Chapter 2

It turns out rich people don't believe in privacy. Or doors that actually close.

I’d barely made it halfway back to my room—sorry, wing—before a maid offered to draw me a bath, another asked if I wanted chamomile tea, and a third gently hinted that my posture was “a little too modern.”

I smiled, nodded, and locked myself in my room like a normal, emotionally unstable reincarnated girl trying to avoid a mental breakdown.

Once the door clicked shut, I let the mask slip. My shoulders dropped. I kicked off the demon heels that passed for “breakfast appropriate” shoes and flopped face-first onto the enormous bed.

God.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

I’m not delusional—I know I can’t rewrite everything. The book had dozens of plot threads, dramatic twists, romantic betrayals, corporate sabotage, and one decent man who never stood a chance. I can’t stop the Real Daughter from coming back. I can’t magically make the Carringtons like me. I’m not trying to win the original story.

I’m trying to survive it.

So I grab a notebook from the desk drawer—a pretty, leather-bound thing that smells like money and untapped potential—and start writing.

Things I Remember from the Novel (or: My Half-Baked Guide to Not Dying Socially)

Anastasia (that’s her name, right?) comes back from Europe in about two weeks. She’s fluent in French, plays the cello, and once rescued a puppy from drowning. Everyone adores her.

Lyra—me—gets kicked out shortly after. No scandal. Just “you’ve grown so independent” energy and a disappearing bank account.

Ethan Quan = second male lead. Wheelchair. Tragic backstory. Genius. Also, kind of hot? Yeah. Hot.

The Carringtons’ company tanks because of a stock market crash. Something to do with tariffs? President changes, new policy hits luxury imports hard.

Original Lyra ignored this. I, on the other hand, have a working brain.

I pause, pen in hand. There’s more I need to add. Something heavier. The stuff the novel never fully focused on.

Ethan’s father remarries. The new wife—his stepmother—absolutely hates him. Cold, cruel, and subtle about it. Sometimes not so subtle.

No one helps him. Not even Lyra.

I remember skimming past those scenes in the book—the ones where Ethan quietly shrank into the background, where bruises were brushed off as accidents, and isolation was written off as “reclusiveness.” The novel didn’t dwell on it. Neither did Lyra.

But I can’t unread what I know now.

And I remember me. The me in my old life. Crying over fictional men and screaming in my group chat about how “they did him so dirty.”

Now he’s real.

Well, “real.”

And I’ve already met him.

That’s the thing—Ethan and I already know each other. In the novel, there’s this whole pre-Anastasia calm, like the eye of a storm, where Lyra and Ethan run in the same circles. Charity galas. Silent auctions. Corporate dinners where everyone wears tailored smiles like armor. He never says much, but he’s always there.

And he remembers your name.

He remembers mine. Or, hers. Mine now.

In fact, I had lunch with him just last week. Well, we were at the same table. He asked if I liked the wine. I said I didn’t drink. He nodded. End scene.

That’s the level we’re at. Casual politeness. No pressure. No expectations.

And soon?

That disappears.

Because once Anastasia returns, Ethan falls for her. Hard. It’s subtle at first. Glances. Quiet smiles. Then a moment in the rain or something equally cliché—and suddenly he’s drawn in. And why wouldn’t he be? She’s light, and I’m shadow. She’s soft warmth, and I’m awkward deflection.

The book made it seem inevitable. Like fate.

But what if it wasn’t?

What if I stopped being just another name on a guest list? What if I was first this time?

I don’t want to possess him. I’m not here to rewrite a love triangle.

I just… don’t want him to end up broken again.

And if I have to be the distraction that keeps him from drowning, so be it.

I draw a line under my first list and start a second.

Plan (Now With Extra Existential Panic):

1)Use knowledge of market crash to make subtle investments. Or short something. Or—God, I need to G****e this.

2)Slowly distance myself from the Carringtons before they cut me off. Makes me look independent. Maybe mysterious. Definitely less pathetic.

3)Reconnect with Ethan. Not desperately. Not romantically. Just… gently. Make myself someone he can lean on.

4)Keep an eye on his stepmother. In the book, she’s mostly off-screen. In real life? I plan to be a screen-sized problem if she lays a finger on him.

5)DO NOT fall in love.

I let the notebook fall open on the bed and exhaled.

This is insane.

I should be screaming into a pillow. Instead, I’m making tactical social survival lists like I’m prepping for a corporate war.

But maybe that’s what this is.

I think back to the last time I saw Ethan—his face calm, unreadable, half-shadowed by the low chandelier at that terrible fundraising dinner. He wore dark gray. Always does. People whispered around him but never to him. Except me.

And I wasted it.

I could have said anything. Could’ve asked what he was thinking, what he was building in that brilliant, lonely head of his. Instead, I smiled and complimented the salmon.

Not this time.

This time, I’m going to say something real.

This time, when the story tries to push him aside, I’ll be the one who stays.