Chapter 1
Minutes before my wedding, I went looking for my 5-year-old daughter and found my fiancée gripping her hair and slapping her inside the bridal suite.
I had been standing near the altar when I realized Sophie was missing.
She was supposed to carry the flower basket down the aisle.
“Has anyone seen my daughter?” I asked.
Nobody had.
Then I heard crying behind the bridal suite door.
I opened it without knocking.
My fiancée, Amanda, had one hand twisted in Sophie’s hair.
“Stop crying and fix your face!” she snapped.
Then she slapped my daughter again.
Sophie screamed, “Daddy!”
Everything inside me exploded.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Amanda released her so fast Sophie stumbled backward.
I rushed over and pulled my daughter against me.
Her cheek was bright red.
“Daddy, please don’t marry her.”
Amanda immediately shook her head.
“Daniel, she was throwing a tantrum.”
“You were pulling her hair.”
“She ruined my veil!”
I looked down and saw nothing wrong with the veil.
Amanda grabbed her wedding bouquet.
“She’s been trying to destroy this wedding all morning.”
Sophie buried her face against my chest.
“I only wanted to give Daddy something.”
Amanda rolled her eyes.
“She went through my purse like a little thief.”
That was enough.
I grabbed the bouquet from her hands and threw it straight into her face.
Flowers scattered across the floor.
“You put your hands on my daughter five minutes before becoming her stepmother?”
Amanda screamed, “You’re choosing that spoiled brat over your future wife?”
The bridesmaids outside went silent.
Then Sophie tugged on my jacket.
“Daddy, I wasn’t stealing.”
She opened her tiny flower basket.
Inside was Amanda’s second phone.
Amanda’s face suddenly went white.
“I found it under her dress,” Sophie whispered.
“I saw your name on the messages, Daddy.”
Amanda lunged for the phone.
I pulled it away and looked at the screen.
There were dozens of messages to a man I had never heard of.
Then I saw the photo she had sent him that morning.
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It was a picture of our wedding venue with one sentence underneath:
“Once Daniel signs the papers after the ceremony, the house is finally ours.”
