Chapter 1

My husband died in a car crash.

And at his funeral, his mother stood there jabbing a finger at me, screaming for me to get out and take my son with me.

"You cheated on him while he was alive, and now you make this bastard wear mourning white for him? Aren't you afraid of what's coming to you?"

"I don't think that crash was an accident. He must have found out you were cheating and wanted a divorce, so you murdered him!"

The words landed and the whole room froze. Even my son was crying, asking me if it was true.

I fired back at once, swearing I had never once wronged my husband.

But my father-in-law slapped me across the face and threw a paternity report at me.

"Still lying?"

"We ran a DNA test on this little bastard. The kid isn't a Edwards at all."

I stared at the report, at the result ruling out any blood relation, and went blank.

The relatives and friends crowded in, pointing at my face, calling me shameless.

I had no way to defend myself. I wanted to take my son and leave, get a new test done.

Instead my furious in-laws shoved me off the high-rise...

Now I have a second chance.

This time I didn't argue. I took the paternity report and nodded.

"No blood relation to you? That's right."

One.

"From the very first time I saw you, I knew you were no good."

"But Daniel Edwards had his head in the clouds over you. It had to be you and no one else. He treated a piece of trash like you like the apple of his eye, cut ties with us over you, threw us out of the house."

"I never dreamed you'd be this vicious. Not only did you cheat on Daniel, you made him raise your illegitimate child, and in the end you got him killed..."

"Today, in front of everyone, I owe Daniel this much."

My mother-in-law, Stacy Salazar, wept as if the world were ending.

My father-in-law, Edward Edwards, beat his chest right along with her, cursing himself for failing to stop this poisonous woman from marrying into the Edwards family and destroying it.

The two of them looked stricken with grief. And yet, in perfectly clear words, they painted every colorful detail of my "affair" and my "illegitimate son."

Everyone at the funeral was looking at me. Doubt, shock, scrutiny, all of them weighing whether it was true. Even my seven-year-old son sobbed and asked me whether he really was his father's son.

I didn't deny it.

Because this was already the second time I'd watched Edward Edwards and Stacy Salazar put on this act.

I knew exactly how it went. If I denied what they said, they would fall on me with their fists, then produce the paternity report to prove they weren't lying, prove that I was the one twisting the truth, and see me and my son dead...

And after my son and I were dead.

She and Edward Edwards would call my death a fall, an accident.

People online would say I got what I deserved, and the two of them would collect the insurance payout on all three of us and live it up off our blood.

So I didn't deny it. I didn't argue either.

I only looked at Edward Edwards and Stacy Salazar with a cold face.

"This whole performance of yours, it's just for Daniel's money and the settlement, isn't it?"

"Just say so. Why bother pinning a betrayal that never happened on Daniel, leaving him a laughingstock even in death?"