Chapter 1

My daughter, Mindy Abbott, was home for summer break.

Work at the company kept me swamped, my husband had died suddenly of illness not long ago, and my parents were in poor health.

So there was no one at home to look after her.

That was why my father recommended his cousin's daughter, Kirsten Chavez, to come work as our live-in nanny.

I was eating dinner one evening when Kirsten sidled up to me, all smiles.

"Hey, so Sunday's my son's tenth birthday."

"I was thinking we could use the day to settle the match between him and Mindy!"

I was so stunned I nearly spat out my food.

Since she'd come to work for us, Kirsten had been lazy, and she always helped herself first to anything good to eat or drink.

She had no sense of boundaries at all.

She even carted off bags of our meat, fruit, and vegetables to her own home every single day.

Her excuse was that we could never finish it all anyway.

For the sake of the older generation, I put up with whatever I could.

But now what was she trying to pull?

"What match?" I asked.

Kirsten looked put out.

"The match between my son Brian Gray and your Mindy, of course!"

"Your uncle and the rest of them already agreed. Didn't he tell you?"

I quickly asked what on earth she was talking about.

Kirsten told me that forty years ago my father and hers had gone off together to find work in another city.

My father had accidentally lost the food and money he'd brought along.

Then he was in a car accident on top of it.

If her father hadn't done everything he could to help mine, my father would have died out there.

And to thank her father, mine had promised a child betrothal between the next generation.

Except they'd both ended up having daughters, so the match never happened.

"Now you've got a daughter and I've got a son, so it works out perfectly. We can join the families!"

Kirsten said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I shook my head at once.

"No. Mindy is only nine. I'm not arranging a marriage for her."

"And any child betrothal my father made with yours died out with our generation!"

There was another reason I didn't say out loud.

Her son, Brian, was ten this year and still wet himself in public all the time.

To this day he hadn't started elementary school.

He had a serious intellectual disability.

There was no way I'd ever betroth my daughter to a boy like that.

At my answer, Kirsten's brow furrowed instantly.

"Ursula Vance, so you're using your money to look down on my family, is that it?"

"They say a child pays the father's debts. If you won't own the debt your father owes, well, that's pretty ungrateful, isn't it?"

She stared me down, pushing hard.

I let out a cold laugh.

I went to my bedroom and came back with ten thousand dollars.

"This is your pay. You've worked ten days total, and I'm giving you a full month."

"Starting tomorrow, don't bother coming back!"

Kirsten hesitated, then took my money, her face dark.

"Fine, fine, fine. Ursula, you're heartless enough."

"But this isn't over. We'll see about that!"

With that, she gathered up her things.

Along with the bags of meat, fruit, and vegetables she'd packed up in advance.

She swaggered toward the door.

But on her way out she turned back and gave my daughter a strange, eerie smile.

"Mindy, oh Mindy, you just be a good girl and wait to be my daughter-in-law."

"This is your fate. You can't escape it!"

Mindy had been sitting frozen and silent, and now she burst into tears from fear.

I was furious and heartbroken all at once.

It took a good while of soothing before she calmed down a little.

That night, as we were going to bed, Mindy told me that Kirsten had been trying on my jewelry during the day.

And that she'd taken a necklace.

I hurried to check our home security cameras.

Sure enough, just as she'd said, Kirsten had made off with a necklace of mine worth over a hundred thousand.

That made me angrier still. I grabbed my phone to call her.

That was when a bullhorn started blaring from downstairs.

"Everybody come help me settle this!"

"That Ursula, Building Three, eighth floor, she's an ungrateful snake."

"My father saved her father's life back in the day, and she repays kindness with spite..."

It was Kirsten's voice.

I flew into a rage.

I told Mindy to stay put and went down.

Downstairs, I found Kirsten standing there yelling into a bullhorn.

A crowd had gathered around her.

The moment she spotted me, her eyes lit up and she jabbed a finger at me, shouting.

"Everybody look, this is the Ursula I was just telling you about."

"Her daughter's home for break with no one to watch her, and all this time I've been the one working my fingers to the bone helping out."

"And she turns on me just like that, throws me out, and won't even pay me!"

The neighbors turned to look at me one after another, their eyes mocking and amused.

"Isn't this Ursula some big boss? How could she do something so cold and thankless?"

"Rich and ruthless, that's how you get to be a big boss!"

"And to think her father's life was saved by that woman's father, and she can't even show a little gratitude..."

Kirsten watched me, smug and taunting.

"Well, Ursula? Everyone's on my side."

I frowned and looked her dead in the eye.

"You stole a necklace of mine worth over a hundred thousand. Should I call the police right now?"

Kirsten's face changed in an instant, panic all over it.