He framed me for his mistress’s miscarriage, but the moment she confessed six years later, he saw the horrific scars his silence caused.

Three days later, the diner door opened at noon, during the peak of the lunch rush.

It wasn't Daniel this time.

It was Natalie Reed.

She stood in the doorway of Maeve’s Diner wearing an emerald-green silk trench coat, oversized sunglasses, and four-inch Louboutin heels that clicked rhythmically on the linoleum. Two hulking private bodyguards flanked her, blocking the doorway and keeping the blue-collar patrons from leaving.

The diner fell dead quiet. Construction workers holding half-eaten BLTs stared at the vision of high-society glamour invading their greasy haven.

Natalie took off her sunglasses, her heavily mascaraed eyes sweeping the room until they landed on me behind the order counter. A slow, poisonous smile spread across her red lips.

"Well, well," Natalie said, her voice dripping with mock pity. "Look at you, Clara. The uniform suits you. It really brings out the prison pallor."

I set down the stack of clean mugs. My tremor flared up, my left hand violently twitching against the metal counter. I tucked it behind my back, refusing to let her see.

"What do you want, Natalie?"

Natalie walked forward, her bodyguards staying by the door. She stopped at the register, wrinkling her nose at the smell of bacon fat. She leaned in close, lowering her voice so only I could hear.

"Daniel didn't sleep a wink Tuesday night," she whispered, her eyes glittering with malice. "He came home smelling like cheap frying grease and rain. He sat in his study staring at an old photo of you from our college days."

My heart gave a sickening thud, but I kept my face blank.

"He thinks he owes you charity," Natalie sneered, her voice dropping to a vicious hiss. "He thinks you're just a pathetic, broken little bird. But I know you, Clara. You're a leech. You threw his money in the river because you knew it would bait him. You want him to feel sorry for you so he leaves me and comes running back to your pitiful little feet."

"I don't want anything from him," I said, meeting her gaze steadily. "And I certainly don't want him. You can keep him, Natalie. You two deserve each other."

Natalie’s smile evaporated. Her eyes flashed with pure rage. She had always hated that she couldn't break my composure. Even in court, when she sat in her wheelchair weeping for the cameras, I had sat upright, looking at her without blinking.

"You think you're better than me?" Natalie spat. "You're a convicted baby-killer, Clara! You're garbage!"

With a lightning-fast motion, Natalie grabbed the glass pot of boiling hot drip coffee off the warmer.

"Natalie, don't—"

She didn't pour it on me.

She turned the pot upside down over her own designer silk coat and her bare forearm, letting out a blood-curdling, ear-splitting scream.

"Aaaaargh! Daniel! Help me!"

The coffee scalded her arm, soaking her emerald coat. She threw the empty glass pot to the floor, where it shattered into a hundred jagged pieces. The bodyguards immediately drew their tasers, shouting.

Natalie collapsed to the floor among the broken glass, holding her reddened forearm, sobbing hysterically.

"She burned me!" Natalie wailed to the stunned patrons and her guards. "I came to offer her an envelope of cash to help her get an apartment, and she attacked me! She tried to blind me!"

From the street outside, a black Maybach screeched to a halt against the curb.