Any other Tuesday, I’d have swallowed it whole. His charity visits were routine. I had never once imagined the man who kissed my forehead every night could be hiding something like this.

I nodded slowly and held out the boxes. “Then be a dear and take these in for her.”

Before he could grab them, I heard the soft shuffle of velvet slippers, and a thin, whiny voice floated out.

“Michael, darling, who’s at the door?”

Khloe came out of the shadows in a clinging beige silk nightgown, her hair loosely piled at her neck. Her face was pale, like she’d seen a ghost. But it wasn’t her fear that rooted me to the floor.

It was the protective way her hands rested on her middle.