Chapter 1

In my last life, when my parents divorced, my mother took my sister back to her wealthy family.

I was the one left behind with my gambling-addict father.

But only days after my sister went with them, they tormented her until her mind broke, then threw her out. She died wretchedly on the street.

In the end my mother wasted away and died too.

I forced myself through years of study and made it into college, yet in the end I never escaped my drunkard father's clutches.

Living it all over again, I threw my arms around my mother's legs.

"Mom, take me with you. I'll listen better than sister, I'll be good."

My sister was crying too, pushing me forward toward our mother.

"Mom, my sister's still little. If she stays here with no one to protect her, Dad will beat her for sure. Take her with you."

Dad had a liquor bottle in one hand, and with the other he grabbed my sister by the collar.

"Fine. Olympia Pruitt's clever enough. Maybe she'll fetch a good price someday."

My mother's face was full of worry and heartache. She looked at me, then at my sister, and in the end she gave a helpless nod.

Last time, my mother was back among the wealthy Gilberts for only a few days before they swept her out the door.

This time, I would never let that tragedy repeat.

……

"Please get in, miss."

A deep, solid voice.

A driver in a suit stood before me, holding the car door open.

"Carla Pruitt, let's go."

My mother took my hand and got in.

There was already someone in the front passenger seat. The driver introduced him. "This is Young Master Jayden, the eldest son's boy. Chairman Gilbert sent him personally to bring the miss and the young miss home."

My mother kept her head down, her hands twisting the fabric over her knees, and answered with a flustered little sound.

"Oh."

I studied the man in the passenger seat.

Cool, refined, expensively dressed. He had supposedly come to fetch us, yet he had stayed in the car from start to finish.

He hadn't gotten out even when Mom and I came out.

He hadn't so much as spared us a glance.

Deep down, he probably just looked down on my mother and me.

Not that I could blame him.

She was the true heiress, the one accidentally swapped at birth.

All these years my mother had lived in hardship, and once she came of age she was so desperate to get away from the family that raised her that she misjudged a man and married my gambling father.

For all these years, wearing herself down to care for the household, there was nothing left in her of a wealthy man's daughter.

No wonder the Gilberts didn't think much of her.

Old Dominic Gilbert had four children in all.

Three sons and one daughter.

The one living in the Gilbert house now had to be the fake heiress who had taken my mother's place.

Layla Gilbert.

As the youngest daughter, she had been doted on since childhood.

Her three older brothers spoiled her without limit.

And the man in front of me had to be the eldest son of my mother's oldest brother, Horace Gilbert. His name was Jayden Gilbert.

Sharp beyond his years from childhood, with a startling gift for business.

Groomed as the Gilbert family's chosen heir.

The second brother, so the story went, had been obsessed with art since boyhood and had no interest in running the company.

Nearly forty and still unmarried.

Which kept Dominic Gilbert running in circles with worry.

The third was a professor at a prestigious university, devoted to research.

That was all I had ever managed to learn about the Gilberts in my last life.

"We're here."

The voice cut off my thoughts.

I pushed the door open and got out.

I had just stepped inside when a soothing voice reached me.

"Layla, don't you worry. Even now that she's back, you're still our sweet little sister."

"That's right. She's been drifting around out there all these years. We've never even laid eyes on her. What kind of sister is that? If the old man hadn't ordered her brought back, we wouldn't have bothered claiming her at all!"

The speakers were my mother's oldest brother, Horace Gilbert, and her third brother, Samuel Gilbert.

And the one sitting on the sofa with her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

That was the fake heiress who had occupied my mother's place for more than thirty years.

"Horace, Samuel, please don't talk like that. My sister has been wandering out there for so many years. She must have suffered so much."

"Now that she's home, I'm the one who should go."

It wasn't until the butler stepped forward that they stopped. "Mr. Horace, Mr. Samuel, the fourth miss is back."

Only then did the three of them fall sullenly quiet.

"Sister."

The fake heiress rushed over and threw her arms around my mother.

"Sister, you're finally home. All these years, Father and our brothers have missed you so much."

Then she suddenly started coughing.

She covered her mouth and looked my mother over, distaste all over her face. "Sister, what on earth are you wearing?"

"Looking like that, you could say she just crawled out of a homeless shelter and no one would argue."

"Anyone who didn't know would think the Gilberts had taken in a beggar."

A couple of mutters came from behind me.

Horace's second son, Bruce Gilbert, and Layla's daughter, Wendy Fox.

"Bruce, Wendy, what nonsense are you talking!"

"This is your aunt and your cousin. Watch your mouths!"

Layla snapped at them, but there was no real weight to it.

Then her gaze swept over Mom and me again, the smugness and condescension in her eyes impossible to hide.

"This must be my sister's child. How old are you? You should be the same age as Wendy this year. Aren't you sweet."

She reached out to take my hand.

I stepped aside.

Her hand hung there in the air.

Awkward.

I drew my mother past her, over to her oldest brother, the man who really ran things.

"Uncle, Mom and I have had a long trip and we're a little tired. Could we go upstairs to rest first?"

Horace looked mildly surprised, then quickly composed himself.

He told a servant to take us up.

"Tch. Putting on airs. She's nothing but a country bumpkin."

"Right? I don't have an aunt or a cousin like that. Aunt Layla is my only aunt."

Behind us, the grating scorn went on.

Feeling my mother start to tremble, I gripped her hand tight.