All Chapters of Mistaken for Rich: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

Me: [Everyone, I'm not trying to weasel out of anything. The Windsor Grand really isn't my family's place. My family just sells sandwiches and soup for a living. This whole thing is one big misunderstanding. Cut me some slack.]Sandra Crowe, our class's disciplinary committee member, spoke up.Sandra: [Oh, come on, leave her alone. It can't be easy playing the poor-little-rich-girl routine, and it's got to be embarrassing now that we've caught on.]The others chimed in.[Rachel, that's a little cold, isn't it? We're old classmates. Your family runs a place that fancy, and we want to soak up a bit of it. What's the harm?][Forget it, forget it. Little Miss Ford's much too busy these days to bother with old classmates like us.][Fine, fine, let's just book somewhere else. We come here in good faith to support your business, and this is the thanks we get.]I stared at my screen, my hand shaking with anger. Nobody was listening to a word I said. Everyone just kept talking over each

Megan had a bag full of custom eye masks in one hand and three gold-tier membership cards in the other. The group headed for the door in high spirits, laughing loudly, suitcase wheels clattering across the marble floor.Megan turned back and called out to me, "Rachel! We're leaving! This hotel's not bad. We'll come back again sometime!"Victoria rolled her eyes at the front desk as she walked past it. "The service was nothing special. Way too slow bringing out the food."Brett's dog suddenly broke free of its leash and bolted for the door, knocking over a vase on the welcome stand. Water spilled everywhere.Paige Cohen, one of the staff, crouched down to clean it up. Brett ran after the leash and grabbed it, but instead of apologizing, he snapped at her, "Why would you even put a vase there? It almost tripped my dog!"Paige kept her head down and said nothing, wiping up the water and the broken porcelain shards bit by bit with a rag.That was when the manager on duty walked over,

"You didn't think to mention the caviar was expensive when you were scooping it out? Three whole tins!""How was I supposed to know it cost that much?!"They started arguing right there in the lobby of the Windsor Grand, their voices climbing higher and higher, each one jabbing a finger in the other's face.Brett's dog cowered under the sofa, tail tucked between its legs.The young clerk at the front desk crouched behind the counter, gathering up the scattered receipts and stacking them one by one. I went over to help her. She looked up at me and said quietly, "Rachel, these people are really your old classmates?""Yeah. From high school.""Then how..." She didn't finish the thought, just shook her head.I handed her the last stack of receipts and stood back up.Megan was pinned between Sandra and Victoria, both of them snapping at her, their voices climbing shriller by the second."You're the one who organized all this! You said two hundred dollars would cover it!""And yo

Sandra was gasping for breath, her chest heaving, still cursing under her breath, "Playing the innocent, huh? Two hundred dollars! You'd be a laughingstock if word got out!"Megan lifted her face, and her eyes had suddenly gone cold. "Me, putting on an act?" She laughed once. "Then go throw up all that lobster and king crab you ate yesterday. Go on, throw up every last bite!"Sandra choked on her next words.Megan slowly got to her feet, smoothed her hair back, and turned to look at me. "Rachel, you win. You kept quiet on purpose. You've been watching this whole thing like a joke from the start.""Believe whatever you want. Either way, I wasn't the one ordering yesterday. I didn't touch a single thing you all ordered," I said.She took a deep breath and walked up to the manager. "I want to see your boss."A while later, Megan came back. "I signed a payment plan. Five years to pay it off. Thirty-three thousand dollars a month."The lobby fell dead silent.Todd was the first to s