The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives

Chapter One

Georgia

Present Day

The day after the accident

St. Mary s Medical Center

Pain is the first thing I remember. One moment I m sleeping the soundest sleep anyone has ever slept. In the next, pain bites at the tips of my toes. Sharp, piercing sensations crawl up my body, slinking over my skin, torturing every nerve ending until I m paralyzed. I try to suck in a jagged breath, but lead sheets crush my chest. I m flattened against a firm mattress. I m cold. So unbelievably cold.

Panic lashes through my veins.

I can t open my eyes or my lips. I can t speak or move. My strength is gone, completely sapped from my muscles.

Beep.

Knives pierce my eardrums as the sound goes off again. Swallowing is an effort. A jagged-­edged rock has taken up residence in the back of my throat. I m so thirsty. My lips are unbelievably chapped.

Beep.

Without warning, the nightmare floods back in violent, vivid color. Flashing lights and blood and screams create a chaotic painting against the backs of my eyelids. Agony follows, and grief too.

The accident.

Something terrible happened. I ­I didn t stop it. I could have ­God, I should have ­but I didn t. What have I done?

It strikes again ­that cold, wretched feeling that sours my gut. Guilt. I could ve done something, opened my mouth and changed the sequence of events that catapulted me into this dark place. I could ve changed everything. I held the future in the palm of my hand. But I didn t act, didn t try hard enough.

This is my fault.

Beep.

The annoying bleat morphs from something intrusive and foreign into something familiar. A machine I ve heard before, when my first husband, Eli, slipped and tumbled down our spiral staircase. He landed on the bottom, arms and legs broken in awkward angles like a demented starfish. His head had hit the tile hard and oozed blood from the crack in his skull all over our Grecian tile. An ambulance rushed him to St. Mary s

Kristin Miller is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels. After writing dark and gritty versions of happily ever after for more than a decade, she turned her hand to psychological suspense, a genre she's loved since childhood. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two children.