Chapter 1 - DADDY
The hockey stick hit Grace before Nathan understood what he was seeing.
A blunt crack split the kitchen.
Grace folded over Lily, taking the blow across her shoulder as the four-year-old screamed beneath her.
“Please,” Grace gasped. “Don’t hurt my child.”
“Dead people keep secrets,” she whispered.
Then the front door clicked open.
The bag in his hand slipped to the floor.
His fiancée was standing over the maid he had hired three months earlier. Grace was bruised, half-curled around a sobbing little girl. The hockey stick trembled in Victoria’s hands.
“Nathan…”
The stick clattered across the tile.
Lily slowly lifted her face from Grace’s chest.
Her eyes locked onto Nathan.
“Daddy…”
The word hit him harder than the stick had hit Grace.
She was pale from pain.
“Grace,” he said. “What did she just call me?”
Grace tried to sit up.
“She’s lying.”
Nathan didn’t look at her.
“Grace.”
Tears filled Grace’s eyes.
“She’s your daughter.”
Dark hair. Gray-green eyes. A tiny scar near her eyebrow.
The one he had gotten at six after falling from a tree.
“This is insane.”
“Five years ago, your father told me if I ever came near you again, he’d destroy me.”
Nathan’s blood went cold.
“My father is dead.”
“I know.”
“What does that have to do with Lily?”
“He knew I was pregnant.”
“You knew too,” Grace said.
Victoria backed away.
“That’s not true.”
Grace pointed at her with a shaking hand.
“She came to my apartment the night your father made me disappear.”
Victoria reached for the counter.
“She told me your family had already chosen who you were going to marry.”
“Who?”
May you like
Grace whispered, “Her.”
And Victoria ran.
