He was like a beam of light cutting into Renee’s dark world, leaving a mark she could never erase. Then she discovered something else—John’s girlfriend, Raelynn, had her eyes on Stephen as well. Determined to break away from John and draw closer to Stephen, Renee spun a web of lies. After graduation, with her manipulations pushing events along, John married Raelynn, and Renee slid into Stephen’s life. Her final push came with help from Jim. Jim was a medical student, handsome, and deeply in love with Renee from the day they met. He was her first boyfriend, devoted to her in every way—except he had no money. That alone made him unfit in her eyes. When Renee decided to secure Stephen, she went to Jim for an aphrodisiac. Blinded by love, Jim gave her whatever she asked for. Using it, she got what she wanted with Stephen—but he never once acknowledged her publicly. In the end, Stephen married the heiress of the Quinn family, an old-money match that boosted his career. Renee was left as his hidden mistress. Years passed. She bore Stephen two sons, and when she found herself pregnant again, his first instinct was to make her get rid of the baby. This time, she ran to John instead. John had never stopped loving her. His marriage to Raelynn had always been reluctant—Renee was his unattainable white moonlight. Seeing her in trouble, he took her in without a second thought. She was barely pregnant then, and she let John believe the child was his. He never questioned it. Later, when Zac was eight, Renee learned Jim was now a doctor. She sought him out again, asking him to falsify a paternity test Arthur had ordered. Once more, Jim gave in. Looking back, her life had been one long scramble—hiding in shadows, attaching herself to whoever could keep her afloat. She had schemed for decades, yet she’d never gotten what she wanted. When she took a blade to Arthur, it hadn’t truly been her idea. Stephen had come to her, spinning tales of Arthur’s cruelty and the humiliation of his missing lips. He promised she wouldn’t go to prison, that he would get her out, and that when the time came, he’d finally make their relationship public. Maybe it was desperation, maybe it was the last scrap of a foolish dream—but she believed him.Three years had passed since, three years of daily torment at the hands of merciless inmates. She’d tried to kill herself countless times, but every attempt ended with someone dragging her back. Her son Zac fared no better. He was kept on a barren island near Heaven Island, a place crawling with snakes, insects, and rats. Every day, someone came to torment him the way he once tormented Arthur—only worse. Isolation ate at him, and poison stings and bites tore at his body until there wasn’t a patch of unscarred skin left. Regret was his only companion, but no one was there to hear it. Two years later… Along the golden sands of Heaven Island’s shore, a striking couple ran barefoot through the warm surf. The man was tall, handsome, and impossibly refined. The woman beside him was breathtaking, as if she had stepped from the clouds into the mortal world. Together, they looked like celestial beings walking the earth, their presence impossible to ignore. She watched the sunset with smiling eyes; he watched her, the fading light gilding her face in gold, making her beauty almost unreal. Behind them, a chubby two-year-old toddled along, determined to keep up.