My best friend stood beneath a ceiling of Baccarat crystal chandeliers wearing the diamond ring I had designed for my tenth wedding anniversary—and announced that she was marrying my husband.
Not my ex-husband.
My husband.
The Imperial Ballroom of the Halcyon Crown Hotel glittered around us like a royal wedding spread.
Thirty-foot windows overlooked Central Park.
White orchids spilled from gold pedestals.
Hundreds of candles reflected against mirrored tables covered in crystal glasses, French champagne, and hand-painted place settings.
And Shelby Monroe smiled at me as if she had just shared wonderful news.
“Vivienne,” she said softly, raising her left hand, “I want you to be my maid of honor.”
My eyes went straight to the ring.
Oval diamond.
Platinum setting.
Two tiny sapphires hidden beneath the center stone.
My design.
Three years earlier, I had sketched that exact ring for Preston.
“For our tenth anniversary,” I had told him.
He had barely looked at it.
“It’s a little sentimental, don’t you think?”
Apparently not too sentimental for Shelby.
I turned toward my husband.
Preston Blackwell sat across the table in a midnight-blue designer suit, one hand resting beside his champagne glass.
He didn’t look guilty.
He looked relieved.
That hurt more.
Shelby reached for my hand.
“We never wanted to hurt you.”
I stared at her perfectly manicured fingers.
The same fingers that had held mine when I cried.
The same fingers that had scrolled through my phone when I showed her the gold earring I had found beneath Preston’s car seat.
The same fingers that had poured me wine and said:
“Vivienne, grief is making you suspicious.”
I slowly pulled my hand away.
“How long?”
Shelby glanced at Preston.
He answered.
“Eight months.”
My chest tightened.
Eight months.
My mother had been dead for eight months.
I looked back at Shelby.
“When I found that earring, were you already sleeping with him?”
Her expression changed.
“This isn’t the place.”
I almost laughed.
We were sitting inside the hotel where she planned to marry my husband in six weeks while florists adjusted orchids and planners carried tablets through the ballroom.
But apparently this wasn’t the place.
Preston sighed.
“Our marriage was over long before Shelby.”
Interesting.
Because only two months earlier, he had posted a photograph of us at a charity gala.
Still choosing you. Always.
Twenty thousand people had liked it.
Including Shelby.
I lifted my champagne.
Took one slow sip.
Then smiled.
Shelby visibly relaxed.
That was her first mistake.
“Of course I’ll come,” I said.
Her mouth opened.
“You will?”
“I’ll do better.”
I placed the glass down.
“I’ll give a speech.”
Preston’s eyes narrowed.
“What kind of speech?”
I smiled.
“An evidence speech.”
Shelby laughed.
Preston didn’t.
Because Preston knew something Shelby didn’t.
I never threatened anyone unless I intended to finish it.
At that moment, I had almost nothing.
By midnight, everything changed.
I called Elias Ward from the back seat of my car.
Elias had handled corporate security for my father’s company for fifteen years.
“I need you to check something,” I said.
“Quietly?”
“Very.”
Manhattan blurred beyond the tinted windows.
“Find out where Preston was the night my mother died.”
Silence.
Everyone close to me remembered that night.
My mother had spent her final hours at St. Catherine’s Medical Center.
Preston claimed a client emergency kept him downtown.
Shelby said she had a migraine.
So I sat alone beside my mother.