Chapter 3 - The Photograph in Nathan's Hand
For several seconds, Nathan didn't take the photograph.
He simply stared at it between my fingers.
The bedroom was so quiet I could hear the faint ticking of the antique clock near the fireplace.
"Emily," he said carefully, "what are you telling me?"
I swallowed.
"Take it."
He did.
The photograph was old.
The corners had softened from being handled too many times.
Three children stood outside a weathered blue house.
A boy of about twelve.
Another boy slightly younger.
And a little girl with blonde braids, smiling despite the oversized hand-me-down coat hanging from her shoulders.
Nathan studied them.
"Johnny, Paul, and Lily?"
"Yes."
He looked at me.
"If they're not your children..."
"They're my siblings."
His eyebrows drew together.
I continued before fear could stop me.
"Half-siblings technically. But that never mattered to us."
Nathan sat on the edge of the bed.
I remained standing.
My robe was closed now, but I felt more exposed than when I'd opened it.
"My father left when I was little," I said. "My mother remarried a man named Raymond Hayes."
Nathan listened silently.
"Johnny was born when I was thirteen. Paul came two years later. Lily four years after him."
"Your brothers and sister."
I nodded.
"And you raised them?"
"Eventually."
The word carried a lifetime.
Nathan put the photograph gently on his palm.
"What happened?"
I walked toward the window.
Outside, the estate gardens were dark and quiet.
"My mother got sick."
"What kind of sick?"
"At first, we didn't know."
I remembered the kitchen table in West Virginia.
My mother's hands trembling as she tried to hide overdue bills beneath a towel.
The way she'd sit down halfway through cooking because standing hurt too much.
"She worked at a processing plant. Long shifts. Eventually she developed heart problems. Then kidney problems."
Nathan's expression changed.
"How old were you?"
"Seventeen when things became serious."
"And their father?"
I laughed bitterly.
"Raymond disappeared."
Nathan's jaw tightened.
"He left?"
"One Friday he said he was going to buy groceries. He never came home."
"Did you report him missing?"
"We did. Two months later, someone found out he was living in Kentucky with another woman."
Nathan said something under his breath.
I almost smiled.
"My mother couldn't work anymore. We had no savings. Johnny was four. Paul was two. Lily was still a baby."
Nathan stood.
"So you quit school?"
I looked at him.
"How did you know?"
"Because that's what you would do."
That broke something inside me.
I turned away quickly.
"I finished eventually through an equivalency program. But yes. I quit regular school and started working."
"At seventeen."
"Two jobs."
He stared at me.
"You were a child."
"I didn't feel like one."
The truth was, poverty didn't care how old you were.
Hunger didn't wait for adulthood.
Bills didn't lower themselves because the person holding them was still technically a teenager.
I worked mornings at a diner.
Evenings cleaning offices.
Some nights, I slept four hours.
Johnny called me Emmy because he couldn't say Emily.
Paul followed me everywhere.
Lily wouldn't fall asleep unless I sang the same ridiculous song about a rabbit every night.
"And that's where the rumor came from?" Nathan asked.
"Partly."
I sat on the chair opposite him.
"When I moved to Connecticut, I told people I was responsible for them."
"You were."
"Yes."
"And people assumed they were your children."
"I didn't correct them."
"Why?"
There it was.
The harder question.
"Because the truth belonged to them too."
Nathan waited.
I stared at my hands.
"My mother died when I was twenty."
His face softened.
"I'm sorry."
I nodded.
"Afterward, social services got involved. I was barely old enough to take custody, and I didn't have enough income."
"What happened?"
"My mother's sister, Aunt Ruth, took legal guardianship."
"But you supported them financially."
"Every month."
"Nearly your entire paycheck."
I looked at him.
"You knew?"
"I saw enough."
I smiled faintly.
"People noticed."
"People judged."
"Same thing sometimes."
Nathan leaned forward.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
I had rehearsed answers for years.
None felt sufficient now.
"Because people behave differently when they think you're sacrificing for children."
"Meaning?"
"They admire it."
He frowned.
"But when they think you're sacrificing for younger siblings?"
"They ask why their father doesn't pay. Why an aunt doesn't pay. Why I don't live my own life. Why I'm wasting my twenties."
Nathan opened his mouth.
I continued.
"I got tired of explaining."
He was silent.
"And there was another reason."
I looked toward the photograph.
"Johnny had problems when he was younger."
"What kind?"
"Behavior. Anger. He blamed himself for Mom dying because they argued the night before she went to the hospital."
Nathan's face tightened.
"He was a child."
"I know. He didn't."
I explained that Johnny had spent time in counseling.
That Paul had struggled with a learning disability.
That Lily had panic attacks whenever someone she loved left the house because too many adults in her life had disappeared.
"They deserved privacy," I said. "They didn't deserve wealthy strangers or gossip blogs digging through their childhood because I happened to work for you."
Nathan looked at me for a long time.
Then he said softly, "So you let the world think worse of you to protect them."
"I didn't exactly plan it."
"But once the rumors started, you didn't stop them."
"No."
"Even when they hurt you."
I shrugged.
"I've survived worse than gossip."
Nathan stood.
For a moment, I thought he might be angry.
Instead, he crossed the room and knelt in front of me.
"Emily."
I looked at him.
"Why are you down there?"
"Because you've spent this whole conversation looking like you're waiting to be sentenced."
My eyes filled.
"I'm not angry because Johnny, Paul, and Lily aren't your children."
"But you're angry."
"Yes."
My stomach dropped.
"At me?"
"A little."
I nodded.
That was fair.
"Why?"
"Because you didn't trust me."
The words hurt because they were true.
"I wanted to."
"But?"
"I didn't know how."
Nathan took a breath.
"You let me marry you while believing something about your life that wasn't true."
"I never told you they were my children."
"You knew I believed they probably were."
"Yes."
"That's not nothing."
"I know."
He stood and walked away.
Fear tightened around my chest.
"Nathan."
He placed both hands on the dresser.
"I don't care that you're not a mother."
I waited.
"I don't care that you sent money home."
"I know."
"What I care about is that you were terrified to tell me."
I stared at him.
"Do you know what that's like?" I whispered.
He turned.
"What?"
"Having one piece of your life become public property?"
Nathan almost laughed.
"I'm a CEO. My entire life is public property."
"No."
I shook my head.
"People debate your deals. Your money. Your girlfriends. Your clothes. They don't look at the worst thing that ever happened to your family and turn it into entertainment."
His expression changed.
I continued.
"If I had told one wrong person who Johnny really was, someone could have found records about his counseling. If they found Paul, they'd learn about his school struggles. If they found Lily—"
My voice broke.
"They would photograph her."
Nathan went very still.
"She's fourteen now," I whispered. "She's finally doing well. She shouldn't become a headline because I married you."
Nathan's anger faded.
He came closer.
"You're right."
I blinked.
"I am?"
"About protecting them."
He took my hands.
"But not about protecting me from the truth."
I looked down.
"I know."
He lifted my chin gently.
"I would've protected them too."
"I know that now."
"Do you?"
I nodded.
He exhaled.
Then unexpectedly, he smiled.
"What?"
"You realize my mother is going to faint when she learns this."
A laugh escaped me.
It was the first laugh I'd managed all evening.
Nathan picked up the photograph again.
"Johnny's what, twenty now?"
"Nineteen."
"Paul?"
"Seventeen."
"Lily fourteen."
"Where are they?"
"Still in West Virginia with Aunt Ruth."
He looked at me.
"Why weren't they at the wedding?"
"They don't know about us."
Nathan froze.
"What?"
"They know I got married."
"To whom?"
I hesitated.
"Not exactly."
His mouth fell slightly open.
"Emily."
"I told them his name was Nathan."
He stared.
"They don't know Nathan is Nathan Carter?"
"No."
"One of the most publicly photographed businessmen in America?"
"Lily doesn't watch financial news."
Nathan rubbed his forehead.
"This family is going to kill me."
Despite myself, I laughed again.
Then his expression grew serious.
"Take me to meet them."
My smile vanished.
"What?"
"Tomorrow."
"No."
"Emily."
"They'll be overwhelmed."
"So we'll go quietly."
"You have meetings."
"I own the company."
"Nathan."
He took my hand.
"They're your family."
I looked at him.
"And now they're mine."
The words landed somewhere deep.
For years, every person who learned about Johnny, Paul, and Lily had treated them like burdens attached to my name.
Nathan was the first person who called them family.
I whispered, "You're serious."
"Completely."
I leaned into him.
He held me.
The secret was finally out.
At least inside our bedroom.
But downstairs, someone else had been awake.
Someone who had come looking for Nathan before leaving the mansion.
Margaret Carter stood outside the partially open hallway door.
She hadn't heard everything.
Only fragments.
"They were never my children."
"They're my siblings."
"Social services."
"Johnny had problems."
And when Margaret quietly walked away, she carried those fragments with her.
By morning, another person would know.
May you like
And unlike Nathan, Margaret wasn't yet ready to keep my secret.
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