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1
OLIVIA
“It’s a bit rude to turn away your wife at her own daughter’s birthday, isn’t it?”
My ears ring as her words hang in the air. Your wife. Her own daughter.
It can’t be true. She has to be lying.
Just like me, Reese is eyeing the woman in slack-jawed disbelief. She is undeniably gorgeous. The kind of old-school Hollywood glamor that would grace magazines, star in all the movies, and steal the heart of every man who dared to lay eyes on her. Her coppery hair is coiled to perfection, her face a delicate heart shape. Even her clothes—a pretty black dress, fitted to her waist and brushing just above her knees—feels classy and refined.
As if she can feel me gawking, she turns her eyes toward me. A perfectly plucked brow raises and a faint smirk curves her glossy lips.
I shrink back reflexively. This woman is way out of my league.
Reese’s voice cuts through the white noise. “You’re out of your mind.” He doesn’t seem bothered at all. That’s right—he’s probably dealt with crazy stuff like this before. He’s Reese Dalton, after all. Hockey superstar, tabloid king extraordinaire. Now that it’s out in the world that he has a mystery daughter, it makes sense that there would be equally mysterious women throwing themselves at him and claiming to be Violet’s mother.
I cling to the idea that that’s what this is. This woman, this stranger, is nothing but a phony. An unwelcome mirage.
But no matter how many times I blink, she doesn’t go away.
“Did you hear me?” When she speaks, her voice is so clear. So smooth and slippery and seductive.
“Listen, lady, it’s my daughter’s birthday. If you wanna come back with your crazy nonsense when I’m not trying to celebrate, that’d be cool.” Reese folds his arms over his chest and scowls. “Or maybe don’t come back at all. That’d be better, actually.”
Violet starts to get fussy, whimpering in my hold. It seems to be the first time that the woman even realizes that I have her in my arms. She strides forward, almost crossing completely over the threshold of the house. She’s trying to reach out to Violet. Alarm sounds off in my mind at the thought of this stranger touching her.
Before she can get close enough, Reese steps in between us. “I will call the cops,” he warns. All the playfulness in his voice is gone.
There’s a pause. Then, without ever dropping poise, the woman’s attention swivels back to Reese. She reaches into the sleek purse draped over her shoulder and pulls out a neatly folded piece of paper. As she hands it over to Reese, her face maintains that vague, pleasant smile she’s had this entire time.
I shiver. It’s like I’m dealing with an android. A psychotic android, a beautiful android, but something that is definitely not human.
“Reese…?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer. He is silent as he reads over the paper. I don’t know what it is, but his lack of response makes dread pool in the pit of my stomach.
When he turns to me, his face is confused. Shifting Violet in my arms, I settle her on my hip and take the paper from him. I see it instantly for what it is.
A wedding license.
My eyes rove over the official words, the pearly embossed detailing that trims the edges. Even the crease down the middle of the paper seems so perfectly neat and undeniable. The truly jarring thing about the paper are the two names signed at the bottom.
Holly Wilson.
And Reese Dalton.
Reese’s signature is the sloppy, looped scrawl of his that I’ve gotten used to. It’s as chaotic and freeform as he is. Holly’s name, on the other hand, is impossibly neat. Textbook cursive. It matches her so well that it makes me sick.
Actually, no—it’s their names together that make me sick. Their names together on this paper that proves what she’s said… That’s what has acid bubbling up in my throat. The date even lines up with just about nine months before Violet was born.
“Reese—”
“Bullshit. This is fake,” he interrupts.
“Can pictures be faked?” Holly pulls out her phone and, rather than hand it over to Reese, she gives it to me. “Do those look fake to you, dear?”
Her screen is pulled up to an album simply titled <3. The emoji doesn’t do anything to settle my stomach. Neither do the contents.
