After Returning Home, an Impostor Appeared in My Family

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Fresh back from studying abroad, I started work at the finance firm my brother ran.

On my very first day, a disagreement over how to sell one of our financial products put me on the wrong side of a fellow intern named Joy Sutton. A coworker who'd taken a liking to me looked at me with something close to despair.

"Of all the people to cross, you had to pick her? That's the Farley heiress. She's got the whole Farley family behind her, and the CEO is her own brother. Good luck to you."

The Farley heiress?

The CEO is her brother?

After that little speech, I smiled.

So someone was out here playing the real-princess, fake-princess game with me.

Swinging a sword right in front of the real deal. She wasn't even worried about throwing her back out.

...

I genuinely hadn't expected it. While I was off getting my degree abroad, someone had stolen my identity clean out from under me.

I pushed down the urge to march into my brother's office and pour it all out, calmed my coworker, took the files my supervisor had handed me, and went back to my desk.

Ever since I'd offended Joy that morning, every senior coworker had started drifting away from me, deliberately or not, terrified of getting on her bad side.

My direct supervisor started leaning on me too, piling on an absurd amount of work.

Luckily, all of it was well within what I could handle.

"Some people really don't take a good look at who they are before they go offending our Miss Joy. Just wait for it to catch up with her."

"Right? And honestly, Joy's being generous. If it were me, she'd have started Monday and been out the door by Wednesday."

"Oh, stop it, you two. We're all interns here. We should look out for each other. Don't drag my status into it."

Listening to Joy's little fan club run their mouths behind my back, I smiled.

I picked up the proposal that had just been greenlit and tossed it onto the heiress's desk. "Sorry," I said lightly, "but my proposal got approved, which is why my supervisor loaded me up with the same amount of work. Not like you, still fuzzy on who you actually are, coasting on whatever flattery the people around you feed you. Isn't that right, Miss Farley?"

I finished, and I caught the flicker of panic across Joy's face before she smoothed it over.

"Well. Congratulations to you, then, Bailey Abbott."

Her handful of loyal fans, cheeks red with anger, looked ready to fire something back, but Joy's phone started ringing and they all fell silent at once.

A little after four that afternoon, the company called a meeting. Once the clients were seated, the proposals up on the screen came out of the USB drive a scrambled mess, and a few of the files were completely blank.

The executive demanded to know, loudly, who had been responsible for this.

Before I could get a word out, Joy jumped in.

"Honestly, this is on me. Ever since Bailey joined, our team's been running smoothly, and I think this one was left to her too. Sir, I really think Bailey's just been under too much pressure lately. A few slip-ups are only natural. As team lead, I can't dodge my share of the blame."

"Nonsense, Joy. This isn't your fault. I know what you're capable of. You just can't afford to coddle certain people. I heard Bailey used to be one of your family's charity scholarship students, isn't that right? As the one in charge, you need to hold a little more authority over her."

"You're absolutely right, Mr. Larkin."