Chapter 1: Behind the Rose Bushes
She called him a d*adbeat behind his back for months.
She had no idea he was standing among the rose bushes when she thr*atened to l*ck his daughter in her room for not smiling at the cameras.
The garden party had been underway for two hours when the photographer asked everyone to gather for the formal pictures.
That's when it began.
My daughter, Lily, was holding tightly to Marguerite's hand, the nanny who had looked after her since she was three.
Lily hadn't smiled once.
She never smiled around Vanessa.
Vanessa knelt in front of her, voice sweet enough for the cameras, quiet enough that only Lily and Marguerite could hear.
"You will smile in this photo, or you'll spend the rest of the party l*cked in your room.
Do you understand me?"
Lily's face turned white.
Marguerite moved between them without thinking.
"She's just a child."
Vanessa stood upright, her pearl necklace catching the light, and her voice rose loud enough for half the yard to hear.
"Get away from them!"
I had been waiting near the rose bushes for the last ten minutes, close enough to hear every word.
Vanessa had spent our entire engagement telling her friends I was unreliable.
Absent.
A d*adbeat who couldn't be trusted around his own daughter, which was apparently why she needed to "handle things" when I wasn't looking.
She had no idea just how much I had actually been watching.
I strode across the lawn before she finished the sentence, stepping directly between her and the two people I loved most in that yard.
"Don't you dare touch them."
Vanessa's mouth opened, then shut.
Marguerite breathed out, pulling Lily closer, some of the tension finally leaving her shoulders.
Vanessa stared at me like she was seeing someone she'd never actually met.
She had spent months deciding who I was without ever asking.
She was about to discover how wrong she'd been.
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What will Vanessa do when she learns the truth about Lily’s father?
Comment “NEXT” for Part 2.
