Chapter 1

The car was on fire, and my husband was saving another woman.

I was eight months pregnant, pinned behind the wheel, screaming his name.

Grant didn't look back. Not once.

He carried Sienna to the ambulance like she was made of glass.

"She's carrying my child," he told the paramedic.

So was I.

Smoke filled my lungs. The seatbelt was jammed, the metal crushed against my belly, and something warm was spreading down my legs. I pounded the window with my fists.

"Grant! GRANT! The baby!"

Through the cracked glass, I saw him kneel beside the stretcher. He brushed Sienna's blonde hair from her face. She had a scratch on her forehead. One scratch.

I had my daughter dying inside me.

Flames licked up the hood. I stopped screaming. I didn't have the air left.

Then the window exploded inward.

A man's arm reached through. Black coat, bleeding knuckles. He sliced the seatbelt with something silver and pulled me out into the cold night air, cradling my belly with one hand like it was the most precious thing in the world.

"I've got you," he said. "Stay awake. Look at me."

Gray eyes. A stranger's eyes. The last thing I saw before the dark swallowed me.

When I woke up, my stomach was flat.

I knew before the doctor said a word. I knew from the silence. No heartbeat on the monitor except mine.

"Mrs. Whitmore, I'm so sorry. We delivered her, but she was already gone."

Her. A girl. I had been right.

"Can I hold her?" My voice didn't sound like mine.

They brought her to me wrapped in a pink hospital blanket. She was perfect. Tiny fingers. Grant's nose. My dark hair. She weighed four pounds and two ounces, and she never got to cry.

"Lily," I whispered. "Your name is Lily."

I held her for three hours. Nurses came and went with tissues and soft voices.

My husband didn't come.

Fourteen hours later, the door finally opened. Grant walked in, tie loose, eyes tired. My heart lifted for one stupid second.

Then I saw who he was pushing.

Sienna sat in a wheelchair she didn't need, a thin bandage on her temple, one hand resting on her flat stomach.

"Ivy." Grant didn't come to the bed. "The hospital says this is the only private suite. Sienna's in shock. She needs quiet for the baby. You don't mind moving to the ward, do you?"

I stared at him.

"Our daughter died," I said. "Her name was Lily. She died while you were holding Sienna's hand."

He flinched. Just slightly. "Don't do this. You know Sienna's pregnancy is high-risk. I had to choose, and you're stronger than she is."

I had to choose.

He'd chosen. In a burning car. Between me and her.

Sienna's eyes filled with perfect, sparkling tears. "Ivy, I'm so sorry. I told him to go back for you. I begged him."

She hadn't. I'd watched her through the glass. She'd been smiling.

"Get out," I said.

"Ivy—"

"GET OUT."

Grant's jaw hardened. He wheeled Sienna out without another word.

At 3 a.m., I couldn't breathe in that room anymore. I shuffled into the hallway in my hospital gown, holding the wall, looking for the chapel.

Sienna's door was cracked open. Her voice drifted out, low and sweet as honey.

"Relax, Mom. Nobody suspects a thing. The brakes failed exactly like you said they would."

I froze.

She laughed softly.

"No, Ivy survived. Some random guy pulled her out." A pause. "But the baby didn't make it. So that's one Ashford down."

Ashford?

My name was Ivy Whitmore. Before that, Ivy Nobody—a foster kid, abandoned on a church step at age three.

Who the hell was Ashford?

And why did my husband's mistress want me dead?