Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Aisle
Alexander was standing at the altar, seconds away from marrying Camille in front of nearly three hundred guests, when the massive church doors suddenly swung open.
Every head turned.
A little girl stood alone at the end of the aisle.
She couldn’t have been older than six.
Her cheeks were soaked with tears.
Her dress was wrinkled, one shoe was half slipping off her foot, and in her trembling arms she was holding a baby girl who looked barely a year old.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Camille saw her.
The color drained from her face.
“GET HER OUT OF HERE!”
A wave of whispers swept through the church.
But the little girl didn’t look at Camille.
She didn’t look at the guests.
She didn’t even seem to notice the security guards beginning to move toward her.
Her eyes were fixed on one person.
Alexander.
He stared back at her, confused.
Then something in the girl’s face made him step away from the altar.
“Wait.”
The guards stopped.
Alexander took another step forward.
“Sweetheart… who are you?”
The girl tightened her arms around the baby.
Her lower lip trembled.
Then she slowly lifted one hand and pointed directly at him.
“Daddy…”
The church went completely silent.
Not a cough.
Not a whisper.
Not even the rustle of a dress.
Alexander stopped breathing.
His face changed.
His eyes filled with tears so suddenly that several people in the front row gasped.
Camille turned toward him.
“No.”
Alexander didn’t answer.
The little girl took one shaky step forward.
“Daddy… please.”
And that was when Camille completely lost control.
She grabbed the front of her wedding dress and screamed across the church.
“THIS WEDDING IS OVER!”
Alexander turned toward her.
Camille’s hands were shaking.
Her face was no longer angry.
It was terrified.
“RIGHT NOW!”
And in that moment, Alexander realized something that would change all of their lives.
Camille wasn’t shocked that the little girl had called him Daddy.
She was scared that the girl had found him.
Alexander slowly looked from Camille to the child.
Then back again.
“What did you just say?”
Camille swallowed.
“Alexander, please.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
That frightened her more than if he had shouted.
“You knew her.”
“I don’t know that child.”
The girl flinched.
Alexander saw it.
Camille saw him see it.
“I said I don’t know her.”
“Then why did you tell security to throw her out before she even said my name?”
Camille’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Behind Alexander, the priest shifted uncomfortably.
Guests had started lifting phones.
Alexander’s best man, Daniel Reed, stepped forward.
“Everybody put the phones down.”
Nobody listened.
The baby suddenly began crying.
The little girl tried bouncing her carefully.
“It’s okay, Hope.”
Alexander froze.
Hope.
The baby had a name.
This wasn’t some staged interruption.
These were two frightened children standing in the middle of his wedding.
He walked down the aisle toward them.
Camille caught his arm.
“Don’t.”
Alexander looked at her hand.
Camille released him immediately.
“Alexander, you don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
“Not here.”
The little girl whispered something.
Alexander nearly missed it.
“What did you say?”
She looked at Camille.
Fear flashed across her face.
Then she looked back at Alexander.
“Mommy said she’d do that.”
A murmur moved through the guests.
Alexander crouched several feet away from her.
“What’s your name?”
“Lily.”
“Lily what?”
“Lily Morgan.”
Alexander felt something tighten inside his chest.
Morgan.
He knew that name.
He knew it too well.
“Who’s your mother?”
Lily’s eyes filled again.
“Rachel.”
The church disappeared around him.
For one impossible second Alexander was twenty-nine again.
He was standing beneath the awning of a tiny coffee shop in Boston while rain soaked the sidewalk.
Rachel Morgan was laughing at him because he had forgotten an umbrella.
Brown hair.
Green eyes.
A tiny scar above her left eyebrow.
The woman he had loved before she vanished from his life without explanation seven years earlier.
The woman who had sent him a message saying she never wanted to see him again.
The woman he had spent almost a year trying to forget.
Alexander looked at Lily.
Green eyes.
Rachel’s eyes.
But the shape of the girl’s face…
The dimple in her left cheek…
His mother had that dimple.
So did Alexander.
“No.”
The word left him as a breath.
Lily immediately misunderstood.
Her little shoulders collapsed.
“Mommy said you might not believe me.”
Alexander moved closer.
“No, sweetheart.”
His voice broke.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Lily shifted the baby.
The infant was getting heavier in her arms.
Alexander held out his hands.
“Can I help you with her?”
Lily hesitated.
Then she looked over his shoulder at Camille.
Her body stiffened.
“No.”
Alexander turned.
Camille hadn’t moved.
She stood at the altar in her white dress, staring at Lily like she was looking at a ghost.
Alexander faced Lily again.
“Why are you afraid of Camille?”
Lily didn’t answer.
“Lily?”
“She found us.”
Alexander’s blood went cold.
“When?”
“Last night.”
Camille stepped forward.
“That is enough.”
Alexander stood.
“Stay where you are.”
Every eye turned toward him.
Camille stopped.
Alexander had never spoken to her that way.
Not once in almost four years together.
Lily began digging into the small pink backpack hanging from one shoulder.
She struggled because she was still holding Hope.
Alexander reached toward the baby again.
This time Lily allowed him.
Hope was astonishingly light.
Far too light.
Alexander felt something inside him twist when the baby immediately curled against his chest.
Lily pulled an envelope from the backpack.
It was bent.
Dirty.
Sealed with clear tape.
On the front, written in black ink, were four words.
FOR ALEXANDER REED ONLY.
Alexander recognized the handwriting before he touched it.
Rachel.
His knees almost failed him.
“Where did you get this?”
“Mommy gave it to me.”
“When?”
Lily stared at the floor.
“Before she went away.”
Alexander’s voice became barely audible.
“Where did she go?”
Lily’s face crumpled.
“She told me to wait at Aunt Megan’s house.”
Alexander didn’t breathe.
“And?”
“She never came back.”
Silence.
Alexander forced himself to ask the question.
“When was that?”
“Three days ago.”
Camille whispered his name.
“Alexander.”
He looked at her.
For the first time in his life, the woman he had planned to marry looked like a stranger.
“What happened to Rachel?”
Camille shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Lily suddenly spoke.
“She does.”
Camille’s face went white.
Alexander stared at the little girl.
“How do you know?”
Lily pointed directly at the bride.
“Because Mommy showed me her picture.”
Alexander’s heart pounded.
“And what did your mother tell you?”
Lily tightened her fists.
“She said if anything happened to her, I had to find you.”
Alexander looked at Camille.
“And?”
Lily’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“She said never to go with the blonde lady.”
Nobody in the church moved.
Camille backed away.
Daniel stepped between her and the side exit almost instinctively.
Camille noticed.
“So now I’m a prisoner?”
Alexander ignored her.
He opened Rachel’s envelope.
Inside were three things.
A photograph.
A folded letter.
And a copy of a birth certificate.
His hands shook as he unfolded it.
Name of child:
Lily Elizabeth Morgan.
Date of birth:
March 14.
Mother:
Rachel Anne Morgan.
The space for the father’s name was blank.
But attached to the certificate was a small yellow note.
Alexander read it.
Then he read it again.
The handwriting was Rachel’s.
You are her father.
I tried to tell you.
Camille made sure I couldn’t.
Alexander slowly raised his eyes.
Three hundred guests watched him turn toward the woman waiting at the altar.
Camille shook her head.
“No.”
Alexander held up the note.
“What did you do?”
Camille looked at the doors.
Then at Daniel.
Then at Lily.
And suddenly Alexander understood something even worse.
Camille wasn’t trying to convince him that Rachel was lying.
She was trying to calculate whether she could still escape.
“Daniel.”
His brother nodded.
“Already on it.”
Daniel quietly motioned to security.
The exits were covered.
Camille stared at Alexander.
“You’re making a terrible mistake.”
Alexander looked at Lily.
At Hope.
At Rachel’s handwriting.
Then at the wedding ring in his hand.
He closed his fingers around it.
“No.”
His voice was calm.
“I almost made one.”
He placed the ring on the nearest pew.
The wedding was over.
But the nightmare was only beginning.
Because when Alexander finally unfolded Rachel’s letter, the first sentence made his blood run cold.
If Lily reached you, Alexander, it means I failed to survive.
And the second sentence was worse.
May you like
Do not let Camille take either of my daughters.
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