Chapter 1 - Under the Table
Emma heard Lily before she saw her.
Not words.
A tiny choking sob beneath the long formal dining table.
Emma stepped into the mansion dining room and stopped.
Above the table, Eleanor sat perfectly composed in a champagne silk blouse, feeding three-year-old Sophie pieces of roast chicken from a porcelain plate.
Below them, five-year-old Lily crawled across the cold marble floor.
Her pale dress was dirty at the knees.
She reached for a piece of meat that had fallen beneath the table.
Eleanor did not even look down.
“Eat only what’s fallen. You are not to take anything from the table.”
Lily’s eyes filled with tears.
She picked up the scrap and hurriedly put it into her mouth.
“Lily!”
Emma ran.
She dropped beside the table and pulled her daughter out.
Lily collapsed against her.
“Baby, what happened?”
The child sobbed so hard she could barely breathe.
Emma gently removed the dirty food still clutched in her hand.
“Who made you eat off the floor?”
Lily slowly pointed at Eleanor.
Emma’s expression changed.
She stood.
In one furious motion she swept upward against the edge of the formal table.
Crystal toppled.
Plates crashed.
Fruit rolled across marble.
Eleanor finally stood.
“You’ve lost your mind.”
Emma grabbed her.
“You treated her like an animal!”
Then Ethan entered.
“What happened?”
Emma spun on him.
“You let her be treated like that?”
“I just got here—”
Lily whispered:
“She said I’m not really Dad’s child.”
Ethan stopped.
His eyes moved toward Eleanor.
Lily continued.
“She said Mom knows who my real dad is.”
Emma’s arms tightened around her.
Ethan looked at his wife.
“Emma?”
She would not meet his eyes.
Then Eleanor spoke calmly.
“Ask her why Lily has a birthmark exactly like your brother’s.”
Ethan’s face changed completely.
Emma turned toward Eleanor.
“Don’t.”
That one word was enough.
Ethan heard fear.
Not outrage.
Not confusion.
Fear.
He looked down at Lily.
A faint crescent-shaped birthmark was visible near her left wrist.
Ethan knew that mark.
His older brother Lucas had carried the same shape in almost the same place.
Lucas had died six years earlier.
One year before Lily was born.
Ethan whispered:
“What does Lucas have to do with my daughter?”
Emma closed her eyes.
May you like
Eleanor smiled without warmth.
“Now she has to tell you.”
