Betrayed by M Dauphin Page A

stop thinking for a little while. I know we need to talk, Tatum knows we need to talk. It’s just, I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to say the words out loud. I don’t want to hear that he feels stuck with me. I don’t want my heart to break again. Instead, I throw myself into the only thing that has never let me down: my business.
    The Delany wedding is four days away. I have four days to finish preparing things, which luckily are almost done due to my awesome dedication (and lack of anything else to do when Tatum was absent last week). After these four days, I’ll be shooting the biggest wedding of my career, creating the most beautiful pictures for the bride and my portfolio. Hopefully things will settle down a little after this wedding, but right now I’m turning all of my attention to the big show.
                  On Monday I wake up and start to get dressed for the studio. Tatum rolls over and looks at me with tired (and sexy as hell ‘how did I get so lucky’) eyes.
                  “Where do you think you are going, missy?” he asks, his still sleepy voice present.
                  “Work. I have a lot I need to get done to catch up from missing the weekend. The wedding is in just four days. Are you coming in to help out?” I ask, hopeful that he does. If anything just to be near him, so when I have one of my inevitable breakdowns that I know will happen he will at least be there for me.
                  “Uh…what?” he looks incredibly confused for a man that just woke up looking incredible sexy two minutes ago. “You aren’t still shooting the wedding this weekend, are you?”
                  I laugh. Loud. We are not having this fight again.
                  “I am. I need this Tatum. More now than before. I will be keeping you on as assistant this weekend, though, whether the Delany’s like it or not. I need you there with me, supporting me.” I pleaded.
                  He ran his fingers through his hair and sighs loudly. I know his brain is working pretty hard right now since he just got up and I threw a curveball at him before he was fully awake. I waited there, at the side of the bed as he thought.
                  “Molly sit. I need to tell you something.”
                  His voice gave me a hint I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.
                  “Listen, I was going to wait to tell you all of this until I had it figured out, but with you still doing the wedding I think you need to know. Stay here.” He said and he walked out of the room. A few minutes later he came back with a box.
                  “Open it” he ground out, then walked to the other side of the room as I was left sitting on the bed next to the mystery box. I opened the flaps and looked inside. A tiny blue baby blanket was folded inside. It was dirty and there was a note card setting on top. I pulled the note out and read both sides, chills running through me as the meaning of the card set in.
                  “What is this Tatum?” I whispered as he stared out the bedroom window.
                  “It’s my son’s baby blanket. The one he died in.”
                  I gasped and pulled the blanket out of the box. It was light blue with tiny darker blue stars and incredibly soft.
                  “Why?”
                  “I don’t know, exactly. This showed up on the porch last week. The night you stayed late at the studio. I don’t know who it is from but I have my guesses. Molly, this blanket along with everything else from the time in my life was ordered to be destroyed. I didn’t want anything to remember it. It sounds cold but I was hurting. It shook me to the core when I opened the box. Then when I found the note I was actually spooked. I don’t do mind games well, and someone is obviously