PART 3 — THE SECRET IN LILY’S FILE
Daniel’s father stared at him across the table.
“Changed what?”
Daniel said nothing.
The silence inside the ballroom felt heavier than the shouting had.
His fist was still wrapped around the hospital document.
The paper had crumpled between his fingers.
His mother, Patricia, stepped toward him.
“Daniel, what did you change?”
“Nothing.”
I almost laughed.
Even now.
Even with the truth sitting in his hand.
Even with his marriage collapsing in front of everyone.
His first instinct was still to lie.
I reached into my folder and removed another copy.
Daniel stared at it.
Of course I had copies.
I had learned months ago never to confront a liar with the only copy of anything.
I handed the paper to my father.
Daniel moved toward him.
“Don’t.”
My father stepped back.
“Touch me and you’ll regret it.”
Daniel stopped.
My father unfolded the document and started reading.
His face changed almost immediately.
My mother watched him.
“What does it say?”
He looked at me first.
Then at Daniel.
Then he read the first line aloud.
“Patient information modification request.”
Patricia frowned.
“What does that mean?”
I answered.
“It means somebody requested changes to Lily’s hospital records after she was born.”
Daniel shook his head.
“It was paperwork. That’s all.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t.”
My father kept reading.
The request had been submitted less than twelve hours after Lily’s birth.
I remembered those twelve hours clearly.
I had been exhausted.
Bleeding.
Barely able to sit upright.
I had spent most of the night drifting in and out of sleep while nurses came in to check my blood pressure.
Daniel had kissed my forehead and told me to rest.
He said he would handle everything.
At the time, I thought that was love.
I thought my husband was protecting me.
I had no idea what he had been doing while I slept.
My father looked up.
“He changed the emergency contact?”
“Yes.”
Patricia looked confused.
“To who?”
Nobody answered.
She looked at Daniel.
“To who?”
Daniel’s voice was barely audible.
“Chloe.”
Patricia stumbled backward as if he had struck her.
My mother whispered, “Oh my God.”
One of Daniel’s coworkers cursed under his breath.
Patricia stared at her son.
“You put your mistress as your newborn daughter’s emergency contact?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“How exactly was it?”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“I needed someone available.”
I stared at him.
“Her mother was lying ten feet away from you.”
He looked at me.
“You were recovering.”
“So you chose Chloe?”
“She was nearby.”
“Chloe lived forty minutes from that hospital.”
Daniel said nothing.
I continued.
“And you didn’t just change the emergency contact.”
His father looked back down at the document.
I watched him reach the second section.
Then he froze.
“What the hell is this?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Patricia stepped toward her husband.
“What?”
Robert turned the page toward her.
“The authorized pickup list.”
My mother looked at me.
I nodded.
After Lily was born, the hospital required parents to list anyone authorized to receive information or accompany the baby if one parent was unavailable.
Daniel had added Chloe.
Not his mother.
Not my mother.
Not my father.
Not his father.
Chloe.
The woman carrying his other child.
Patricia slowly lowered herself into a chair.
“You put her name on Lily’s paperwork?”
Daniel’s voice became defensive.
“I didn’t know Jennifer was going to have complications.”
“What complications?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“You lost a lot of blood.”
“And that gave you permission to put your girlfriend on our daughter’s file?”
“I was trying to prepare.”
“For what?”
He did not answer.
That was the question I had asked my lawyer too.
For what?
Why would a married man secretly add his pregnant mistress to his newborn daughter’s records?
At first, I had assumed it was simply another disgusting piece of the affair.
Then my lawyer requested the full hospital file.
That was when we found the incident report.
I reached into the folder again.
Daniel watched me.
“No.”
I placed the second document on the table.
He stepped toward me.
My father blocked him.
Daniel pointed at me.
“That report is wrong.”
“You told me you didn’t know what the first document was five minutes ago.”
“That doesn’t mean this is accurate.”
“Then why are you scared?”
“I’m not scared.”
His hands were shaking.
I handed the incident report to Robert.
He read silently.
His jaw tightened.
Patricia whispered, “Robert?”
He looked at Daniel with a kind of disbelief I had never seen before.
“You tried to take Lily out of the maternity floor?”
The room seemed to shrink around us.
My mother gripped the handle of Lily’s stroller.
“What?”
Daniel immediately shook his head.
“No. That’s not what happened.”
I looked at my mother.
“Six hours after Lily was born, while I was asleep, Daniel asked a nurse if he could take her downstairs.”
My mother’s face went white.
“Downstairs where?”
“He said he wanted his parents to meet her.”
Patricia stood suddenly.
“We weren’t there.”
“I know.”
Patricia looked at Daniel.
“We didn’t come until the next morning.”
Daniel’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
I continued.
“The nurse told him Lily couldn’t leave the maternity floor.”
My father stared at him.
“And?”
“Twenty minutes later, another nurse found Daniel near the secured elevator carrying Lily.”
Patricia covered her mouth.
My mother began crying.
Daniel looked around the room as though he were searching for a single person willing to believe him.
Nobody spoke.
He turned toward me.
“I was walking with her.”
“You were standing at the secured elevator.”
“I got confused.”
“You had been in that hospital for almost a full day.”
“It was late.”
“The nurse asked where you were going.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
I knew what he remembered.
Because the incident report recorded his answer.
My father looked down at the page.
“He said someone was waiting downstairs.”
Patricia whispered, “Who?”
I looked directly at Daniel.
“Chloe.”
A sound came from my mother that I had never heard before.
Not quite a gasp.
Not quite a sob.
Daniel raised both hands.
“She wanted to see the baby.”
The words were so insane that for a moment nobody reacted.
Then my father moved.
I grabbed his arm before he could reach Daniel.
“Dad.”
He stopped, but every muscle in his body was tense.
Daniel backed away.
“She wanted to see Lily,” he repeated.
My mother stared at him.
“Your pregnant mistress wanted to see your wife’s newborn baby?”
Daniel looked embarrassed now.
As if embarrassment were the worst thing happening.
“She knew about Lily.”
I felt something cold move through me.
That sentence still hurt.
Even after everything I had learned.
Even after seeing it written in his messages.
Because Daniel had allowed Chloe into parts of my pregnancy I had thought belonged only to us.
He had sent her ultrasound pictures.
He had complained about my morning sickness.
He had told her when I went into labor.
And apparently, while I was lying in a hospital bed after giving birth, Chloe had driven to the hospital.
She had waited downstairs.
For my husband.
And my baby.
Patricia shook her head repeatedly.
“No. No, Daniel.”
He looked at her.
“Mom—”
“No.”
She pointed toward Lily.
“That baby was hours old.”
“I wasn’t taking her anywhere.”
“Then why were you at the elevator?”
“I was going downstairs for five minutes.”
“With a newborn?”
“She was sleeping.”
Patricia stared at him as though she no longer recognized the man she had raised.
Robert read further.
“The nurse stopped you.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Daniel became angry.”
“I was exhausted.”
“The nurse called security.”
“That was unnecessary.”
“The hospital disagreed.”
Daniel looked toward his coworkers.
Most of them had moved away from their tables now.
His beautiful baptism party had become a courtroom.
And he had provided nearly every piece of evidence himself.
My father continued reading.
“You told security Chloe was your sister.”
Patricia shut her eyes.
Daniel’s voice rose.
“I panicked.”
“You lied,” I said.
“She was standing downstairs, pregnant with your child, and you told hospital security she was your sister.”
“Because I knew how it would look.”
I stared at him.
“That was your concern?”
“Yes, Jennifer, because people judge situations they don’t understand.”
I almost laughed.
“You were trying to secretly introduce our newborn daughter to your pregnant mistress while I was unconscious upstairs.”
“I wasn’t introducing them.”
“Then what were you doing?”
Daniel slammed his palm against the table.
“I DON’T KNOW!”
The sound echoed across the ballroom.
Lily startled awake.
Her face tightened.
Then she began crying.
Everything inside me changed instantly.
The anger disappeared.
The evidence disappeared.
The crowd disappeared.
I went directly to my daughter.
My mother lifted her from the stroller and handed her to me.
I held Lily against my chest.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
Her tiny fingers curled into my dress.
I kissed the top of her head.
Daniel watched us.
For a moment, I saw something almost human cross his face.
Then he stepped toward us.
“Give her to me.”
I moved back.
“No.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“And you’re angry.”
“I’m not going to hurt her.”
“I didn’t say you would.”
“Then give her to me.”
“No.”
His eyes darkened.
“You can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Using Lily against me.”
I felt my father move closer behind me.
“I’m protecting her.”
“From me?”
“From your decisions.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“You’re unbelievable.”
Then Robert spoke.
“There’s more.”
Daniel turned.
Robert was still holding the report.
His face had become strangely still.
I knew where he was on the page.
This was the part I had not understood when I first read it.
The part my lawyer had explained.
Robert looked at me.
“What does ‘identity-band discrepancy’ mean?”
Daniel froze.
Patricia looked at him.
“What?”
I held Lily tighter.
A nurse had stopped Daniel at the elevator because the security sensor on Lily’s identification bracelet triggered.
Hospitals place matching identification bands on newborns and parents.
Lily’s original band had matched mine and Daniel’s.
But when the nurse checked Lily at the elevator, the information on the temporary printed label attached to her bassinet did not match the information entered at admission.
My lawyer initially assumed it was a clerical error.
It wasn’t.
Someone had accessed Lily’s file using Daniel’s parent login.
Someone had changed the secondary address.
Someone had added Chloe’s phone number.
And someone had changed the field marked “alternate responsible party.”
Patricia whispered, “Why?”
Daniel looked at me.
I could see him deciding how much I knew.
That was the mistake liars made.
They always thought truth was a game of information.
If they knew how much you knew, they could tailor the lie.
So I gave him nothing.
I simply waited.
Finally he said, “The hospital entered something incorrectly.”
I nodded.
“What?”
“The address.”
“Which address?”
“Ours.”
“Try again.”
His jaw tightened.
My lawyer had obtained the access log.
The change came from Daniel’s account.
At 2:14 in the morning.
Four hours after Lily was born.
The address he entered was not ours.
It was Chloe’s apartment.
My mother stared at him.
“You put another woman’s address on your newborn daughter’s hospital file?”
Daniel exhaled.
“It was temporary.”
“Why?”
He looked at the floor.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Then I asked the question that had tortured me since my attorney showed me the document.
“Were you planning to take Lily there?”
Daniel looked at me.
“No.”
“Then why use Chloe’s address?”
“I told you. It was a mistake.”
“You typed her entire address by mistake?”
He said nothing.
“Apartment number too?”
Silence.
“Zip code?”
Nothing.
“Phone number?”
His face tightened.
Patricia whispered, “Answer her.”
Daniel suddenly turned on me.
“You want the truth?”
“Yes.”
“You really want the truth?”
“That’s why we’re here.”
He laughed once.
A broken sound.
“Fine.”
He looked around the room.
“My marriage was falling apart.”
I stared at him.
“My marriage was not falling apart.”
“It was for me.”
“Because you were having an affair.”
“Before Chloe.”
I felt something twist inside my chest.
Daniel continued.
“You were always tired.”
“I was pregnant.”
“You stopped caring about anything except the baby.”
“I WAS CARRYING YOUR CHILD.”
Lily moved in my arms.
I lowered my voice immediately.
Daniel looked away.
“I felt invisible.”
My father shook his head in disgust.
Daniel ignored him.
“Chloe understood me.”
I almost smiled.
There it was.
The oldest excuse in the world.
He felt unseen.
So he betrayed the woman carrying his child.
“She listened,” he continued.
“She didn’t criticize everything.”
“I didn’t know you were having an affair, Daniel. What exactly was I criticizing?”
He didn’t answer.
I stepped closer.
“Why did you put Chloe’s address on Lily’s record?”
His face tightened again.
Because all his explanations were just smoke around that one question.
Finally he said it.
“If something happened to you, I needed a plan.”
My mother whispered, “What?”
Daniel looked at me.
“The delivery was complicated.”
I stared at him.
“You thought I might die.”
Nobody breathed.
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“The doctor said there was bleeding.”
“So while doctors were treating me, you were planning where our daughter would live if I died?”
“I was scared.”
“With Chloe.”
“I didn’t have anyone else.”
Patricia made a broken sound.
“You had us.”
Daniel looked at his mother.
“You would have asked questions.”
Her face collapsed.
And suddenly I understood.
It had never been about needing help.
It had been about avoiding questions.
If I had died during childbirth, Daniel would have been a grieving widower.
A single father.
A man everyone pitied.
And Chloe?
She could have slowly entered the picture.
The old friend.
The supportive woman.
The person helping a grieving father raise his newborn daughter.
Nobody would have known she was already pregnant with his child.
Nobody would have known their relationship had begun while I was alive.
Eventually, he could have rewritten the entire story.
I felt sick.
“You had a plan,” I whispered.
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
“You did.”
“I was scared, Jennifer.”
“You changed Lily’s address.”
“I panicked.”
“You added Chloe as an authorized contact.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“You tried to bring Lily downstairs to her.”
“I made a mistake.”
“You lied to hospital security.”
“I panicked!”
I stared at him.
“Everything you do becomes a mistake the moment you’re caught.”
He went silent.
That sentence hit him harder than anything else had.
Robert dropped the incident report onto the table.
“I’m done.”
Daniel looked at his father.
“Dad.”
“I don’t know who you are.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
Robert’s face changed.
“Dramatic?”
He pointed at me.
“Your wife nearly died giving birth to your daughter, and while she was lying upstairs you were making arrangements with your pregnant mistress.”
Daniel lowered his head.
Robert continued.
“You emptied your family’s savings.”
Silence.
“You lied to your wife.”
Silence.
“You lied to us.”
Silence.
“And then you invited everyone here so we could applaud you.”
Daniel’s eyes filled with anger.
“You think I wanted any of this?”
I stared at him.
That was the moment I understood something important.
Daniel still believed he was the victim.
Not me.
Not Lily.
Not even Chloe.
Him.
He truly believed everything that had happened was something happening to him.
My lawyer had warned me about that.
People who refuse responsibility can become unpredictable when the consequences finally arrive.
That was why she had advised me not to be alone with him after serving the divorce papers.
It was why my parents already had bags packed for Lily and me.
And it was why, without Daniel knowing, I had changed the locks on a place he did not yet realize belonged entirely to me.
Daniel looked toward the ballroom doors.
Then back at me.
“Fine.”
His voice suddenly became calm.
Too calm.
“You want a divorce?”
“Yes.”
“Take it.”
I said nothing.
“You want to embarrass me?”
“You embarrassed yourself.”
“Whatever.”
He picked up the divorce envelope.
“I’ll sign whatever you want.”
I knew immediately he was lying.
Daniel never surrendered that easily.
Then he smiled.
It wasn’t the smile he had worn during his speech.
This one was colder.
“But Lily comes home with me tonight.”
My mother stepped between us.
“No.”
Daniel ignored her.
He looked directly at me.
“This is still our marital home. Lily lives there. You cannot disappear with her.”
“I’m not disappearing.”
“Where are you going?”
I didn’t answer.
His eyes narrowed.
“Your parents’ house?”
Silence.
“A hotel?”
Nothing.
Then he smiled again.
“You didn’t think this through.”
My father almost laughed.
I looked at Daniel.
“Actually, I did.”
I opened my handbag.
This time I removed a small ring of keys.
Daniel stared at them.
“What are those?”
“The keys to my house.”
He blinked.
“Our house?”
“No.”
He laughed.
“What are you talking about?”
“My house.”
His expression changed.
“You don’t own a house.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
My mother looked at me.
She already knew.
My father knew too.
Daniel looked between us.
Confusion slowly became suspicion.
“Jennifer.”
I slid a document from the folder.
A property deed.
Daniel took it.
His eyes moved across the page.
Then stopped.
“You bought a house?”
“No.”
He looked up.
“Then what is this?”
“My grandmother left it to me.”
His face hardened.
I had inherited my grandmother’s small house two years earlier.
Daniel knew she had left me some jewelry and savings.
What he did not know was that my grandmother had transferred ownership of her house into a trust before she died.
My attorney had confirmed it was separate property.
Daniel had no ownership claim.
No key.
No legal right to enter.
And that morning, while Daniel was getting dressed for his perfect baptism party, movers had quietly delivered everything Lily and I needed.
Daniel stared at the deed.
“You hid property from me?”
I laughed softly.
“That’s what bothers you?”
“We’re married.”
“So?”
“You should have told me.”
“Like you told me about Chloe?”
He went silent.
I took the deed from his hand.
“My lawyer advised me not to return home with you.”
“You’re leaving tonight?”
“I already left.”
That wiped the smile from his face.
“What?”
“The important things are gone.”
His eyes widened.
“What important things?”
“Mine.”
He suddenly pulled out his phone.
I knew exactly what he was about to do.
He opened the security camera app for our house.
Then his face changed.
“The cameras are offline.”
“Yes.”
“You shut them off?”
“No.”
“My attorney arranged for my belongings to be removed while we were both here.”
His fingers moved quickly over the screen.
He checked another camera.
Then another.
Nothing.
He looked up.
“You planned all of this.”
“For weeks.”
“You’ve been sleeping beside me while planning to leave?”
I looked into his eyes.
“You slept beside me while planning a life with another woman.”
He had no answer.
I turned toward the doors.
This time I intended to leave.
But Daniel spoke again.
“You’re forgetting something.”
I stopped.
There was confidence in his voice now.
I turned slowly.
“What?”
He put his phone away.
“The account.”
“What account?”
He smiled.
“Our investment account.”
Something cold moved through me.
We did have an investment account.
Or at least, I believed we did.
Daniel handled it.
Every month, money from both our salaries went into it.
For five years.
It was supposed to be our retirement.
Our security.
The money we never touched.
My lawyer knew about it.
We had statements.
At least, we thought we did.
Daniel saw my expression.
His smile widened.
“You think you found everything.”
My father frowned.
“What did you do?”
Daniel ignored him.
He looked only at me.
“You were very busy investigating Chloe.”
I said nothing.
“But you missed the one account that actually mattered.”
My stomach tightened.
“How much is in it?”
Daniel laughed quietly.
“That’s the wrong question.”
I felt my fingers tighten around Lily’s blanket.
“What did you do?”
He stepped closer.
“The investment statements you’ve been receiving for the last eighteen months?”
I already knew what he was going to say before he finished.
“They weren’t real.”
My mother whispered, “What?”
Daniel’s eyes never left mine.
“I closed that account a year and a half ago.”
For a moment, I could hear nothing.
Not the music.
Not the guests.
Not Lily breathing against me.
Nothing.
There should have been almost one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in that account.
My money.
His money.
Money we had saved before Lily was born.
Money I thought was protected.
“Where is it?” I whispered.
Daniel smiled.
And that smile terrified me more than his anger had.
“Gone.”
My father stepped forward.
“Gone where?”
Daniel looked at him.
“Business.”
I stared at Daniel.
“You used our retirement savings?”
“I invested it.”
“In your failing company?”
His expression told me the answer.
Nearly one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
Gone.
The joint savings account emptied.
Business loans approaching eighty thousand.
Credit cards I had not even investigated yet.
The $4,500 party bill sitting on the table.
And suddenly I understood why Daniel had wanted me to pay it.
He wasn’t temporarily short on cash.
He was drowning.
Patricia sat down slowly.
“How much debt are you in?”
Daniel snapped, “Stay out of it.”
Robert moved toward him.
“Don’t speak to your mother like that.”
“It’s my life.”
“You made it everybody’s life when you borrowed from us.”
The room went silent.
Daniel turned.
“What?”
Robert stared at him.
“You heard me.”
I looked at Robert.
“What do you mean?”
Patricia looked horrified.
Robert’s jaw tightened.
“Six months ago Daniel asked us for forty thousand dollars.”
My heart dropped.
Daniel immediately shook his head.
“That was a loan.”
“You told us it was for expanding the company.”
“It was.”
Robert stared at him.
“Was it?”
Daniel said nothing.
Patricia looked at her husband.
“You told me it was twenty thousand.”
Robert closed his eyes.
Now another secret had entered the room.
He looked at Patricia.
“I gave him forty.”
Her mouth fell open.
“You lied to me?”
“I thought I was helping our son.”
Daniel cursed under his breath.
Then my father spoke.
“Jennifer.”
There was something in his voice.
Something urgent.
I looked at him.
He was staring at one of the bank statements on the table.
“What?”
He picked it up.
“Your savings transfer.”
My stomach tightened.
“What about it?”
He pointed at the account number receiving one of Daniel’s transfers.
“Does this number mean anything to you?”
I looked.
It didn’t.
Daniel did not move.
My father looked at him.
“Whose account is this?”
Daniel’s face went pale again.
And immediately, I knew.
This was not Chloe’s account.
I had seen Chloe’s transfers.
This number was different.
My father repeated the question.
“Whose account is this?”
Daniel grabbed the statement.
My father held it away.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
“Dad.”
Robert took the statement from my father and looked at it.
Then something extraordinary happened.
Daniel’s father went completely white.
Not pale.
White.
Patricia noticed.
“Robert?”
He stared at the account number.
“Where did you get this?”
I answered.
“Daniel’s financial records.”
Robert slowly lifted his eyes toward his son.
“What did you do?”
Daniel’s voice shook.
“Dad, not here.”
My heart started pounding.
Patricia looked between them.
“What is happening?”
Robert took one step toward Daniel.
“That account was closed.”
Daniel said nothing.
Robert’s hands began trembling.
“I closed that account twelve years ago.”
My father frowned.
“Your account?”
Robert looked at me.
“No.”
His voice was barely a whisper.
“It belonged to my brother.”
Patricia covered her mouth.
I remembered Daniel’s uncle Michael.
He had died years before I met Daniel.
The family almost never spoke about him.
I had always assumed it was grief.
Robert stared at the bank statement like he was looking at a ghost.
“My brother died twelve years ago.”
Nobody spoke.
“But this account number was connected to the trust he left behind.”
Daniel backed away.
Robert moved toward him.
“How do you have access to Michael’s trust?”
Daniel swallowed.
“I can explain.”
Robert’s voice broke.
“THAT TRUST WAS FOR HIS DAUGHTER.”
The ballroom erupted in whispers.
I stared at Daniel.
His cousin.
Michael’s daughter.
I had met her only twice.
Her name was Sophie.
She was twenty-three now.
Daniel looked toward the exit.
And suddenly everything made sense.
The debts.
The hidden transfers.
The fake investment statements.
The desperation.
But there was something much bigger happening than an affair.
Much bigger than a failed business.
Robert stepped closer to his son.
“How much did you take?”
Daniel said nothing.
“How much?”
Daniel’s face collapsed.
And when he finally answered, Patricia began to cry before he even finished the number.
“Two hundred and eighty thousand.”
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Robert stared at his son.
“You stole two hundred and eighty thousand dollars from Sophie?”
Daniel shook his head desperately.
“I was going to replace it.”
The same words.
Again.
I was going to replace it.
Money from Chloe.
Money from me.
Money from his parents.
Money from a dead uncle’s trust.
Daniel hadn’t been hiding one secret life.
He had been using everyone around him to finance it.
Then Robert whispered something that changed the entire room.
“You couldn’t have accessed that trust alone.”
Daniel’s expression froze.
Robert looked at him.
“There were two signatures required.”
Daniel said nothing.
Patricia stopped crying.
I watched fear return to Daniel’s face.
But this time it was different.
This time, he wasn’t afraid of me.
He was afraid of someone else.
Robert took another step forward.
“Who helped you?”
Daniel looked toward the ballroom entrance.
And that was when I heard a woman’s voice behind me.
“I did.”
Every person in the room turned.
A woman stood just inside the doors.
Pregnant.
One hand resting on her belly.
Her face pale.
Her eyes swollen from crying.
I recognized her immediately from the photographs.
Chloe.
Daniel’s first love.
Daniel’s mistress.
The woman carrying his child.
But she wasn’t looking at Daniel.
She was looking directly at me.
Then she said the six words that made my blood run cold.
“Jennifer, Daniel lied to me too.”
Daniel rushed toward her.
“Chloe, leave.”
She stepped backward.
“No.”
“Get out.”
“I’m done protecting you.”
Daniel’s entire body stiffened.
I held Lily closer.
Chloe looked at me again.
“I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
She swallowed.
“I thought you agreed to everything.”
I stared at her.
“Agreed to what?”
Daniel moved between us.
“She’s lying.”
Chloe laughed through her tears.
“Of course you’d say that.”
“Leave.”
“No.”
She reached into her purse.
Daniel saw what she was reaching for.
And suddenly he lunged toward her.
My father grabbed him.
Robert helped pull him back.
“LET GO OF ME!”
Chloe removed a thick envelope.
She looked at me.
“There’s something you need to see.”
Daniel struggled against our fathers.
“DON’T GIVE HER THAT!”
Every person in the ballroom froze.
Chloe walked toward me.
Her hands were trembling.
She handed me the envelope.
“What is it?” I whispered.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“The agreement Daniel made me sign.”
My stomach dropped.
“What agreement?”
She looked toward Lily.
Then back at me.
And what she said next made the affair, the stolen money, and even the hospital incident suddenly feel like pieces of something much darker.
“It was an agreement about your daughter.”
Daniel stopped struggling.
I stared at Chloe.
“What about Lily?”
Chloe’s lips trembled.
Then she whispered,
“He promised me that before Lily turned one year old, she would be living with us.”
And as I opened the envelope, I realized Part 4 would not be about discovering whether Daniel had planned to leave me.
It would be about discovering exactly how far he had already gone to make sure I would lose my daughter when he did………….
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
