A brunette head with a burgundy streak poked around the corner. “Daniel! What are you doing here?”

Words deserted him. He didn’t know.

“You look terrible! Are you okay?”

Another question without an answer. “Where’s Monique?”

“I don’t know. I can’t reach her.”

An uncomfortable silence descended on them like a thick theater curtain. Two professionals stared at each other, as if actors waiting for each other to deliver the next line.

Anna’s burgundy streak shook. “What’s going on?”

Daniel smiled, tight-lipped. He would have to face the truth, and he needed to start somewhere. “My life is falling apart.”

Anna ushered him to the sofa, her practiced silence deafening.

“We have to see the principal about Milly’s behavior. She’s talked of hurting herself at school.”

Anna’s eyes widened. “Hurting herself?”

Daniel massaged his temples, again faced with a question to which honesty was the only answer. “She told the school she needs to do something drastic to get our attention, and that’s their conclusion. Mine too.”

“She never mentioned that to me when we talked.”

“It’s more than that . . . Kelly’s planning on leaving me. She’s even opened her own bank account.”

Anna winced. “Why don’t you both talk to one of us?”

“Kelly won’t. She’s convinced there’s something going on with me and . . . someone else.”

“With Monique?”

The anxiety launched a fresh assault on him.

“Why would she suspect there’s someone else?” Anna inspected his expression. “Have you given her a reason to think there’s something going on?”

Daniel blinked hard. “Not consciously.”

“Then talk to someone else. You can still fix this, but you can’t be the divorced guy who wrote the book on staying happily married.”

Daniel’s jaw rippled as he closed the cover on his emotions.

Anna leaned toward him, her eyebrow cocked. “Every time I mention your book, you shut down. You used to be happy to talk about anything and everything.”

Daniel stared off into space. “You’d think I was crazy.”

Anna’s second eyebrow joined her first. “I’ve heard them all. Try me.”

“We all have secrets, Anna, and part of their deceptive beauty is the fact that we think we can keep them to ourselves until we’re ready for the right moment . . .” Daniel let his sentence trail into the ether.

“I’ve read chapter one in your book. We all have.”

Daniel blinked back tears. “But what if your secrets were revealed for you, and you couldn’t stop it?”

Anna simply stared.

The crack in Daniel’s voice spread, carried on a tide of anxiety. “And what if you’re being taunted with photographs of your secrets waved under your nose, laying bare what you’d prefer to leave tucked away in the darkness?”

Anna’s eyes widened. “Photographs? Is this why you can’t show me the photo from our dinner?”