Chapter 1
Hours before I was supposed to elope with my secret boyfriend, the baby in my womb told me exactly how he would murder us both.
I had a best friend who wanted my name, my inheritance, and the man I was engaged to.
And the father I trusted was helping her take all three.
So this night, I called the man I was supposed to marry—and set a trap that would force every betrayer to expose themselves.
"Vivian, are you really going to marry marry Adrian? You don't even love him."
Tessa squeezed my hand, her face arranged in perfect concern.
"Mason has loved you for years. He won't care that you're pregnant. Tell him the truth and leave with him tonight."
Adrian Bennett was the man my father Richard Foster had traded me to.
We were engaged—a contract my father signed when I was eleven, sealed with an exchange of property neither of us had been asked about.
Mason was Tessa's childhood friend. He was also the man I had been seeing behind my family's back.
I had begged my father more than once to cancel my engagement. Every time, he gave me the same answer.
"The Bennett family is not a family we can afford to insult. Adrian choosing you is the best thing that will ever happen to you. Stop making this difficult."
So when Tessa suggested I run away with Mason, I was ready to listen.
Then a pain twisted low in my belly.
A child's terrified voice came out of nowhere.
"Mom, use your head! Tessa and Mason are setting you up. If you run, she takes your place and marries Dad!"
The voice came from inside me. I went very still.
"Last time, when you vanished, Grandpa got scared the Bennetts would come after him. So he claimed Tessa as his own daughter and sent her to the wedding instead of you. She got your home, your name, and your whole life."
I looked at Tessa. For the first time, I noticed the eagerness under all that worry.
My father had taken her in when we were both eight—a maid's post, he said, because he felt sorry for her.
So she had grown up beside me—my school, my tutors, my clothes once I'd outgrown them, my secrets.
Somewhere along the way, I had stopped thinking of her as staff. I had called her my best friend.
She was also the person who had introduced me to Mason.
I forced myself to smile. "If I leave with him, will you come with me?"
Tessa's face went blank for half a second.
"I've always depended on you," I went on. "Cooking, cleaning, my clothes, my calendar—you've handled all of it since we were kids. You wouldn't leave me to manage alone, would you?"
The reminder of what she used to be stripped the sweetness out of her eyes.
"You're worried about who'll fold your clothes?" she snapped. "Mason loves you. When did you get so used to being waited on?"
She let go of my hand and headed for the door.
"Forget it. He's waiting at the rear gate. I'll bring him in and let him talk some sense into you himself."
The moment the door shut, I opened a contact I had never once used.
Adrian Bennett.
My thumb hovered over the call button.
"Mom, don't change your mind," the baby pleaded. "Call Him. Give him a chance."
The little voice shook. "Please. I don't want to be cut out of you alive again."
My hand was trembling so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
I pressed Call.
Adrian answered on the second ring. "Vivian?"
"Come to my house," I said. "You have thirty minutes."
