Chapter 1

Dr. Vivienne Ashcroft, fresh off her Harvard residency, made a bet with a colleague that she could perform a coronary bypass one-handed.

The surgery failed. Mortified, she dropped her scalpel mid-procedure and walked out of the OR.

Seraphina Hale's mother was the patient. The mistake left her in a coma — a vegetative state.

Seraphina's brother, Julian, was an attorney. He filed suit against Vivienne. Within forty-eight hours, his bar license had been pulled and he'd been sentenced to three years for perjury, bribery, and defamation. All rushed through.

Seraphina went public with a formal complaint. Her private information was leaked in retaliation, and the internet swarmed her.

The man behind it all was her husband of seven years, the untouchable East Coast power broker everyone in Manhattan answered to — Damien Thorne.