Chapter 1

I looked up at Isabella, wearing the smuggest grin I had ever seen.

I pulled out a tissue and took my time wiping the coffee off my hand.

The smile on Isabella's face froze.

She clearly hadn't expected that.

In her head, I was supposed to be on the floor sobbing, or launching myself at her like some kind of feral animal. But that kind of move was amateur hour for anyone who'd grown up in Manhattan's elite circles.

"Did you hear me?" Isabella's voice shot up three notches. "I said get on your knees and clean it up!"

I dropped the used tissue into the trash and finally looked up at her.

"You've been back from the sticks for all of five minutes and you're already throwing tantrums? Twenty years of the Connolly name in this city, and this is what crawled out of it? You're an embarrassment."

Isabella's face went crimson.

"Who are you calling a hick?! You're the one who—"

She didn't finish.

Rapid heels clicked in the hallway outside, and Isabella's eyes went red, tears spilling down her face on cue.

Margaret, my adoptive mother, pushed the door open.

"Mom!" Isabella flung herself into Margaret's arms, crying so hard she could barely breathe. "I just came to see her, to talk, and she said I was some country girl who didn't belong here. She told me to go back where I came from. Mom, maybe she's right. Maybe I shouldn't have come back. I'll just go home. I don't want to cause trouble for anyone."

I watched the performance. My stomach turned.

Margaret wrapped both arms around Isabella, eyes already going red, then turned to look at me.

"Ivy! Are you even human?!"

She jabbed a finger at my face, practically close enough to touch. "You ate our food, wore our clothes, slept under our roof. We raised you like our own daughter for twenty years, and this is how you repay us?"

"Mom—"

"Don't you dare call me that." Margaret cut me off, sharp as a blade. "You have no right. Isabella is my flesh and blood. She spent twenty years suffering out there, and the moment she comes home, you do this to her?"

I opened my mouth to explain, but Margaret didn't give me a second.

"I gave you twenty years and you've been ungrateful every single day." Her voice was loud enough to carry through the whole floor. "Without me, you would've died on the street. Now get up and bow to Isabella. Ninety degrees. Now."

I didn't move. A chill crawled up from my feet to the top of my skull.

Isabella peeked at me from Margaret's arms, mouth curving just barely, then smoothed her expression away.

"Mom, it's okay. She didn't mean it." She tugged Margaret's sleeve with a sweet, helpless look. "As long as we're all getting along, I can handle a little hurt. I don't mind."

Then her eyes drifted to my desk.

Sitting on top of it was the Connolly Group's black titanium unlimited card, the only one in the world, with no spending cap. Dad had pressed it into my hands just last night.

Greed flashed in Isabella's eyes for just a fraction of a second. Then it was gone, replaced by the most pitiful expression she could manage.

"Ivy, I'm not asking you to apologize anymore. Just let me have that card. Call it a little compensation for the twenty years I spent struggling out there. Is that too much to ask?"

Margaret nodded. "Hand it over. Consider it an apology to your sister. You only ended up here because I felt sorry for you, and your father handed you a card. Don't go getting ideas above your station."

I stared at her. This face had smiled at me a thousand times over twenty years, had cooked for me, had sat by my bed through entire nights when I was sick. Now it was twisted into something I didn't recognize.

"You forgot what Dad made perfectly clear?" My voice came out cold. "If I'm unhappy, the Connolly empire crumbles."

Margaret let out a dismissive snort. "Go ahead, hide behind Raymond Connolly. I'm done letting you get away with that attitude. The whole company bends over backwards to keep you smiling while I've spent forty years as his wife and ranked below some girl with a questionable origin story. Let me tell you something: you're nothing but a tool the Connollys paid to keep the bad luck away. Real gold doesn't need polishing. Fakes belong in the trash."

She grabbed the black card off the desk and shoved it into Isabella's hands. I watched Isabella turn it over between her fingers, savoring it, while Margaret looked like she'd just won something.

"Fine."

The word left my mouth almost lightly, and there was even the ghost of a smile on my lips.

The next second, my phone went insane.

Connolly Group Overseas Project 3: breach of contract triggered.

Core fund liquidity chain collapsed. Connolly Group: emergency circuit breaker on hundred-billion valuation.