Emma's Secret: A Novel

Emma. That’s what you’ve been hiding from me, isn’t it? That’s why she wanted to make sure you’d take her on the date and why you had the restraining order lifted. Oh my God…” Megan covered her mouth with her hands. “And you didn’t care about how I’d feel?”
    “Stop!” Peter’s eyes clenched tight as a grim look covered his face. “This is why I haven’t said anything to you.” He rubbed his face with his hands. The look on his face when he took his hands away alarmed Megan. His lips pinched together as his jaw clenched.
    “I don’t understand.”
    Peter shrugged. “What’s not to understand? Emma’s home, she’s safe, she’s happy, and yet you can’t seem to accept it. It’s as if you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something else to happen. You’re in panic mode, Meg. All. The. Time. And it’s exhausting. You’re worn-out—we’re worn-out.”
    Megan’s anger deflated at his words. He was right. Of course, he was right. She rubbed her forehead and let his words sink in.
    “Megan, I love you.” He reached across and laid his hand on her knee and squeezed. “I need you to trust me, please?”
    Megan lifted her hands, to get him to stop from saying whatever else he was going to say. He was asking a lot from her. Maybe too much. Her body hummed with tension as she struggled to take it all in. He didn’t trust her. That hit her hard. He’d skirted the whole issue about Emma seeing
that man
and threw everything back at her as if it were all her fault. She slowly lowered her hands and clenched them at her sides. She couldn’t look at him, not yet, so she stared blankly out the window instead.
    “It’s not fair for you to place all the blame on me,” she whispered quietly. “It’s not fair of you to want me to trust you when you obviously don’t trust me.” A heaviness settled in her heart. This was it. This was their breaking point. She’d failed in his eyes as a mother and most likely as a wife. She turned to look at him and wished she hadn’t.
    A grave look covered Peter’s features moments before he stood. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that look meant, but it looked like she didn’t have a choice in the matter. He picked up a file, and the first thought that popped into Megan’s head was that this was the moment she’d been dreading for the last year: In that file were divorce papers. He couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t handle her anymore—her insecurities, her stubbornness, her inability to look beyond their youngest daughter. All of Megan’s fears were playing out right now, and she wasn’t prepared.
    Megan’s hand shook as she reached for the folder he held out. Her chest was heavy and a threatening weight of fear gripped her shoulders. She bit her lip as she glanced at the plain brown folder.
    “It’s not what you think it is,” Peter said before retaking his seat.
    Megan moistened her dry lips as she set the folder in her lap and slowly opened it. Time stood still as she recognized what she was seeing. Her nostrils flared as her eyes widened in surprise.
    “I don’t understand.” This didn’t make sense. It wasn’t possible.
    Peter threaded his fingers through his hair before resting his elbows on his knees. He messed up his hair enough that it stood out all over the place. Megan wanted to reach across and smooth it back, but she resisted.
    “I offered to buy Sam out of the company. She accepted.” He twiddled his thumbs as she glanced back down at the papers in the folder.
    “You what?” Megan was having a hard time wrapping her mind around this. One minute they were talking about the restraining order and her failure as a mother, and the next they were discussing a business deal?
    “How can we afford to buy her out? She came in because we were struggling.” None of it made sense. They didn’t have the money to go on their own, let alone buy out Samantha’s shares.
    “But we’re not now, Meg. I’ve managed to land some really good deals in the past year. We’re okay.”
    Megan closed the file and sat back in the chair. She picked up her coffee and tried to think through the past year. So all those late nights, the meetings, the empty spot beside her in bed when she’d wake up in the middle of the night—it wasn’t that Peter wanted to get away from her?
    “Sam doesn’t mean anything to me, Meg. She was only a business partner.”
    “But she…” Megan started.
    “Has come between us,”