Michael Ashford is a widowed corporate attorney who has built his career justifying the impossible choices of the healthcare system. Margaret Hayes is an investigative journalist who has made hers exposing them.
When Margaret uncovers evidence that Michael's company uses a secret algorithm-codenamed Sentinel-to deny life-saving treatments, she plans to destroy him. Instead, she makes him an offer: help her expose the truth from the inside, and she'll give him a chance at redemption.
Their weapon? A fake relationship that provides the perfect cover for their dangerous alliance. As they playact their romance for the corporate world, the lines between performance and reality blur. The touch that begins as strategy becomes sustenance. The secrets they share in the dark become the only truths that matter.
But with every passing day, the stakes grow higher. The algorithm they're fighting has already cost lives-including someone Michael loved. And as they close in on the conspiracy at the heart of a billion-dollar corporation, they must decide: is the truth worth losing the fragile, real connection they've built in the shadow of all their lies?
A gripping, sophisticated novel that asks: Can love survive the exposure of truth? Can intimacy undo institutional harm? Second Chance Gambit is for readers who loved the corporate intrigue of The Firm, the journalistic investigation of Spotlight, and the complex adult relationships of The Marriage Portrait.