Chapter 6 - The First Truth Emma Couldn’t Hide Anymore
After the moment Diane noticed the blinking device, the room went still.
Ryan carried Emma to the cream sofa again, but this time he sat beside her and kept one arm around her shoulders. With his other hand he reached into the cradle and lifted Lily, cradling their crying daughter against his chest before placing her gently into Emma’s arms.
Only then did he look at Diane.
“Don’t move.”
Diane touched her slapped cheek, stunned.
“Ryan, you’re overreacting.”
“Am I?”
“She twisted this against me. Your wife is weak, dramatic, and unstable. She—”
“Shut up.”
Emma jerked slightly at the force in his voice. Ryan felt it at once and softened toward her immediately.
“It’s okay,” he said quietly to Emma. “I’ve got you.”
Those four words broke something in her.
Emma lowered her head and started crying—not loud, not theatrical, just the silent, shaking kind of tears that come when a person has held fear inside for too long.
Ryan looked at her and felt sick.
“How long?” he asked.
Emma didn’t answer at first.
Diane seized the silence.
“You see? She doesn’t even know what to say.”
Ryan did not look away from Emma.
“How long?”
Emma swallowed hard. “Since Lily came home.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Ryan’s voice dropped. “Everything?”
Emma gave the smallest nod.
Diane’s composure cracked. “That is not true.”
Ryan turned to her slowly.
“You spit on food and shoved it into my wife’s mouth while my daughter was screaming,” he said. “If you want to gamble on what I’ll believe after that, you’re dumber than I thought.”
Diane opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Emma wiped at her face with trembling fingers.
“She always waited until you were gone,” she whispered. “She said no one would believe me over her. She said if I made trouble, you’d think I was unstable from the surgery and the medication.”
Ryan’s whole body went rigid.
May you like
Diane had not only abused his wife.
She had built the abuse around his trust.
