Chapter 1

On Valentine's Day I was dressed in a clown costume, selling roses in the busiest part of the city.

The last thing I expected was to see my husband, Kerry Donaldson, dead for three years, with my sister Joyce Fleming on his arm, her belly round with pregnancy.

He held out a thick fold of bills.

"Get me your most expensive bouquet."

Every drop of blood in my body ran backward. I stared hard at his face and couldn't make sense of it.

When I didn't take the money, Joyce covered her mouth and laughed. "Honey, you scared her with all that cash. She doesn't even dare take it."

"Why don't we have her perform something at the party in that clown getup? Call it her performance fee."

Before I could get a word out, Kerry's bodyguards hauled me into a lavish banquet hall.

"Kerry, today is your third wedding anniversary with Joyce. Why on earth would you bring a clown in here?"

My own mother pinched her nose and looked at me with disgust. Then my brother, Tristan Fleming, eased Joyce into a seat, his voice all indulgence. "Why do you think? Joyce must have wanted to see a clown perform."

"Joyce really is blessed, having Kerry treat her so tenderly."

My best friend, Cordelia Henson, said it while wheeling a six-tier cake tower past me. "This cake took me a whole day and night to make, and you—"

"Get out of the way, ah—"

I went sprawling into the cake tower, and only then did it hit me. Every single person around me had betrayed me.

.........

Cordelia's palm cracked across my face, her eyes blazing with the fury of someone whose treasure has been ruined. "Are you blind? This cake took me a full day and night to make by hand for my best friend."

"You ruined it just like that. What are you going to use to pay for it?"

My heart twisted like it was being churned by a knife. Yesterday my stomach flared up so badly I couldn't get out of bed. I called her, and it rang more than ten times before she picked up, her tone impatient. "I've got something important today. Call yourself an ambulance for now, I'll come see you tomorrow."

And her so-called something important was making a cake for Joyce.

When I said nothing, she drew back her hand to strike the other side of my face. I caught it.

Tristan kicked me from behind and sent me sprawling to the floor.

"You're a street clown begging for coins. Kneel down and apologize to Joyce, beg for her forgiveness, or you're not walking out of here tonight."

Joyce made a show of standing and holding Tristan back. "Don't be angry, brother. Where's that gift you said yesterday you'd give me?"

Only then did Tristan remember. He pulled a delicate jewelry box from his pocket, and Mother covered her mouth and laughed. "That was bought with money from Thelma Fleming, so we'll just call it her way of showing she cares too."

My nails dug hard into the floorboards. Yesterday Tristan had come to me with a troubled face, saying he needed a gift for his promotion, and walked off with the only thirty thousand I had.

That money was what I'd been saving for my surgery. So it turned out it had gone toward an expensive gift for Joyce instead.

Joyce went through the motions of refusing. "This isn't right. My sister works hard for her money. If she knew you'd used it to buy me a gift, wouldn't she be upset?"

Tristan shook his head, unbothered. "She owes you this. If it weren't for her, you and Kerry wouldn't have had to sneak around all this time, when the two of you have been married three years already."

Kerry simply picked up the necklace and fastened it around Joyce's neck. "If I hadn't been so worried about sparing her feelings back then, why would I have faked my death to marry you and let you suffer all this? She wronged you first. You don't need to think about her at all."

Cordelia stepped in front of her and took her hand, pouting sweetly. "Joyce, don't be so kind. She owes you all of this. No matter how much you take, it's only what you deserve."

"You have no idea how hard it's been for me, keeping the secret from her, playing nice to her face every day."

Her expression turned to open disgust.

"This morning she even called me asking when I'd come see her. I was sick of it. It's just a little stomach flare-up, and she carries on like she's dying. I couldn't be bothered with her."

I clutched my stomach and got to my feet, my palm smearing tears through the clown makeup as I wiped it off, and I stared hard at every one of them.

"So it turns out you all think I owe you."