Chapter 1

I fell into a book and woke up as the mother of a trophy-wife novel's heroine.

From that day on, the gears of the heroine's destiny started slipping off their chain.

I made sure she ate; she smashed the bowl and called me a hired maid.

I got my nails done; she said the sky was falling, that I was throwing away her father's money.

I caught her sneaking around with a boy; she said I couldn't appreciate the light that shone off a man.

So I stopped. I gave up.

She wasn't my flesh and blood anyway.

I was eighteen in my last life. Playing mom to this girl, how could I not be sick of it?

So the heroine, who was supposed to have brilliant grades, failed to get into college and missed her shot at the campus romance with the male lead.

But the gears of fate started turning again.

After the leads finally met, the male lead volunteered to marry into our family and take our name, and agreed that the first child would carry the mother's surname.

My husband was thrilled. He handed over a house, handed over money, threw a grand banquet.

Then the baby was born, and the heroine changed her mind again. "Mom, Dad, it's just a surname. Why are you so hung up on it?"

"The thing is, my mother-in-law says it's humiliating."

"Unless the two of you are willing to hand over fifty million!"

I didn't agree. She turned on me right there. "Fine. You two can sit there hugging your stinking money and grow old all alone!"

After she left, I nudged my husband.

"What are you sitting there dazed for? Hurry up and take your stinking money back."

"Wouldn't want the smell to bother her."

...

Reginald Clifford heard me. The hand pinching his own upper lip went still.

Then he picked up his phone and called his assistant. "Cancel Pansy Clifford's company dividends."

"And unlink her supplementary card from the bank account."

I glanced at him. "You're not taking back the house?"

Reginald was quiet for a long moment. "Let's hold off on that. Gunnar's only just been born. I don't want the child to suffer for it."

Gunnar is our grandson's nickname, and this banquet was the one-month celebration party we were throwing for him.

Pansy had left, and Reginald said the celebration would go on, just as a family dinner.

But the expressions on our relatives and friends turned delicate.

"I always said that Pansy girl couldn't be counted on. You can see the whole life at three years old. Even as a child she was never much of a daughter to you, and now..."

"If we'd known our daughter would turn out like this, you two really should have had another."

"If only Norman hadn't..."

Someone pinched the speaker, and the air went silent in an instant.

Reginald's face was awful to look at.

Half an hour later, Pansy, who'd sworn only moments ago that she was cutting all ties with us, came storming back.

"Mom, Dad, what is this supposed to mean?"

"You cut off my cards to force me to back down, is that it?"

"We can live just fine on our own. I couldn't care less!"

Reginald was so furious his face went white, his lips trembling with words that wouldn't come.

I set down my chopsticks. "If you couldn't care less, what did you come back to argue about?"

Pansy choked on that. She barreled straight past it and changed the subject.

"I just don't get it. I'm your only daughter. Isn't everything you own going to be mine someday anyway?"

"So what's the point of all this?"

"Even if Gunnar doesn't carry the Clifford name, half his blood is still Clifford. Is one surname really that important?"

I smiled. "If it isn't important, then why won't you let him carry it?"

Pansy clenched both fists and shot back like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Since the beginning of time, children take the father's name. Only you two have to be different!"

"Have you thought about how Gunnar will feel? When he grows up, people will look down on his father, and he'll suffer right along with him!"

I'd had enough. I sat up straight, ready to settle this with her properly.

"You're right. Fair or not, since the beginning of time most children take the father's name."

"But was marrying into our family our idea? Was the child taking the mother's name something we proposed?"

"Wasn't it your husband, Harold Manning, who brought it up himself, because he didn't want to pay a bride price and didn't want to provide a house?"

"We gave the house, we paid the gifts, the money was all there, and now the two of you have changed your minds."

"And suddenly it's about a man's dignity again. He's got dignity, does he? His knees bent easily enough when he was taking the money."

"I won't let you talk about my husband like that!"

Pansy's eyes went red as she jabbed a finger at me and shouted.

"Harold's family is poor, he's got three older brothers above him, he's had it hard enough as it is!"

"Choosing to marry into our family was a sacrifice for the Manning family. It's devotion. It's noble!"

"Mom, you're always like this. You will never see what shines in a man!"

I was losing the will to deal with her. Talking to someone as stupid as Pansy just wore me out.

But she took it as though she'd won me over with her logic, and got more righteous by the second.

"You two are just stuck in your ways. It's only a surname. What, does the Clifford family have a throne to pass down?"

I gave it right back to her. "The Cliffords don't, but the Mannings do?"

Seeing that Pansy couldn't budge me, Harold, who'd been standing behind her the whole time, stepped forward.

"Mom, we should be reasonable about all this."

The words had barely left his mouth when I hurled the teacup straight at his head.