Chapter 1 - THE FALL FROM GRACE
I stood at the top of the grand staircase, clutching the deed to my grandfather’s five-million-dollar lake house, when my mother-in-law, Cordelia, lunged forward and shoved me. I crashed down fourteen hardwood steps, fracturing my leg and dislocating my shoulder against the unforgiving marble foyer. My husband, Flynn, didn't call for help; he merely took a sip of his scotch, plucked the deed from my trembling fingers, and stepped right over my broken body. Four hours later in a hospital bed, I was handed divorce papers demanding the entire estate. My estate attorney, Phoebe, thought I had suffered brain damage when I commanded her to sign the deed over to Flynn without a fight. But I knew the secret my ruthless billionaire grandfather, Arthur Vance, had buried beneath the foundation twenty years ago. Flynn and Cordelia thought they had robbed a helpless wife, popping champagne in the grand ballroom while bragging to elite society. They had no idea that signing that title didn't make Flynn a lord—it made him the prime suspect in an international financial syndicate's deadly vendetta.
