"Eight years ago, you chose the real heiress for fifty million."
"Now that you see I can earn a hundred times that, you come crawling back to me—the fake?"
Daniel's face drained of color.
After a long silence, he finally spoke.
"I know you don't want to go back to the old house, so I brought you these."
He held out a set of keys.
"It's my private property. No one will bother you there."
"I'm just worried about you!"
"Uncle Harold, Aunt Margaret, Stella—they all are. Why do you keep pushing everyone away?"
Those sanctimonious words almost made me laugh.
"Okay. Thanks for the concern."
I wasn't in the mood to play along. Instead, I went back to the place I'd lived eight years ago.
An old, run-down rental apartment with yellowed walls and cracked floors. If I told anyone the Swanson heiress had lived here, no one would believe it.
The room was exactly as I'd left it.
I saw myself in a photo frame, holding up a trophy, beaming.
That year, I was ten.
Harold, Margaret, and Daniel had showered me with praise—even though I'd only won a consolation prize.
Even though that consolation prize only existed because the Swansons had donated ten buildings.
I always thought I was the happiest girl in the world.
Parents who adored me. A childhood sweetheart I'd been engaged to since birth.
I was born into a life of blessings.
Until the year I turned sixteen, and Stella appeared.
She barged into my birthday banquet clutching a paternity test, shouting:
"Mom, Dad—I'm your daughter!"
Harold and Margaret held Stella and sobbed.
And I, in my princess dress and tiara, stared blankly at the eighteen-tier birthday cake, thinking about the wish I'd made just moments before.
"I hope I'll always be as happy as I am today."
I can't really remember what happened after that.
Only that once Stella came home, she kept saying she didn't feel safe.
So I gave up the room I'd lived in for sixteen years.
The "Mom" and "Dad" I'd called for sixteen years became "Chairman Swanson" and "Mrs. Swanson."
Then Stella framed me for pushing her down the stairs.
In my mother's resentful tears, I was kicked out of the old house.
I moved into this cheap rental.
Even on that consolation prize trophy from when I was ten, the name "Alex Swanson" was scraped off and replaced with "Stella Swanson."
The sixteen years of happiness I'd stolen were returned to their rightful owner that day.
The stale, moldy smell in the apartment made me—pampered since childhood—come down with a high fever.
Penniless, I endured the whole night, trying every free method to bring it down.
In the final second before I lost consciousness, I dialed Daniel's number.
"Alex, how did you get this sick? Do Uncle Harold and Aunt Margaret know?"
"A daughter they raised for sixteen years—even if she isn't biological, there have to be feelings, right?"
"How could they force you to this!"
He shouted in my ear, swearing he'd confront the Swansons for me.
He said no matter who I was, he would always stay by my side.
Until the James family's cash flow collapsed.
Harold was decisive.
"Marry my daughter Stella, and I'll invest fifty million."
"Besides, the one engaged to the James family was always the Swanson heiress—not a fake."
Daniel refused. Swore he would never betray me.
Until he spent a month following Richard James around, begging for investments, and came back with nothing.
Until Richard James knelt before his own son, pleading with him to save the family's legacy.
Daniel nodded.
That's when I finally understood.
Daniel was also happiness I had stolen.
