Chapter 1 - THE NOTE BEHIND THE CHAPEL
Ten minutes before I was supposed to marry Rebecca, I found my seven-year-old daughter crying behind the chapel.
Not sniffing.
Not pouting.
Crying so hard she could barely breathe.
Emily’s white dress was dirty at the knees.
Half the little flowers pinned into her brown hair had fallen out.
And her hands were shaking.
“Emily?”
She jumped when she heard my voice.
I dropped to one knee.
“Hey, sweetheart. Look at me.”
She wouldn’t.
Her eyes stayed locked on the chapel doors.
“What happened?”
Emily reached into the pocket of her dress.
She pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
Then she pushed it into my hand.
“Rebecca said I have to go away after you marry her.”
My stomach turned cold.
“What?”
“She said you agreed.”
“No.”
My answer came too fast.
Too sharp.
Emily flinched.
I lowered my voice.
“No, baby. I didn’t agree to anything.”
Her lip trembled.
“She said after you say ‘I do,’ you won’t need me anymore.”
For one second, I forgot how to breathe.
I unfolded the note.
The handwriting was Rebecca’s.
I had seen it on grocery lists.
Birthday cards.
Little notes she left beside the coffee machine.
There was no mistaking it.
After the wedding, you will live somewhere better suited for children like you.
Do not upset your father today.
He has already agreed.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
“Where did she give you this?”
“In the bride room.”
“Was anyone else there?”
Emily nodded.
“Aunt Diane.”
Rebecca’s older sister.
Of course.
I stood slowly.
For two years, Rebecca had played the perfect future stepmother.
She helped Emily with homework.
She attended school concerts.
She packed lunches.
She told everyone she would never try to replace Emily’s mother.
My first wife, Sarah, had died four years earlier.
Cancer.
Eleven months of hospitals.
Eleven months of watching the strongest woman I knew disappear one pound at a time.
Emily had been three.
Before Sarah died, she had grabbed my wrist and whispered one thing.
“Never let anyone make her feel like she’s in the way.”
I promised.
And now I was standing behind a chapel holding proof that I had nearly broken that promise.
The doors opened.
Rebecca stepped outside.
She looked beautiful.
That was the sick part.
White lace.
Perfect makeup.
A soft smile.
Nearly two hundred guests waited inside.
The organ continued playing.
Rebecca saw Emily clinging to me.
Then she saw the note.
Her smile froze.
Only for half a second.
Then it came back.
“Daniel, everyone is waiting.”
I didn’t move.
Rebecca approached.
“Emily, honey, go with Melissa.”
Melissa was the nanny Rebecca had recently insisted we hire.
Emily buried her face against my jacket.
Rebecca’s smile tightened.
“Come on. Don’t make a scene.”
I stared at her.
“Did you write this?”
She glanced toward the open doors.
“Not here.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Rebecca’s voice dropped.
“We can discuss this afterward.”
“After what?”
Her eyes sharpened.
“After we’re married.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because suddenly I understood.
The timing.
The note.
Emily’s fear.
Rebecca hadn’t expected me to find out before the vows.
She needed those vows.
“Why?” I asked.
Rebecca stepped closer.
“Daniel, please.”
“Why does this have to wait until after we’re married?”
For the first time, real anger appeared behind her eyes.
“Because there are legal arrangements you clearly don’t understand.”
Legal arrangements.
Emily looked up at me.
I felt her tiny fingers tighten around mine.
“What arrangements?”
Rebecca opened her mouth.
Then a man’s voice came from behind her.
“Daniel.”
I looked past her.
My attorney, Mark Ellis, stood inside the chapel doorway.
His face was pale.
He had been my lawyer for eleven years.
He was also supposed to be my best man.
Rebecca turned toward him.
Mark didn’t look at her.
He looked at me.
Then at the note.
“Don’t sign anything,” he said.
May you like
Rebecca’s face went white.
And that was when I realized the wedding wasn’t the only thing she had planned.
