The Man With the Red Roses
Chapter 04 - The Man With the Red Roses
No one moved as Alexander crossed the polished floor. The roses in his hands were deep crimson, the same variety that had grown outside the tiny inn where he and Emily spent their wedding night. Emily could not breathe. For months she had imagined this moment in a hundred different ways. In none of them had he looked at her with such pain.
Isabella descended from the stage. “Alex, you were supposed to arrive through the east entrance.”
“I changed the plan.”
Richard stepped between them. “You are still recovering. We can discuss this privately.”
“We have discussed everything privately for too long.”
Alexander stopped in front of Emily. Up close, the scar at his temple looked raw, and his right hand shook slightly around the flowers. He looked down at her belly, and tears filled his eyes.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
Emily wanted to slap him, hold him, and demand seven months of answers in the same breath. “She is alive. She is strong. She has been waiting for a father who never came.”
His face crumpled. “I didn't know.”
“You were told.”
“I was shown forged letters saying you left me. I was told the child belonged to someone else.” He looked toward Isabella. “Yesterday, I found the original hospital visitor logs. You came to see me nine times, Emily. They turned you away nine times.”
The crowd murmured. Isabella's jeweled hand tightened around her glass.
Alexander offered the roses, but Emily did not take them. “Flowers don't fix this.”
“No,” he said. “They don't. But the truth might be a beginning.”
He faced the room and raised his voice. “Emily Carter Whitmore is my legal wife. The child she carries is my daughter. Any document claiming otherwise was created without my knowledge.”
Richard laughed coldly. “Be careful, Alexander. Memory loss can make a man vulnerable to suggestion.”
“Which is why I brought someone whose memory is excellent.”
A man in a charcoal suit entered behind him carrying a leather case. Emily recognized Marcus Hale, Alex's oldest friend and chief legal officer. Marcus placed a certified marriage record, medical affidavits, and digital forensic reports on a table near the stage.
Isabella's smile finally broke.
“This proves a marriage,” she said. “It does not prove the baby.”
Alexander looked at Emily, not at Isabella. “I don't need a test to know what my wife would never lie about.”
Emily's anger trembled against her hope. He had said the right words, but too late.
May you like
Then Marcus opened the final folder.
“This,” he said, “proves who made him doubt her.”
