CHAPTER 2
Maren swallowed.
“Of course I know her.”
“Who is she?”
Silence.
“Willa is…” Maren’s voice faltered. “She’s my friend’s daughter.”
Gabriel looked from Maren to the child.
Willa would not lift her eyes.
“Then why was she hiding in a bathroom?”
“She’s shy,” Maren said.
The words sounded practiced.
“Willa said you told her not to come outside.”
Maren’s face drained of color.
“She misunderstood.”
“No,” Willa whispered.
The room froze.
Maren turned sharply.
“Willa.”
There was warning in her tone, and Gabriel heard it clearly.
Tears spilled down Willa’s cheeks.
“You said people couldn’t see me.”
“Sweetheart—”
“You said Daddy would be angry.”
Gabriel felt the blood leave his body.
“Daddy?”
Maren closed her eyes.
“Not now,” she whispered. “Gabriel, please.”
He stared at the woman he was supposed to marry within the hour.
“What is she talking about?”
Maren looked trapped, as if the walls she had built for years were cracking all at once.
“It’s complicated.”
“I think I’ve earned complicated.”
Before she could answer, Celeste Vale appeared behind her daughter.
“There you are,” she said brightly.
Then she saw Gabriel’s face.
Then Willa.
Then Maren’s tears.
The brightness vanished.
“Gabriel,” Celeste said carefully, “the guests are arriving.”
“I asked Maren a question.”
Celeste stepped closer. “This is not the time.”
“When would be the time?” Gabriel demanded.
No one answered.
Willa clutched her dress. Maren rubbed her trembling hands together.
“I was going to tell you,” Maren whispered.
“When?”
She looked away.
Gabriel’s voice hardened.
“Who is Willa?”
The silence stretched until it seemed to fill the whole room.
Then Willa whispered, “I think… I’m his daughter.”
The world stopped.
Gabriel stared at her.
“What?”
Willa pointed uncertainly at him.
“Mom showed me pictures.”
Gabriel staggered back.
“No.”
Maren broke into sobs.
“Gabriel, I can explain.”
He looked at her as if seeing a stranger.
“You told me you never had children.”
“I know.”
“You told me there had never been anyone else.”
“I know.”
“You let me plan a wedding while hiding a child?”
“Gabriel—”
“Is she mine?”
Maren cried harder.
Celeste stepped forward, protective and sharp.
“You need to calm down.”
Gabriel laughed once, bitterly.
“Calm down?”
From downstairs came applause. Then the first notes of ceremony music.
It sounded unreal. Like it belonged to someone else’s life.
“This isn’t what you think,” Maren pleaded.
“Then tell me what to think.”
She looked at Willa. Then at Gabriel.
And the truth began to come out.
Six years earlier, before Gabriel and Maren had built the life everyone knew, there had been another version of them. A brief romance. Sudden and bright. A business trip. Late dinners. Promises made too easily and broken under the weight of ambition.
Then they had drifted apart.
Maren discovered she was pregnant after the man had gone overseas for work. She tried to reach him. Messages went unanswered. His family claimed not to know where he was. She decided to raise the baby alone.
Then, years later, she met Gabriel again.
Slowly.
Unexpectedly.
They fell in love.
“When I realized…” Maren whispered, “I was terrified.”
“Realized what?”
Her voice broke.
“That Willa might be yours.”
Gabriel stared at her.
The room seemed to tilt beneath his feet.
“No.”
Maren nodded through tears.
“We were together briefly, Gabriel. Before everything. Before we became who we are now.”
Fragments returned to him in sharp little pieces.
A hotel lobby.
Rain against a window.
Maren laughing across a candlelit table.
A goodbye that was supposed to be temporary.
A life he had folded away and forgotten.
“I didn’t know,” Maren cried. “I wasn’t certain.”
“How certain are you now?”
She could not answer.
Celeste stepped in.
“The timing was close.”
Gabriel turned slowly toward Willa.
The blue eyes.
The stubborn little chin.
A face that suddenly looked like an echo of his own.
His knees nearly gave way.
“Why hide her?” he asked.
Maren covered her face.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“That you’d leave.”
Willa began crying again.
“This is my fault.”
Gabriel dropped to his knees beside her at once.
“No. No, Willa.”
“You were fighting.”
His chest ached.
“You did nothing wrong.”
She studied him through wet lashes.
“You aren’t mad?”
Gabriel could not answer quickly.
Not honestly.
He was not angry with her. Never with her.
But the lies.
The silence.
The years that might have been stolen from him.
Those were a storm inside his ribs.
“Gabriel.”
Jonah appeared in the doorway, breathless.
“Everyone’s waiting.”
Then he saw Maren crying. Celeste pale and rigid. Willa in the corner in her little white dress.
His expression changed.
“What happened?”
Gabriel stood slowly.
He looked at Maren.
Then at Willa.
Then at his own reflection in the mirror, dressed like a groom for a future that had just shattered.
Outside, two hundred guests waited to celebrate trust.
Inside, trust lay broken on the tile floor.
Maren wiped her face.
“Please.”
“Please what?”
“Don’t leave.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Only moments ago, he had been counting the minutes until he became a husband.
Now he did not even know who he was.
Then Willa slipped her tiny hand into his.
The gesture was hesitant. Fragile. As if she expected him to pull away.
He didn’t.
His fingers closed around hers by instinct.
“Daddy?” she whispered.
Gabriel’s heart cracked open.
Because for reasons he could not explain, the word felt like it had been waiting for him.
He looked at Maren.
“We need a DNA test.”
She nodded immediately.
“Okay.”
“And until I know the truth…” He glanced toward the ballroom doors. “There will be no wedding.”
Gasps rose from the hallway.
Celeste looked horrified.
“You cannot be serious.”
Gabriel met her eyes.
“My entire life changed ten minutes ago.”
Maren’s tears returned.
“I love you.”
He believed her.
That was what made it hurt even more.
“I need the truth,” he said quietly. “All of it.”
Downstairs, the wedding march began.
Guests rose from their seats, smiling and unaware.
Unaware that the groom was not coming.
Unaware that a little girl hidden in a bathroom had uncovered a secret buried for years.
And as Gabriel looked into Willa’s frightened blue eyes, one terrible thought settled over him.
If Maren had hidden this…
What else didn’t he know?
And why did Celeste Vale look more afraid than anyone else in that room?
Deep down, Gabriel knew.
May you like
This was not the end of the nightmare.
It was only the beginning
