Her adoptive parents heard enough and turned to Joy.
“The Stephens family and ours are already on bad terms over the marriage alliance.”
“They're finally extending an olive branch……Joy, just let it go.”
Joy stopped mid-dial, seething.
“That little tramp is not marrying Dana Stephens! She doesn't deserve it!”
Ice spread through my chest. She couldn't stand to see anything good happen to me.
My adoptive parents didn't even lower their voices. They soothed Joy right in front of me.
“She won't. Didn't we agree to marry her off to Earl?”
“Don't worry. It's already in motion.”
Earl's name hit me like a knife to the throat. My voice came out cold.
“What gives you the right to decide who I marry?”
They looked at me as though the answer were obvious.
“We're your parents. You've freeloaded off this family for ten years!”
Joy beamed, watching me choke on it.
“The Matthews family is old money! A maid's bastard like you—marrying Earl would be the luck of three lifetimes!”
When I still refused to bend, my adoptive parents dropped their voices to something colder.
“Rachel. Your mother has been bedridden for ten years. Millions spent. She's bled the Allen family dry.”
“If you won't marry, we can't keep funding her treatment.”
I swallowed every word I wanted to throw back. No point fighting people like this when they hold all the cards.
The day of the banquet, Joy arrived with Logan on her arm.
Not a single heiress in the room spared Logan a second glance. Every pair of eyes drifted, soft and longing, toward Dana.
“A man like CEO Stephens—how is he still single?”
“Don't even start. Miss Allen turned him down for that scrawny little race-car driver. Truly stupid.”
“What was she thinking? CEO Stephens is young, accomplished, and outclasses the racer in every way!”
“Plus the racer looks so pretty it's almost feminine. Honestly, he looks gay……”
Joy was livid, but she couldn't make a scene in front of the whole room.
Logan, unbothered, fell straight into old habits, trading flirtatious looks with a pretty server.
Joy became more convinced than ever that I was behind all of it. She dug a bottle of milk out of her bag and held it out to me.
“Your stomach's always been weak, and you've had so much to drink tonight.”
“Have some milk—it'll help your stomach.”
The second I saw the label on that bottle, I was on my feet before I could think.
In my last life, she'd used the exact same excuse, made me drink it right there in front of everyone. Minutes later the room was spinning, heat crawling under my skin, and someone steered me to a private lounge where Earl was already inside. Joy had rounded up a crowd of elite sons and daughters to watch.
After that day I was ruined. The Matthews family despised me for it, looked the other way every time Earl beat me after the wedding, and muttered behind my back that I'd brought it on myself.
I hadn't expected Joy to move even faster this time around.
She already regretted marrying Logan, it seemed.
I pushed the milk away with a light smile.
“I'm fine, thanks.”
Joy's expression went flat. Then she tipped the bottle and splashed the milk straight onto me.
“Oh no, Rachel, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to!”
The liquid had a strange, cloying sweetness to it, soaking through my clothes and into my skin.
Dizziness hit me almost instantly. Every alarm in my head went off at once.
She stood and caught my arm as if steadying me, her lips brushing my ear.
“You think not drinking it would save you? This is the Allen family's newest little knockout drug—absorbs right through the skin, and it hits hard.”
Just like my last life, she steered me toward the private lounge.
Joy returned to the banquet hall looking like she'd won the lottery.
Half an hour later, she let out a carefully rehearsed scream.
“What's wrong, Miss Allen?”
“My……my sister is in the private lounge with young Mr. Matthews……doing that!”
The words landed like a thunderclap in the middle of a quiet room.
People immediately moved toward the lounge. Joy made a show of blocking the way, but her flailing only herded more of them forward.
The whole walk there, she painted me as some kind of deviant.
Even as the lounge door swung open, she was still going.
“I failed her. I should have kept a closer eye on my sister.”
The crowd chimed in：“What do you expect? A housekeeper's brat was never fit for polite company.”
The door opened, and what was inside stopped everyone cold.
Joy's jaw nearly hit the floor. She stammered：
“How……how is it you two?!”
