Chapter 1 - The Morning He Finally Looked Afraid
At 4:30 in the morning, Erin Mercer was standing barefoot in her kitchen spreading butter across two pieces of toast when her husband kicked a chair hard enough to send it skidding into the pantry door.
Noah slept twelve feet away in his padded bassinet, untouched by the chaos.
Erin turned just as Ryan swept his forearm across the marble island.
Eggs, coffee, a ceramic bowl, and the breakfast she had gotten up early to make crashed onto the floor.
“Ryan—”
He caught a handful of her dark auburn hair and jerked her backward.
Erin lost her footing. Before she could recover, Ryan shoved her against the island.
Pain shot through her chest.
Four months after an emergency C-section, her body still felt unfamiliar. She had been sleeping in ninety-minute pieces, nursing Noah between them, cooking for Ryan before sunrise because he complained that nothing in the house had been “normal” since the baby arrived.
Ryan threw a packet of papers against her face.
“Six years of cooking for my family and this is still all you're good for.”
The first page landed beside her slipper.
PETITION FOR ABSOLUTE DIVORCE.
Erin looked from the papers to him.
Ryan grabbed her chin.
“Shut up and pack your things. My mother already found me another woman.”
Then he seized Erin's arm and pulled her toward the foyer.
Something in her broke loose.
Erin twisted free and slapped him.
Hard.
Ryan stumbled backward into the dining table.
“That's funny,” Erin said. “Your company was probably ruined long before our marriage collapsed.”
His expression changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
His eyes moved past her.
Erin followed them.
A black corporate audit file sat on the far end of the counter.
Ryan lunged.
Erin reached it first.
He grabbed both her wrists.
“Give that to me before I throw you out myself.”
His grip was painful, but his voice was worse.
It trembled.
Erin tore free and hugged the file against her chest.
She had opened only the executive exception sheet before Ryan came downstairs.
It had been enough.
“Then explain why your auditor found two-point-four million dollars hidden under your mother's name on the exact night Noah was born.”
Ryan stopped moving.
His face drained.
His eyes shifted toward the upstairs hallway.
His mother, Victoria Mercer, was sleeping in the guest suite.
Erin saw the glance.
May you like
Ryan saw her see it.
And from the hallway above them came the soft click of a bedroom door closing.
