The day my billionaire parents brought me home, my new sister asked me to sleep on the floor because she hadn’t finished cleaning out a bedroom. I told her I’d slept beside pigs for three winters, and at least the pigs had never pretended to be sorry. My mother dropped her coffee cup, and my father stared at me as though he’d just discovered something terrible.
Chapter 2
Ashley never admitted jumping, but the security camera showed her climbing over the railing while I stood several feet away. Robert ordered her to stay in her room for the evening, and Eleanor finally told Leo to stop accusing me without proof. Ashley slammed her door hard enough to rattle the pictures in the hallway.
I wasn’t celebrating. I’d learned long ago that people who hated losing usually returned with a bigger stick.
Three days later, her boyfriend arrived.
Chase Vance was twenty, handsome in the polished way expensive grooming can make a man handsome, and heir to another enormous family fortune. Our parents had discussed a future marriage between him and Ashley since childhood. He regarded me the way someone might regard mud on a new pair of shoes.
Ashley appeared at my bedroom door that afternoon.
“I want us to start fresh,” she said. “I left a gift for you in my room.”
“Then bring it here. I’m not climbing stairs for another apology wrapped in tissue paper.”
She grabbed my wrist.
“Please, Chloe. Just come.”
Against my better judgment, I followed her.
The moment I entered her bedroom, Chase stepped from behind the door and turned the lock. Ashley slipped outside before I could react.
Chase smiled.
“Here’s how this works. Ashley’s going to tell everyone she caught us together. You’ll keep quiet, and maybe your father won’t throw you back where you came from.”
I looked at the locked door.
“That’s the dumbest plan I’ve heard since Earl tried fixing a tractor with duct tape.”
His smile disappeared.
“Listen, you little hillbilly. Nobody will believe your word against mine.”
He grabbed my arm and shoved me against the dresser. When I tried pulling away, he caught my sweater and threatened to make the scene convincing.
For a heartbeat, I was eleven again, cornered in Earl’s workshop with nowhere to run.
Then something inside me went cold.
Chase had never done a day’s physical labor. I had spent years lifting hay bales, wrestling frightened livestock, and escaping a man twice my size. When he reached for me again, I twisted free, caught his arm, and knocked him off balance.
He struck the carpet with a startled grunt.
By the time Robert broke down the door twenty minutes later, Chase was on the floor with his wrists secured by a silk scarf and his ankles tangled in a bedsheet. A towel lay beside him. I was sitting in Ashley’s desk chair, eating an apple from the fruit bowl.
Behind my father crowded Eleanor, Ashley, Leo, and several women who’d been visiting for afternoon tea.
Mrs. Vance screamed when she saw her son.
“What have you done to my boy?”
“Your boy tried cornering the wrong girl,” I said. “He ought to be grateful we’re not back on the farm. Earl’s hogs had better manners.”
Robert stared at Chase.
“Explain yourself.”
Ashley burst into theatrical tears.
“She attacked him because she wants him for herself!”
I laughed.
“Honey, if I wanted somebody else’s boyfriend, I’d pick one with enough sense not to lock himself in a room with a woman who knows how to rope a steer.”
Mrs. Vance demanded that Robert call the police.
“Gladly,” I said. “Then Chase can explain why he locked the door and grabbed me.”
Chase’s face turned gray.
Robert crouched beside him.
“Son, tell me exactly what happened.”
Chase looked toward Ashley. She shook her head almost imperceptibly.
“I didn’t mean for anything to happen,” he whispered. “Ashley said Chloe would leave if everyone thought she’d tried stealing me.”
The room fell silent.
“She told me to make it look convincing,” Chase continued miserably. “I thought Chloe would just get scared.”
Ashley staggered backward.
“Chase! How could you say that?”
I stood.
“Because the truth’s easier to remember than your nonsense.”
Robert called the family attorney, secured the hallway surveillance recordings, and informed Mrs. Vance that the matter would be handled properly. Her threats about business partnerships no longer interested him.
Ashley spent the following days avoiding me.
For once, I enjoyed the quiet.
That Thursday, Eleanor knocked on my bedroom door. She found me sitting on the floor, cleaning the old pocketknife I’d carried from Kentucky.
“We’re holding a welcome reception Saturday,” she said. “We want everyone to know you’re our daughter.”
“Funny. Thought I needed proof before I was allowed to use the family towels.”
She winced.
“You have every reason to be angry.”
“Didn’t ask for permission.”
Eleanor sat beside me anyway. After a long silence, she reached for my hand, then hesitated when she saw the scars.
“I wish I’d known,” she whispered.
I wanted to say something cruel. Instead, I looked away.
“Knowing wouldn’t have helped unless somebody came looking.”
She began to cry, and for once I couldn’t find a comeback.
The next morning, my older sister arrived from London.
Victoria Harrington was twenty-four, immaculate, and apparently convinced the world existed to disappoint her. She took one look at my jeans and work boots and frowned.
“You’re representing this family tomorrow. You cannot attend dressed like a farmhand.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
She ignored me and summoned two stylists carrying garment bags.
“I’ve selected something appropriate. You’ll wear it, behave yourself, and refrain from embarrassing us.”
I examined the tight velvet gown.
“Looks like a funeral curtain somebody turned into a torture device.”
Victoria’s expression hardened.
“Ashley warned me about your manners.”
“And nobody warned me you charge admission to your personality.”
She stepped closer.
“You may share our blood, Chloe, but breeding requires more than biology.”
My hands curled into fists.
“Funny thing about breeding. Earl used that word when he talked about horses. Usually right before he decided which ones were worth feeding.”
Victoria looked ready to explode.
I pulled back my sleeve, showing the uneven scars along my forearm.
“You think I’m embarrassing because I don’t know which fork goes with salad. I think it’s embarrassing that your sister came home with scars nobody bothered asking about until she started talking back.”
Victoria stared at my arm.
For several moments, the only sound was the ticking grandfather clock.
Then she quietly instructed the stylists to leave.
“I’ll find something more comfortable,” she said.
I hadn’t expected that.
And I certainly hadn’t expected what happened that afternoon, when an unfamiliar number called my phone.
A woman introduced herself as a retired maternity nurse named Helen Porter.
“Chloe,” she said, her voice shaking, “I worked at the hospital where you were born. Your disappearance was not an accident.”
