Chapter 1
On my husband's birthday, I took our seven-year-old son to his hotel in Italy to surprise him.
Our son never saw his father. Instead, he met Sophia, the woman who called herself the "lady of the hotel." She framed him for theft, stepped on his hand, snapped his epinephrine injector in half, and forced him to eat a hazelnut cake that could kill him.
When the doctor my father sent placed our son on a stretcher, my husband finally returned.
He did not look at the child on the stretcher. He stepped past him and pulled Sophia into his arms.
"Who hurt my woman and my baby?"
Only when he saw me standing there with my bruised face did all the color drain from his own.
"Hold that little thief down!"
The shrill voice rang through the hotel lobby while I was confirming our room at the front desk.
I spun around and saw two security guards pinning my seven-year-old son, Lucas, to the floor. The blue gift box he had been holding lay beside his feet, one corner crushed.
A woman in a red dress stood in front of him, holding up a diamond bracelet.
"We caught you with it, and you still dare to deny stealing it?"
"I didn't!" Lucas's face was red with panic. "It just appeared in my pocket!"
The people watching laughed.
The woman laughed too. "Did the bracelet grow legs?"
Only minutes earlier, Lucas had been holding the present and asking whether his father would like it. I had told him to wait in the lobby, but after hearing someone say the owner was upstairs, he had gone to look for Adam first.
Now his face was pressed against the cold marble floor.
"Let go of my son!"
I rushed over, but a security guard blocked me with one arm.
The woman looked me up and down, her gaze stopping on my plain coat. "So you're his mother. Did you bring your child to a five-star hotel to steal?"
"Release him and check the cameras," I said. "There are cameras in every corner of this lobby. One look will show how the bracelet got into his pocket."
Her smile faded for a moment. Then she raised her chin.
"I said there's no need."
"Who are you?"
The manager hurried to answer. "This is Miss Sophia, Mr. Adam Bennett's fiancée and the future lady of the hotel."
My fingertips went cold.
Adam was my husband.
We had been married for eight years and had never divorced. He claimed the hotel opening would keep him in Italy for a month. Apparently, what kept him busy was installing another woman as its lady.
Lucas clearly did not understand. He only heard Adam's name and tried desperately to lift his head.
"Adam is my dad! It's his birthday. I came to give him a present!"
Sophia looked as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world.
"Adam would have a shabby son like you?"
She crouched and pinched Lucas's chin. "Stealing wasn't enough? You even dare to make up a father?"
"He isn't making anything up." I pushed the guard's hand away. "Call Adam down here."
Sophia stared at me for two seconds, then took out her phone and called him.
No one answered.
She turned the screen toward me with a sneer. "See? Adam is busy. He has no time for two scammers."
"Then call the police."
I took out my phone. She knocked it from my hand.
"In my hotel, I make the rules."
The young woman at the front desk started to pick up my phone, but a glance from Sophia made her pull back. The red lights on the cameras above us were still blinking. I memorized their positions and the names on the manager's and guards' badges.
Lucas struggled to protect the gift box near his feet. "Don't touch it. It's for my dad!"
Sophia flicked it into the center of the lobby with the tip of her shoe.
"A thief doesn't deserve to give Adam a present."
She lifted her chin at the guards.
"Pin down his right hand."
One guard hesitated. "Miss Sophia, he's only a child."
"Who pays your salary? Have you forgotten what Adam said? Everyone in this hotel obeys me."
The guard said nothing more. He pressed Lucas's palm against the floor.
Sophia slowly raised her stiletto. Its narrow heel hovered above the back of his hand.
"Does the hand you used to steal still matter to you?" she asked with a smile.
