Chapter 2

I opened the closet. Inside hung a few plain clothes the family had rushed out to buy when I first moved in. Some still had tags attached, but they were already out of style.

Meanwhile, Chloe's walk-in closet was filled with designer labels and custom-made pieces.

I pulled open a drawer and took out a small metal box hidden at the very bottom. Inside was a yellowed piece of paper with the word "Clara" written across it in crooked handwriting. It was the only thing I had kept from my old life.

Memories from when I was seven years old came flooding back uncontrollably.

It was a cold winter day. My foster father, Jack Schultz, was beating me across the back with a belt because I had accidentally burned a saucepan of rice while tending the stove.

I knelt in the snow until my lips turned blue. Beside me, my foster mother, Anne DeVito, snacked on nuts and sneered. "Useless brat! You can't even do one simple thing right. We should've left you in a ditch when we found you."

At 12, I earned the highest score in my county and won admission to an elite middle school. Jack tore the acceptance letter into pieces.

"School? What's the point of a girl going to school? In a couple of years, you'll just marry the Matterson family's dumb son. There's no need for education."

When I was 15 years old, my real parents arrived with the police. Even as Jack and Anne were being handcuffed, I was still hiding behind the kitchen stove, trembling.

A beautifully dressed woman, tears streaming down her face, rushed toward me and wrapped me in her arms. Her voice was hoarse as she exclaimed, "My daughter! This is my daughter!"

That was when I learned that I had never belonged to that family.

Apparently, Mom had gone into premature labor while traveling back home to visit relatives and had no choice but to give birth in a nearby hospital. Mom and Anne had ended up in the same hospital room.

Consumed by jealousy after learning about the Summers family's wealth, Anne switched the babies. She placed her own daughter in the Summers family's nursery, and carried me home to a life of poverty and abuse.

The day I returned to my real family, Chloe fainted from crying three separate times.

Xavier held her in his arms and shouted at Mom and Dad, "Chloe is a victim too! She didn't know anything. You're not seriously thinking about sending her away, are you?"

Mom burst into tears. "Chloe is innocent…"

Dad sighed. "We've raised her all these years, after all. Clara, I hope you can understand. Right now, Chloe has nobody except us."

As I watched all four of them hugging each other and crying, I suddenly felt like I was the intruder who had barged into someone else's family.

They all said they would make it up to me. But after I moved in, I realized they meant they'd give me a bedroom, food, and pay for my education. But love? Love belonged exclusively to Chloe.

She remained the cherished daughter of the Summers family, while I was simply the child they had brought back home from the countryside.

At my first family dinner, I didn't know the proper etiquette for a formal meal and used the wrong fork. Chloe gently corrected me, but the contempt in her eyes was obvious.

Xavier laughed out loud. "You really are a country bumpkin."

Mom said gently, "You'll learn eventually." Then, she turned to Chloe and placed her favorite dish onto her plate, saying, "Eat more, Chloe. You've lost weight lately."

At my first school exam, I ranked first in the entire grade, while Chloe landed somewhere in the middle of the class. When we got home, she locked herself in her room and cried.

Xavier knocked on my door. His voice was cold. "Can't you be a little less obvious about it? Why did you have to show off and make Chloe feel bad?"

Later, Mom came to talk to me too. "Clara, next time, could you maybe not try so hard? Chloe is under a lot of pressure lately."

I agreed.

During the next round of exams, I intentionally skipped two subjects, and my ranking plummeted. Meanwhile, Chloe cheated her way into the top 50.

The entire family celebrated. Dad even bought her an expensive luxury watch as a reward.

No one noticed how far my grades had fallen. Or maybe they did and just didn't care.