Chapter 1
At the hotel gala, the man I once loved told two hundred people that my six-year-old daughter had nothing to do with him.
Sophie was sitting ten feet away.
She heard every word.
It happened before she had finished playing the piano.
A reporter held up an old marriage certificate bearing my name and Grant Hale’s.
“Mr. Hale, were you secretly married to the woman the bank hired to review your hotel?”
Grant stared at the paper.
Seven years earlier, we had signed that certificate in a small courthouse. There had been no guests or announcement. Grant had said we would tell everyone when Blackwood Bay was stable.
It never became stable.
And he never told anyone.
Another reporter pointed toward Sophie.
“Is that little girl your daughter?”
Sophie’s hands stopped on the keys.
Grant looked at the certificate. Then he looked at the investors waiting for his answer.
Only after that did he look at my daughter.
“I have no daughter,” he said. “That child has nothing to do with me.”
The room went quiet.
Sophie slowly removed her hands from the piano.
I started toward her, but two reporters moved into my path.
“Ms. Reed, did the bank know about the marriage?”
“Did you return to force Mr. Hale into selling?”
“Move.”
They continued asking questions.
Onstage, Sophie turned around on the bench. Her feet could not reach the floor. She lowered herself carefully, holding the edge with both hands.
Grant watched her.
His hands remained at his sides.
When I finally reached her, she handed me the sheet music.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Sophie said.
“You did nothing wrong,” I said.
“I played your song,” Sophie said.
She had found the melody in an old notebook inside my suitcase. She did not know I had written it for Grant.
“The song wasn’t wrong.”
“You can keep it,” I told her.
“I don’t want it now,” Sophie said.
She placed the music on a serving table and wiped both hands on her dress. It was what she did whenever she believed she had touched something she should not have.
Across the room, Grant was still answering questions about the hotel. He had protected the sale in less than ten seconds. He had not taken ten seconds to ask why my daughter looked frightened.
The music teacher hurried toward us and asked whether Sophie was all right. Sophie nodded without looking at her.
Sophie looked past me at him.
“I didn’t ask him to be my dad.”
Someone handed Grant a printed document. It claimed I planned to use my former marriage and my child to influence the hotel sale.
I had never seen it before.
Grant did not ask whether it was real.
Seven years ago, he had believed the worst thing said about me because it protected this hotel.
Tonight, he had done it again.
I took Sophie’s hand. “We’re leaving.”
She pulled away gently.
“My inhaler is backstage. Bunny too,” Sophie said.
“I’ll get them,” I said.
“I know where they are.”
Another microphone appeared beside my face.
“Ms. Reed, is Grant Hale the child’s father?”
When I looked toward the backstage door, Sophie had already gone through it.
It took me less than three minutes to get away.
The dressing room was empty.
Sophie’s backpack remained beneath the mirror. The pocket where she kept her inhaler was open.
“Sophie?”
The lights went out.
A few seconds later, the fire alarm began.
Grant reached the doorway behind me.
“Where is she?”
I looked at the empty room.
“I don’t know.”