There had never been money for piano lessons when Nia Okoro was a child. While her friends disappeared after school into warm living rooms filled with the sounds of scales and arpeggios—violin, clarinet, voice, flute, whatever instrument caught their fancy—Nia lingered on the edges of their conversations, pretending she simply wasn’t interested. She cultivated an air of cool detachment, the rebellious girl who didn’t need such frivolous things. Better to be seen as defiant than destitute. Deep down, she knew her friends had noticed the threadbare uniforms, the lunches packed from yesterday’s leftovers, and the way she never invited anyone home. But childhood pride is a stubborn shield.Years later, at twenty-six, Nia had rewritten her own story. Through relentless scholarships, late-night shifts at coffee shops and libraries, and an iron discipline few suspected, she had clawed her way into a promising career in corporate finance. She owned a sleek one-bedroom condo with floor-to-ceil
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