Chapter 1

The night Charles Landon leaves on his business trip, they all keep me in the dark.

Instead, they send Hannah Evans to him, the girl who had cost me my baby years ago, now back from "finding herself" abroad, pretending to be all sweet and reformed.

He claims he doesn't want her there, but he still makes her his personal secretary for three long years.

For three whole years, he has looked me right in the eye and promised me.

He swears up and down there is absolutely nothing going on between him and Hannah.

But the day he flies back, she steps off the plane right behind him. She is pregnant.

Charles just looks at me, his voice dripping with that pathetic helplessness I know so well.

"Hannah threatened to kill herself," he explains, as if he has no choice. "But you're the one I love. We can raise the baby. You'll be its mother."

That was when I pulled out the divorce papers.

You don't wait three years without a backup plan.

*****

Three years ago, Charles Landon's childhood sweetheart, Hannah Evans, pushed me down a flight of stairs.

I lost our baby that day. I was seven months pregnant.

Charles was furious. He put Hannah on a plane that very night, shipping her overseas and vowing she would never set foot in this country again.

But three years later, there he was, walking through the arrivals gate with his arm wrapped protectively around a very pregnant Hannah.

When I stepped forward and held out the divorce papers, the hand resting on Hannah's waist slid away, dropping uselessly to his side.

His voice was a rough, unfamiliar rasp.

"Emily Jensen, are you serious with this? The baby is innocent in all this."

His buddies, the same ones who helped him sneak Hannah out of the country and then back into his life, tried to play peacemaker.

"Come on, Emily," one of them said, trying for a placating tone. "All Hannah wants is to give Charles a child. She's not trying to steal him from you. It's not that deep."

My fingers trembled uncontrollably.

Just last night, Charles had been in our bed, swearing to me that there was nothing between them. That it was all in my head.

I licked my lips, the taste of bitterness coating my tongue, and pushed the papers a little closer to him.

Charles stared at me for a long moment before snatching them from my hand and tearing them to shreds.

"You want a divorce? Forget it."

I remained perfectly calm as I pulled another pristine copy from my purse and laid it on the table between us.

"When you were lying to me, Charles," I whispered, "did it never once cross your mind that I might actually leave you? Or did you really think I loved you enough to raise the child of the woman who killed our daughter?"

If my little girl had lived, she would be three years old today.

But that didn't matter anymore. Her father had forgotten her.

But I hadn't. And that's all that counted.

Charles parted his lips, an instinctive defense for Hannah already forming.

"Hannah has paid the price. She was alone in a foreign country, and she could barely eat or sleep. That was enough."

Alone? Hannah was with a twenty-four-hour butler and a security detail Charles had hired to watch over her.

Was a one-week, all-expenses-paid trip to Europe supposed to be a punishment?

I didn't know, and I was done trying to figure it out.

As if on cue, Hannah let out a soft sob and shrank against his chest, her eyes wide with manufactured fear.

"Charlie, please," she whimpered. "You can yell at me, and you can hit me. Just please don't send me away again. I'm begging you."

Then she turned to me, pleading with her watery eyes.

"Ms. Jensen, please don't be angry with Charlie. It was all my fault. I seduced him. I'll do anything. I'll get rid of the baby as penance!"

With a dramatic cry, she bolted toward the busy street.

In a flash, Charles had her, pulling her back into a fierce embrace. When he looked at me again, any trace of guilt was gone, replaced by cold fury.

"Is this what you wanted, Emily?" he snapped. "This was supposed to be a happy occasion. Are you satisfied now that you've turned it into a goddamn circus?

"You can't have children anymore. Hannah was terrified you'd be heartbroken, so she went through hell to get pregnant with this baby for us. Don't you dare be so ungrateful!"

The tears I'd been holding back finally spilled over.

His eyes caught the movement, and for a split second, the anger on his face faltered.

He started to reach for me, an old habit, as if to wipe the tears away.

But then Hannah cried out, clutching her stomach.

Without a second thought, Charles shoved past me, scooped her into his arms, and rushed toward the hospital.

I collapsed onto the curb, stunned, as a memory I had long suppressed came crashing back.

The day I lost our baby, when Hannah and I both tumbled down the stairs, the first person he ran to was not me.