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PROLOGUE

LEXI TEMPLETON'S HANDS TREMBLED AS SHE READ THE letter Sitting on the bed in her wedding dress, in what had once been her great-grandan to race

Think You don't have much time

What would Kate Blackwell have done?

At forty-one, Lexi Templeton was still a beautiful woray and her slinancy She'd been deter She wanted to do justice to her vintage Monique Lhullier gown, a clinging column of the finest ivory-white lace And she had

Earlier, the hundred or so wedding guests gathered at Cedar Hill House, the Blackwell faasped when Lexi Templeton appeared on the lawn arm in arm with her father Talk about Beauty and the Beast Peter Templeton, Lexi's father, once an eible bachelors, was now an old rief, Peter Tehter toward the rose-covered altar

He thought: I can go now I can go to join irl is happy at last

He was right Lexi Templeton was happy She knew she looked radiant She wasthe man she loved, surrounded by fa That person would never witness another of Lexi's triuht in another of her failures His life and Lexi's had been intertwined since birth, like the tangled roots of a great tree But noas gone, never to return Despite everything that had happened, Lexi missed him

Can you see ? Are you sorry now?

For aof loss Then she laid eyes on her husband-to-be, and all her regrets evaporated Today was going to be perfect The cliche The fairy tale The happiest day of her life

The president of the United States was unable toThere was a sratulatory telegram, which Lexi's brother, Robbie, read aloud when the needs cut the cake And everybody else was there Captains of industry, prihty Kruger-Brent, Ltd, Lexi Templeton was American royalty She looked like a queen because she was one She had it all: great beauty, immense wealth and power that stretched to the four corners of the globe Now, thanks to her new husband, she had love, too

But she also had enemies Powerful enemies One of as deterrave

Lexi read the letter again

I knohat you've done I know everything

The net was closing in Lexi felt the fear churn in her stomach like curdled milk