Chapter 1 - THE SCREAM UPSTAIRS “GET AWAY FROM HER!”
Adrienne Cross’s voice tore through the mansion before she even understood what she was seeing.
A porcelain bowl spun across the walnut floor.
It shattered against the wall.
Red soup splashed across white curtains.
Steam rose from the medical bed.
And Grace Bennett was screaming.
Adrienne had come home three hours early from a meeting in Dallas. Her private driver was still unloading luggage when she heard the crash from the second floor.
Now she stood frozen in the doorway of her mother’s recovery suite.
Her seventy-one-year-old mother, Eleanor, lay trembling against the pillows.
Grace—the housekeeper who had served the Cross family for almost a decade—was on her knees beside the bed.
Her right arm was bright red.
Blisters were already forming.
And standing over both women was Adrienne’s fiancée.
Vanessa Sterling.
Beautiful.
Elegant.
Perfectly dressed.
And holding the empty silver soup tray.
“Adrienne!”
Vanessa’s expression transformed instantly.
“She attacked me!”
Adrienne stared at her.
“What?”
“Grace lost control. She threw the tray. I tried to stop her.”
Grace lifted her head.
“No…”
Her voice barely existed.
Vanessa snapped toward her.
“Stop lying!”
Eleanor suddenly reached for Adrienne.
Her fingers shook violently.
“Sweetheart…”
Adrienne rushed to her bedside.
“What happened?”
Eleanor looked at Vanessa.
Fear filled her eyes.
Not irritation.
Not confusion.
Fear.
“She wanted me to sign something.”
Vanessa went pale.
“Eleanor is medicated. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Adrienne slowly looked at the soup burning Grace’s arm.
Then at the bowl.
Then at Vanessa.
“What did you want my mother to sign?”
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Nobody answered.
And for the first time since Adrienne had fallen in love with Vanessa Sterling, she wondered whether the woman she planned to marry had ever loved her at all.
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