Chapter 1

Someone put a peanut in my seven-year-old son's mouth at the school fundraiser. He was severely allergic. By the time I got back from the restroom, he was down on the grass, fighting for air.

"Mom, I can't breathe..."

Leo lay there with both hands clamped around his own throat.

His face had gone from pale to a deep, ugly purple. He'd clawed red streaks into his neck, and they were bleeding.

My heart stopped.

"Leo! God, Leo, hold on!"

I threw myself down beside him, knees slamming into the grass. My hands shook as I dug through my bag.

The EpiPen. His auto-injector. One shot and he could last until the ambulance came.

My fingers had just closed around it—

A stiletto heel, studded with diamonds, came down hard on the back of my hand.

"Ah!"

Pain shot up my arm and my fingers let go. The heel kicked out. The EpiPen, the one thing keeping my son alive, flew in an arc through the air and dropped into the ornamental lake ten yards away.

A splash. Ripples spreading out.

My blood turned to ice.

"What are you doing?" My head snapped up. I stared at the woman like she was already a corpse.

She was caked in makeup, wearing a Chanel suit I recognized, a limited-edition Hermès bag hanging off one arm. She looked down at me with open disgust.

"What are you screaming about? It's a cheap little pen."

She let out a cold laugh.

"Do people like you not know your place? Your son just got dirt on my dress. This was flown in from Paris."

"One worthless life, so what if it's gone. You couldn't pay for what you ruined if you tried."

I was shaking all over.

On the ground, Leo writhed. His throat made a horrible wheezing sound, like air forced through a broken bellows.

He was suffocating.

"Get away from me!"

I shoved her leg aside and lunged for the lake, ready to go in after the pen.

"You put your hands on me?"

She shrieked and stumbled back two steps. Two of her bodyguards were on me instantly, big men in black, pinning my shoulders one on each side, forcing me down into the dirt.

"Let go of me! My son is going to die! I need an ambulance!"

I fought them, clawing at the ground until my nails tore.

Beside her, a girl of about eight in a frilly princess dress covered her mouth and giggled.

"Mommy, look at the freak. He's crawling around on the ground like a dog."

In the girl's hand was half a cookie, studded with whole peanuts.

It was her.

She was the one who'd put the peanut cookie in Leo's mouth.

"Good girl, Sienna. Don't look at trash like this, it'll dirty your eyes." The woman stroked the girl's hair, then turned back to me with a sneer.

"Call the police? Call an ambulance?"

"Go right ahead. I'd love to see which cop in this city has the nerve to get in my way."

She lifted her chin.

"Listen up. I'm Bianca. Mrs. Grayson Kerr. My husband is the financier this whole city bends over backwards for."

She let that sink in.

"So even if your son dies right here today, I can make the whole thing go away with a checkbook."

Grayson Kerr.

The second I heard that name, I stopped struggling.

Grayson Kerr?

My husband?

I stared at the woman who had just called herself his wife.