Chapter 1 - The chair
Clarissa Hale pulled the chair out from under me when I was seven months pregnant.
It happened at my own baby shower.
Or what I had believed was my baby shower.
The party was being held in the garden of Clarissa’s enormous suburban house because she had insisted our smaller home was “not suitable for eighty guests.”
There were pale flowers, linen-covered tables, a catered lunch, and enough wrapped gifts to fill half a nursery.
I had been standing for nearly an hour.
My back hurt.
My ankles were swollen.
When I finally reached for a patio chair, Clarissa came up behind me.
Her hand closed around the back.
I started to sit.
She yanked it away.
I dropped.
Hard.
Grass cushioned some of the impact, but my hip struck first and my hands flew instinctively around my belly.
Several gift bags toppled beside me.
Someone gasped.
Clarissa looked down.
“Don’t get comfortable. After delivery, you won’t belong here anyway.”
For a second I could not understand the sentence.
Then I looked at my husband.
Dorian Hale.
Thirty-five.
Standing beside his mother.
Holding a drink.
Not moving.
I said:
“Dorian?”
He looked away.
Then the garden gate opened.
My father, Eamon Price, walked in carrying the gift he had forgotten in his car.
He saw me on the ground.
Dropped the box.
Ran.
“Morwenna.”
He crouched beside me.
“Did you hit your stomach?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you stand?”
“I don’t know.”
He helped me carefully.
My legs shook.
I whispered:
“Dad… they already packed a nursery at his mother’s house.”
His eyes shifted toward Dorian.
Dorian finally spoke.
“The baby stays with us. You’re the temporary part.”
Something changed in my father’s face.
He had always disliked Dorian’s dependence on Clarissa.
He had never acted on it.
Until then.
Dorian lowered himself onto a padded outdoor recliner.
My father grabbed the side of it.
“Eamon—”
He overturned it.
Dorian went sideways.
His drink flew across his shirt.
The chair collapsed onto the grass beside him.
Guests scattered.
Clarissa stormed forward.
“Take her away and my son will make sure she leaves penniless.”
Then I saw paper sticking out of Dorian’s jacket.
He had fallen near me.
I bent.
Pulled it free.
The top page said:
Proposed Stipulated Temporary Parenting Plan Following Birth.
Beneath several paragraphs:
Morwenna Price Hale.
Then a signature.
Mine.
Except I had never signed it.
My hands went cold.
I looked at Dorian.
“Then why did you sign my name on custody papers?”
His face emptied.
Clarissa went white.
And my father said:
May you like
“Morwenna, we’re leaving.”
For once, I did not ask my husband if that was what he wanted.
