Minutes before our wedding, my flower-girl stepdaughter said, "Now that you're my mommy, I can show you daddy's secret"—what she pulled from under the petals made me go pale.

Ten minutes before I was supposed to marry Ryan, his eight-year-old daughter, Emma, slipped into the bridal suite carrying her flower basket and carefully closed the door behind her.

I'd loved that little girl almost as long as I'd loved her father.

Emma's biological mother had disappeared when she was four, and Ryan rarely discussed her except to say she'd chosen another life and eventually stopped contacting them.

I never questioned him.

I'd watched him pack Emma's lunches, braid her hair badly before school, and sit through every dance recital.

He seemed like the kind of father a child was lucky to have.

That morning, Emma had been thrilled that I was "officially" becoming her mom.

She'd practiced scattering petals down the aisle so many times.

Now, however, she was strangely serious.

"I brought you something," she whispered.

Before I could ask what, she smiled and added with complete innocence, "Now that you're my mommy, I can show you Daddy's secret."

I laughed at first.

"What secret?"

"Daddy said I could never show you before."

Something about the way she said it erased my smile.

Emma climbed onto the chair beside me and began digging through the white rose petals.

"I found it in his desk.

Daddy got really mad and made me promise I wouldn't tell you."

"Then why did you bring it today?"

She looked genuinely puzzled.

"Because you weren't my mommy before."

My stomach tightened.

She explained that she'd sneaked into Ryan's office that morning while he was showering, taken the secret from the bottom drawer, and hidden it beneath her petals so he wouldn't notice.

Someone knocked outside.

"Seven minutes!"

Emma ignored them.

She removed one handful of petals, then another, until I noticed something concealed beneath the basket's satin lining—a package wrapped in dirty white cloth.

"See?

Daddy doesn't know I have it."

Then she took the package and placed it directly into my hands.

I stared at it.

My heart seemed to stop.

I opened the package.

What I found inside made all the color drain from my face.

I screamed.

---

What was hidden under those petals?