Chapter 2 - Rachel’s Eight-Year Lie
"Who is Sophie's father?"
Rachel looked at Chloe as if her own daughter had just pulled a pin from a grenade.
"Go upstairs."
"No one is going anywhere," I said.
Margaret stepped between us.
"This conversation is inappropriate in front of the children."
I laughed.
"You chained one of those children to a staircase."
"Lower your voice."
"No."
Sophie's fingers tightened around mine.
I felt her shaking.
That stopped me from charging at Rachel.
Whatever truth existed belonged to Sophie first.
I knelt beside her.
"Sweetheart, I need you to listen to me."
Her eyes were huge.
"Is Aunt Rachel my mom?"
The question tore straight through me.
"I am your mom."
"But the paper—"
"That paper is about biology."
I touched her cheek.
"I'm the woman who brought you home, fed you at three in the morning, held you through every fever, walked you to kindergarten, and knows you hate peas unless they're mixed into mashed potatoes."
Her lower lip trembled.
"You're my mother?"
"Always."
She threw both arms around my neck.
I held her so tightly I could feel her heartbeat.
Behind us, Rachel began crying.
I stood.
"Now you talk."
Margaret said, "Emily, take Sophie home."
"You'd like that."
"I am trying to protect this family."
"From what?"
Rachel wiped her face.
"Mom, stop."
Margaret turned.
Rachel's voice cracked.
"She already knows."
"She knows nothing."
"Then tell me," I said.
Margaret ignored me.
I looked at Rachel.
Eight years earlier, I had been twenty-six and desperate to become a mother.
I had gone through a private adoption after being told Sophie's birth mother wanted complete anonymity.
The agency paperwork had been unusually thin, but Peter Lawson, the family attorney Margaret recommended, assured me everything was legal.
Sophie arrived in my arms at four days old.
I never met the woman who gave birth to her.
Rachel had visited my apartment the following morning.
She'd held Sophie for less than a minute before claiming she felt sick.
At the time I'd thought she was overwhelmed.
Now I understood.
"You handed me your baby."
Rachel closed her eyes.
"Yes."
My stomach twisted.
"You watched me sign adoption papers while you stood beside me pretending you knew nothing."
"I was scared."
"For eight years?"
Margaret interrupted.
"Rachel made a mistake."
I stared at her.
"A child isn't a mistake."
"You know what I mean."
"No, I don't."
Rachel whispered, "Sophie was never supposed to find out."
Sophie pressed closer to my leg.
I felt fury rise again.
"Why?"
Rachel looked toward Chloe and Madison.
Chloe had tears on her cheeks.
Madison looked confused.
"Because it would destroy my marriage."
I frowned.
Rachel's husband, Michael, was away on a consulting assignment in Chicago.
They'd married twelve years earlier.
Chloe was born eleven years ago.
Madison nine.
Sophie eight.
My breath caught.
"You were married."
Rachel nodded.
"Who was he?"
She didn't answer.
Margaret stepped forward.
"That part doesn't matter."
"It matters to Sophie."
"No, it matters to you because you want someone to blame."
"I already have several options."
Margaret's jaw tightened.
Rachel suddenly looked at my handbag.
Specifically, at the remaining DNA pages.
I noticed.
"What else is in that report?" she asked.
My stomach dropped.
"You tell me."
"You only saw the first match?"
I stared at her.
The laboratory had included additional kinship findings, but after seeing Rachel's name, I had barely processed anything else.
I grabbed the pages.
There were several relationship tables.
Margaret lunged.
I stepped back.
"Don't."
She stopped.
That reaction told me something else was there.
I scanned the second page.
Sophie shared the expected amount of DNA with Chloe.
Half-sibling range.
Also expected now.
Then I saw another flagged match.
The lab had connected Sophie's paternal profile to an archived sample submitted years earlier through the same medical genetics network.
My mouth went dry.
The sample wasn't identified by a full name.
Only initials.
D.B.
Rachel turned away.
I looked at her.
"D.B."
She started crying harder.
Margaret said, "Emily, don't."
My heartbeat became painful.
There was only one man from that period whose initials meant anything to me.
Daniel Brooks.
My fiancé.
The man who disappeared from my life nine months before Sophie was born.
The man Rachel had sworn she hadn't seen after our engagement ended.
I looked at my sister.
"You slept with Daniel."
Rachel covered her face.
Sophie whispered, "Who's Daniel?"
I could barely breathe.
Rachel said, "Emily, please."
"You had a baby with the man I was supposed to marry."
"It wasn't like that."
"Then what was it like?"
Margaret moved toward me.
I held up one finger.
"Don't touch me."
She stopped.
Rachel stared at the floor.
"It happened once."
I laughed bitterly.
"That's the sentence people use when they want betrayal to sound small."
"It was after your fight."
"We were engaged."
"I know."
"You got pregnant."
"Yes."
"And Mom helped you hide it."
Rachel nodded.
My gaze shifted to Margaret.
"You arranged the adoption."
She said nothing.
"You made sure I received Sophie."
Still nothing.
"Why me?"
Rachel whispered, "Because Daniel wanted her."
I froze.
"What?"
"He found out I was pregnant."
My throat tightened.
"What happened?"
Margaret's voice came sharply.
"Rachel."
But Rachel was finished obeying.
"He said he was going to tell you everything."
I stared at her.
"He was going to tell me?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't he?"
Rachel looked at Margaret.
That one glance changed the room.
I turned slowly toward my mother.
Margaret's face became expressionless.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
Rachel whispered, "Mom made him leave."
"Leave where?"
"I don't know."
Margaret snapped, "Enough."
I stepped toward her.
"Daniel vanished eight years ago."
"He moved."
"That's what you told me."
"Because it was true."
Rachel shook her head.
"No."
Margaret spun around.
Rachel's voice dropped.
"I saw him again after Sophie was born."
My heart stopped.
"When?"
"At this house."
The foyer became silent.
Rachel looked toward the staircase.
"He came here asking for the baby."
Margaret's face went white.
May you like
"And Grandma told him," Chloe whispered from behind us, "that Sophie had already been given away."
📖 Find out what happened when Daniel came for his newborn daughter—and why Margaret had lied to me for eight years about his disappearance in CHAPTER 3. 👇
