Chapter 2

Three days later, the Ginger family held a banquet to formally welcome me back into the family.

My mother sent over a dozen haute couture gowns. I chose the cheapest one.

Millie looked at the price tags and smiled gently. "Joey, you don't need to save money for the family. But it's only expected that you don't know how to choose which gown to wear, since you've never worn nice clothes before."

I did not respond as I took out a needle and thread and shortened the overly long hem by two inches.

At the orphanage, no one bought me new clothes when they tore. I learned to sew as I grew up.

Before the dinner started, Millie suddenly burst into tears in the dressing room. A long slit had been cut in her six-figure gown, and the scissors had been found in my handbag.

This time, my father did not fly into a rage immediately. "Check the security footage first."

However, the security camera at the dressing room entrance was broken.

Cole Griffin, Millie's childhood friend, stepped forward with a sneer. "What's there to investigate? The scissors were found in her bag. Are you suggesting they grew legs and walked into the bag on their own?"

Having grown up alongside Millie, he looked down on me—the real heiress who had only recently been reclaimed with the family.

"Some people reek of poverty, yet their ambitions are sky-high. Joey can't stand how much more refined Millie is than she is, so she resorts to petty schemes to fight another girl. How disgusting."

I asked him, "So you've decided it was me?"

"Who else could it be?" Cole pointed toward the banquet hall entrance. "Apologize to Millie, then go stand outside and be a server for an hour. Thieves don't deserve a seat at the table."

My father frowned, intending to intervene, but Millie held him back. "Cole is just upset on my behalf. If Joey is truly innocent, standing there for a while shouldn't be an issue."

I smiled slightly, picked up a serving tray, and walked to the entrance.

I had been standing there for only three minutes when a scream erupted from the banquet hall.

A silk scarf belonging to one of the female guests and an emerald brooch that had just been reported missing tumbled out of Cole's suit pocket.

Ten guests swarmed him immediately. "Why does Mr. Griffin have women's belongings?"

"He even stole a brooch, yet he's trying to act like a gentleman!"

Cole's face flushed a burning red. "It wasn't me! My jacket was out of my sight for a moment!"

No one listened. They shut down his objections just as he'd shut down mine.

I had been left standing at the door for three minutes, so he spent a full half-hour surrounded and berated by the crowd.

Suddenly, he lunged forward and snatched the tray from my hands. "Stop standing there! I take back what I said. Let's get to the bottom of this first!"

With his initial verdict rescinded, the crowd surrounding him began to calm down.

Cole personally checked the dashcam footage from every guest's car and finally found a clip filmed from an unusual angle.

A housekeeper from the Ginger family had slipped the scissors into my bag and took advantage of the ensuing chaos to tamper with Cole's bag.

When brought before us, the housekeeper wept and confessed to having been paid by a stranger, though she adamantly claimed she had no idea who the person was.

Millie's eyes reddened instantly. "Someone must be trying to sow discord between us sisters!"

The trail of evidence ended there.

I did not argue. Instead, I took her ruined dress and, with just a few stitches, transformed the tear into a tailored waist pleat. Now, the dress looked even more striking.

A well-known designer, Norma Wilkinson, was standing nearby and noticed my work. She immediately asked if I wanted to intern at her studio.

I nodded. "As long as it's paid by the hour."

My mother paused, taken aback. "Are you that short on money?"

"I used to make $3 for every pair of trousers I hemmed at a tailor shop. I had to finish 20 pairs just to afford a day's worth of food."

I snipped the remaining thread, my tone matter-of-fact. "But there's no shame in making a living with one's own craft."

The guests, who had been mocking my humble background just moments before, suddenly fell silent.

After a long silence, Cole bowed his head toward me. "I had a foul mouth earlier. I'm sorry."

I glanced at him. "That's understating it."

His face flushed an even deeper shade of red.

Standing on the edge of the crowd, Millie dug her fingernails into her palms.

She had intended for this dinner to be my public humiliation, but instead, I had gotten a good job, and someone who was beginning to suspect her.