At twenty-six, I was brought back by my birth parents to one of the country's top elite families.
On my very first day home, my mother told me,
"Zoe, I know the Sanchez engagement was originally yours, but young Mr. Sanchez has been deeply in love with your sister for a long time now. Don't fight Madge Hughes over this match. Mom will make it up to you, I promise."
My elder brother lifted his chin and added, contempt all over his face,
"The Sanchez family is a reclusive dynasty that's stood for a century. They value manners and breeding above all. You're coarse. Marry into a house like that and every clumsy move you make will only shame the Hughes name."
"Spend the next two years learning high society etiquette from Madge. You're a little old for it, but with the Hughes family and Madge and Benjamin Sanchez backing you, marrying into some second-tier house won't be a problem. Just don't reach for anything more."
My fiancé let out a sneer, dragging his eyes up and down over my plain clothes.
"My brother's wife speaks eight languages and models for fashion magazines. If I married some backwater country girl, then the Sanchez-Hughes union is off, and there will be no cooperation between our families ever again."
My father sat on the sofa, took a sip of his tea, and studied me with a hard, level gaze, as if checking whether I was really going to make an ugly scene about it.
I gave a small laugh.
I'd only come back to acknowledge my family and then leave, yet they were acting like they faced some great threat, coaxing and threatening me all at once.
Never mind. I'd seen the house. I'd acknowledged my parents.
I wouldn't get tangled up in any of this.
The smile went out of my eyes, and I spoke calmly.
"Mom, Dad, don't worry. I won't fight my sister over the marriage."
"Tomorrow I'll go back to Dragon Bay, and I won't return."
——
The living room fell silent at once, nothing left but the sound of tight, held breath.
Madge was the first to cry. She actually dropped to her knees in front of me with a thud.
"Sis, it's all my fault. I never should have taken your place, or let Benjamin fall in love with me."
"Mom, Dad, I won't put you in a hard spot. I'll leave the Hughes family right now and give Benjamin back to her."
My parents rushed to pull her up, aching for her, and Benjamin yanked her into his arms, the tenderness in his eyes practically spilling over.
"Madge, I won't let you go."
"I swore an oath. In this life I love only you, I'll marry no one but you. Everyone else isn't worth a single strand of your hair to me."
Then he glared at me, fury in his eyes.
"Zoe Carrington, you're a backwater country girl. Do you honestly think you're good enough for me?"
"I'll tell you the truth. If it weren't for Madge, the childhood betrothal between the Sanchez and Hughes families would have been scrapped long ago."
"You can keep dreaming about marrying up, but it won't get you anywhere. Even if I don't marry Madge, I'd never marry a stupid woman like you. Give it up."
My mother thought I was using my departure as a threat, and her face filled with disappointment too.
"Zoe, it wasn't Madge's fault that you were taken all those years ago. Your father and I have carried that guilt for over twenty years. But you can't use it to back us into a corner."
"The Sanchez family truly is a top-tier house, but the one Benjamin loves is Madge. You're my daughter. Surely you wouldn't force a man to marry you."
"Don't worry, Mom isn't favoring your sister. I just want to find someone who's right for you."
As a mother, her reasoning wasn't wrong.
I didn't know their etiquette, my clothes were dowdy. I really didn't fit with a family as high as the Sanchezes.
They'd found their birth daughter and mended an old regret. Guaranteeing I'd never want for food or clothing was already going as far as decency required.
If I fought for more, I'd be the one who didn't know her place.
But what she didn't know was that I wasn't using family ties to pressure them. I truly meant to go back.
Because she had no idea I was a hidden billionaire heiress, that at eighteen I'd taken over my godmother's entire empire, with assets spread across the globe, spanning the Starlight Institute, investment, tech research and development...
