Growing up poor in Texas, Vera Lomax used every gold-digging trick in the book to land a rich husband. Now living in the lap of luxury in San Francisco, her only job is to fawn over her much-older husband, so it's been easy for her to balance a life of shopping and affairs with younger men with a major secret: the 16-year bribery of one of her husband's mistresses to keep her pregnancy under wraps. Vera figures that a little hush money every month will ensure her husband's fortune is hers alone.... Unfortunately for Vera, Sarah Cooper is the child Kenneth Lomax always wanted. When the father she never knew shows up at her mother's funeral to claim her, it's a fairy tale journey from the ghetto to a mansion on a hill. But Sarah's life is not as carefree as her father wants it to be...because Sarah knows from the start that her step-mother is as two-faced as they come. And after losing all the family she's ever known, she wants a life that's richer than what Vera's got planned for her.

Neither woman can be sure who will win Kenneth's heart and fortune. But as Vera and Sarah scheme to get what they want, everyone they know will be choosing sides, taking chances, and gambling it all to come out on top....