Chapter 2

The pain was more than I could bear.

But my cousin's blood wouldn't stop, and her cries for help drove me past all reason.

"Natalie Summers, don't leave!"

My voice came out ragged, barely my own.

"This is my cousin's baby. If you can't stand the sight of me, fine, torment me however you want!"

"But this is a human life…"

I begged them to call an ambulance.

Before I could finish, the doctor behind Maya seized hold of her.

A needle went into her arm.

"What did you just inject into her?!"

I watched Maya go still, my eyes bloodshot, half out of my mind.

A wall of bodyguards held me back.

Lowell Pruitt lifted his chin at me.

"Don't be so upset, Marlin."

"That baby was never meant to come into this world anyway."

"Whose bastard your precious little cousin was really carrying, you know, and so does Natalie."

"If you still care about your marriage at all, stop making trouble for Natalie."

I glared at him, jaw clenched. "What the hell are you talking about?"

But he only savored the fury in my eyes, his smile widening.

"What? You hate me? Want to sink your teeth into me?"

"If you want to blame someone, blame yourself."

"You were the only one invited, and you still had to drag your cousin here with that huge belly of hers. Shameless."

"Threw the whole thing right in Natalie's face."

"You think she could just swallow that?"

The shock ran through me.

But that wasn't how it happened. Not at all.

Natalie had told me to come to this gathering.

She'd said Lowell wanted to apologize to my cousin Maya for how rude and reckless he'd been at the banquet last time.

Once we got there, though, there wasn't a trace of an apology in him.

Instead he kept pushing drinks on me.

When I wouldn't drink, his face went cold.

Then he egged everyone into a game of dares.

It wasn't until I came out of the restroom that I heard what they were saying.

"Apologize, my foot. Marlin Henson's cousin got tricked into coming, plain and simple."

"They'd worked it all out ahead of time. Made a bet on the baby in Maya's belly."

"If Maya loses it right here today,"

"Natalie has to sleep with Lowell for a month."

"And if she doesn't lose it…"

They exchanged a glance. "Ha, then Natalie would be furious, and Lowell would be groveling to make it up to her till the end of time."

So from beginning to end, this was a trap set for me and Maya, dressed up as a party.

In Lowell's eyes I could see my own reflection, white and set.

"Natalie Summers, I want a divorce."

Natalie had been laughing with the other women. Her whole body went rigid.

She pulled her gaze back and let it settle on me, light as anything.

"A divorce?"

She let out a laugh, dripping with scorn.

"You say the word and it's done?"

"Have you forgotten how you married me in the first place?"

I tore free of the bodyguards holding me, and the words caught in my throat.

She looked down at me from where she stood.

"How much do your parents owe my family? Slipped your mind?"

"You think the Summers family is some open market you can walk into and out of whenever you please?"

"Ask for a divorce? What right do you have?"

"You want to trade for it with the bastard about to bleed out of your cousin, or with your own life?"

She said it in a voice so calm it was almost indifferent.

My fingers dug into my palms until blood welled up.

I had married her because my parents owed the Summers family an enormous sum. That much was true.

The year I was twenty-three, my parents got conned into an investment scheme.

Mortgaging the house wasn't enough.

So they borrowed three million from the Summers family.

The next year, unable to repay it, they ran, and left me behind. Alone.

Natalie showed up at my door and said if I married her, the whole debt would be wiped clean.

I agreed.

I thought that maybe she liked me, at least a little.

After all, she'd chased me for three months.

But on our wedding day, Lowell came charging into the church in a suit.

He said, "Natalie, we had a deal. Once you'd had your fun, you'd come back."

Natalie left me standing there at my own wedding and walked out after Lowell without looking back.

I lost every shred of dignity. The whole city's joke.

But I had nowhere to go.

With her parents comforting me, I stayed on with the Summers family after all.

Later Natalie coaxed me. "There was a reason for it. Lowell is young, that's the only reason he stormed into the wedding and made a scene."

"I've already set him straight. He'll never dare do it again."

It was only afterward that I found out why she'd walked out with Lowell and left me there.

It was because of a bet.