugged gently at his jacket.
“Daddy?”
He looked down.
“There was another paper.”
Daniel froze.
Rebecca froze too.
Emily pointed toward the bridal suite.
“I couldn’t carry all of them.”
Daniel looked at Rebecca.
For the first time since he had known her, she appeared genuinely afraid.
“What other paper?” he asked.
May you like
Emily whispered the answer.
“The one with your signature on it.”
