My Daughter Was Covering for His Mistress

My daughter, who had always been so sweet and well-behaved, suddenly threw a crying fit, begging to go to Disney World.

If I didn’t take her, she said, she’d stop eating.

I had no choice. I took time off and flew her to Orlando, while her dad stayed behind in Austin, busy with work.

We stayed two whole weeks. I was exhausted, and she was still whining that it wasn’t enough, that she wanted a few more days.

But I’d already taken so much time off that my boss had been after me to come back for days.

I booked our flight home for the next morning.

What I didn’t expect was to wake up in the middle of the night and hear my daughter secretly calling her dad:

“Daddy, is Ms. Shannon feeling better? Mommy and I are coming home tomorrow. I tried being cute and it didn’t work. You have to help Ms. Shannon pack up and get out of our house, and don’t let Mommy find out!”

Chapter One

I rolled over in the middle of the night, and my hand found nothing where my daughter should have been. I jolted upright.

The bedroom door was open. The lights outside were off.

In the silence, I could faintly hear her voice coming from the living room of our suite.

I frowned. What was she doing out there at this hour instead of sleeping?

I got up and went out. Her small figure was crouched by the sliding door to the balcony, the kids’ smartwatch on her wrist glowing in the dark.

“Daddy, is Ms. Shannon feeling better? Does she like our house?”

“Mommy and I are coming home tomorrow. I wanted to stay a few more days so Ms. Shannon could stay at our house longer, but being cute didn’t work. Mommy’s so annoying. She ruins everything. Otherwise I could be home with you, keeping Ms. Shannon company.”

“Daddy, hurry and help Ms. Shannon pack up and leave our house. Don’t let Mommy find out!”

A second ago I’d been worried about my daughter. Now it felt like I’d fallen through ice. My head was ringing. All the blood in my body seemed to freeze.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

My husband, the man I loved most in the world, and my precious daughter, whom I’d adored for eight years, were in it together, lying to me.

All for a woman named Shannon?

Ms. Shannon?

I stared at the smartwatch on my daughter’s wrist, and it hit me. Ms. Shannon was her art teacher at the after-school enrichment center.

She was the one who’d given her that watch.

At the time, I’d told my husband, Luke, to give it back. What student accepts a gift that expensive from a teacher?

Luke had agreed. But our daughter had thrown a fit.

She’d cried that Ms. Shannon gave it to her for winning first place in the art group competition, and if we sent it back, it meant I didn’t think she’d really earned first place.

So I gave in. I followed Ms. Shannon on Instagram, invited her out for coffee, and gave her a bottle of designer perfume in return. Just good manners.

I never imagined that watch would turn into my daughter’s hotline for tipping them off.

“Mommy?”

My daughter stood up and saw me. Her eyes were full of panic.

I steadied myself and forced a smile. “It’s so late. What are you doing out here instead of sleeping?”

She was still just a kid. When she lied, her eyes darted everywhere. “I... I just missed Daddy, so I called him. Mommy, I’m so sleepy. I’m going to bed.”

And she even faked a big yawn.

As she walked past me, I couldn’t help calling her back.

My voice shook. I was almost afraid to ask. “Do you love Mommy?”

She turned and threw herself into my arms, nuzzling her little face against me the way she used to when she was two or three. “Mia loves Mommy the most! And Daddy the most too!”

I watched her walk back to the bedroom. It felt like two voices were fighting inside my head.

One said it might be a misunderstanding.

The other said I should go find proof.

Once a seed of doubt is planted, it only digs its roots in deeper.

I sat on the couch in the dark and opened Shannon’s Instagram.

I’d only followed her to be polite. I’d never once clicked through to her profile.

This was the first time.

Her profile picture had a green ring around it.

A Close Friends story. She’d added me to the short list of people who could see it.

The latest one had been posted that day.

“What do you do when your boyfriend is this clingy?”

The photo showed her lying on a bed in a sexy slip dress, a man’s hand resting on her waist.

I stared at the screen. My hands started to shake, and my breathing came faster and faster.

A tear suddenly splashed onto the screen. After that, I couldn’t stop.

I threw the phone aside, buried my face in my hands, and fell apart. Tears ran down between my fingers.

That background was so familiar. The decor was so familiar. The bed was so familiar.

I could even make out my own photo on the nightstand.

And the hand belonged to my husband of nine years, the man I’d dated for seven years before that. Luke Harper.