Reborn And Pampered: The Genius Heiress Returns
I am the biological daughter of the wealthy Fitzpatrick family, but I spent my childhood eating out of dumpsters.
When I was finally brought back to the estate at age seven, I thought I would experience my parents' love.
Instead, my biological parents looked at my dirty clothes with raw disgust. They only cared about Hallie, the fake daughter who lived like a princess.
The moment I walked in, Hallie hurled a heavy ceramic cup at my head, slicing my hand open.
"Get out of my house!"
My father didn't even look at the blood. He raised his hand to strike me, accusing me of bringing trailer park rules into his home.
In my past life, I dropped to my knees and begged for their forgiveness. I endured their abuse, hoping they would eventually love me.
But they let the maids humiliate me, let Hallie steal my identity, and eventually threw me back onto the streets to die. Even my playboy Uncle Byron, the only person who ever showed me mercy, was driven to suicide by them.
I didn't understand why my own flesh and blood hated me so much, or why a vicious liar deserved everything while I was treated like a jinx.
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the exact day I first returned to the estate.
As my father raised his hand to hit me, I didn't cower.
Instead, I looked at the family patriarch and pointed directly at my notorious, alcoholic uncle.
"I want him to be my new guardian."
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Chapter 2
The clicking of the high heels stopped abruptly.
Antoinette Webb stood at the top of the stairs. She gripped the fabric of her silk robe, her knuckles white. Her face was twisted in absolute fury.
A second later, Alton Fitzpatrick stepped out of his home office. He was adjusting his expensive silk tie. His eyebrows were pulled together in a deep scowl as he looked down at the chaos in the living room.
Antoinette did not even glance at Cordelia. She rushed down the stairs, her robe flying behind her. She threw herself onto the floor and pulled the sobbing Hallie into her chest.
"Oh, my sweet girl," Antoinette cooed. She pulled a lace handkerchief from her pocket and frantically dabbed at Hallie's dry cheeks.
Alton walked down the stairs. His leather shoes crunched over the shattered ceramic pieces. The sound was like bones grinding together. He looked down at the mess, his upper lip curling in disgust.
Finally, Alton's eyes landed on Cordelia.
He took in her dirty T-shirt, her messy hair, and the dust on her shoes. His stomach physically recoiled. The disgust in his eyes was raw and unfiltered. He did not ask if she was hurt. He did not look at the blood dripping from her sleeve.
Alton turned his glare on Leland. "I pay you to manage my affairs, Leland. Not to drag trash into my main house."
Leland bowed his head, his shoulders shrinking. "Sir, I apologize. But Miss Hallie threw the-"
"Shut up!" Antoinette shrieked from the floor. She glared at Cordelia. "You just walked through the door and you are already bullying your sister! You have absolutely no manners!"
Hallie buried her face in Antoinette's neck. Over her mother's shoulder, Hallie shot Cordelia a vicious, triumphant smile.
Cordelia stood perfectly still. Her breathing was slow and even. She did not rush forward to explain. She did not drop to her knees and beg for forgiveness like she had in her past life.
She slowly raised her uninjured left hand. She casually wiped the blood off her right hand before it could drip onto the expensive rug. The gesture was careless, almost bored.
Alton saw the movement. His blood pressure spiked. The veins in his neck bulged against his collar. To him, her silence was an act of extreme defiance.
Alton marched across the room. He stopped inches from Cordelia, towering over her. He pointed a thick finger right between her eyes.
"Listen to me," Alton hissed, his breath hot against her face. "This is the Fitzpatrick estate. I will not tolerate your trailer park rules in my home."
Cordelia slowly tilted her head up. Her blue eyes-the exact same shade as Alton's-locked onto his. There was no fear in her gaze. Only a freezing, bottomless void.
She opened her mouth. Her voice was high and childish, but her articulation was razor-sharp.
"Are the rules of the trailer park to throw heavy cups at people's heads?" Cordelia asked.
The logic was flawless. The question sliced straight through Hallie's lie.
The living room plunged into a suffocating silence.
Alton's jaw dropped. For a split second, he was stunned by the girl's razor-sharp articulation. Then, the humiliation of being outsmarted by a seven-year-old child turned his face a dark, angry red. His chest tightened.
Antoinette's voice shattered the silence. "How dare you talk back to your father! Apologize to Hallie right now!"
Cordelia let out a short, breathy laugh. It was a cold sound. She looked at the two adults standing in front of her. She looked at them the way a person looks at a corpse.
In her chest, a heavy chain snapped. She mentally deleted them. The biological connection was dead.
Hallie realized her parents were losing control. She kicked her legs against the rug and screamed louder. "Make her leave! Send her back to the orphanage! I hate her!"
Antoinette's eyes watered. She looked up at Alton, her hands clutching Hallie. "Alton, please. Get this jinx out of here."
Alton yanked at his tie, loosening it. He opened his mouth to order Leland to drag the girl out.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A heavy, rhythmic pounding echoed from the dark hallway leading to the east wing. The sound hit the floorboards like a hammer.
The air in the room instantly froze.
Glenwood Fitzpatrick stepped out of the shadows. The patriarch of the family leaned heavily on a black ebony cane. His face was a map of deep wrinkles, set in a permanent scowl.
Alton and Antoinette instantly dropped their shoulders. They lowered their heads.
"Father," Alton said, his voice suddenly weak.
Hallie stopped screaming. She sucked in a breath and shrank behind Antoinette's back, her fingers trembling.
Glenwood ignored them. His sharp, predatory eyes swept over the broken cup, the spilled coffee, and finally landed on the tiny, skinny girl standing in the middle of the room.
Cordelia did not look away. She held the old man's gaze.
She placed her left foot slightly behind her right. She pinched the sides of her oversized, dirty T-shirt. She bent her knees and lowered her body into a flawless, textbook-perfect curtsy.
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7.4
I single-handedly saved my family's corporate empire from a hostile takeover, securing our market share for the next decade.
But my grandfather didn't see me as a hero. He saw me as a flawed piece of inventory.
To calm the board and fix the reputation I supposedly ruined, he forced me into an arranged marriage, auctioning me off to the highest bidder.
Desperate, I turned to my childhood friend, Egnacio, the only person who ever promised to protect me.
But instead of saving me, he publicly humiliated me. He used my desperation as a networking opportunity, pitching my arranged marriage as a business deal to a ruthless private equity king named Dexter Mathews.
Later that night, I caught Egnacio holding my cruel cousin in his arms.
"What man wants to be with a woman who looks at you like she's planning a hostile takeover?"
Hearing him mock my pain shattered the last bit of hope I had.
I realized I was never family to them. I was just a sharp knife, used to cut down their enemies and then traded for cash before I got dull.
The heartbreak vanished, replaced by a cold, violent rage.
I didn't break, and I didn't run.
Instead, I got into the back of Dexter Mathews's car. He had watched my family tear me apart, but he didn't see a broken pawn. He saw a queen.
And together, we were going to burn their entire empire to the ground.
7.1
For seven years, I hid my identity as a wealthy heiress to be with my boyfriend, Ewing. I followed him across the country and made myself small so he could feel big.
On Thanksgiving, he ditched our celebration for his first love, Bree, who supposedly had a "burst pipe."
Later, she posted an intimate selfie with him, calling him her "hero."
Then she sent me a video of him at a bar, laughing with his friends.
"She's just being dramatic," he slurred, smirking at the camera. "A new necklace and she'll forget all about it. She's easy."
Easy. Seven years of my life, my love, my sacrifice-all reduced to that one word. I realized I was never his partner. I was just a placeholder.
I didn't cry. I packed my bags, booked a one-way flight to New York, and sent him one final text before blocking his number.
"Don't bother coming home. I'm getting married."
9.3
Elliana sat on the cold marble floor, staring at the two pink lines on the pregnancy test. Overjoyed, she went to her husband Garrett’s study to surprise him.
But the room was empty. On his iPad, she accidentally opened a muted security video from the night before. As a graphic novelist trained in facial anatomy, she easily read Garrett’s lips as he spoke to their housekeeper.
"Increase the hallucinogens and the birth control. Let her become a complete lunatic."
The truth shattered her reality. Her three years of inexplicable exhaustion and mental collapses were orchestrated to keep her away from her ex-fiancé, who was now married to Garrett’s sister, Cristina. The nightmare worsened during a horrific highway crash. As their SUV flipped and caught fire, Garrett ruthlessly abandoned a pregnant Elliana in the crushed backseat. He dragged Cristina to safety, leaving Elliana to burn. She survived, but her right hand—her drawing hand—was permanently destroyed.
Lying in the hospital with her career ruined and her intellectual property stolen by the husband who forged her signature while she was drugged, a freezing void of hatred consumed her. She was nothing but a sedated decoy to hide Garrett's twisted, incestuous obsession with his own sister.
When Garrett knelt by her hospital bed with fake tears, Elliana didn't scream or expose him. Instead, she forced a pathetic, dependent smile, playing the perfect broken wife. She was going back to his penthouse to steal his encrypted files, ready to feed him to Manhattan's most cutthroat divorce lawyer and watch his empire burn.
9.2
Arla was supposed to marry Clinton Freeman, the perfect fiancé who had promised to love her and protect her five-year-old son.
But instead, the cold steel of a dagger pierced her chest.
As she collapsed onto the freezing basement floor, she watched her adoptive sister Blair laugh.
"Look at her," Blair sneered, kicking her son's small, blue, lifeless body.
Clinton stood there, calmly wiping the bloody blade on a pristine handkerchief.
In her dying moments, the horrifying truth became clear. Her fiancé and her adoptive family had been plotting all along to steal her massive trust fund.
To break her, they had secretly tortured her child. Clinton had watched Blair pierce the little boy's arms with sewing needles, rewarding him with candy to keep him silent.
Arla's lungs burned with the taste of copper and ash.
She couldn't understand why the family she trusted could be so monstrous, or why they had to brutally murder an innocent child just for money.
The darkness swallowed her whole, drowning her in suffocating hatred and absolute despair.
Then, she gasped for air.
The concrete floor was gone, replaced by the silk sheets of a hotel penthouse suite.
Arla had been reborn to the exact night six years ago—the very day Blair first dragged her son into the dark attic.
This time, she picked up a solid silver letter opener, ready to burn them all to the ground.
9.2
I was a broke freelance copywriter, tortured for three sleepless nights by an impossible corporate client.
Needing to vent, I typed out a wild, highly inappropriate rant mocking the brand's stiff heritage.
But in my exhausted, sleep-deprived blur, I accidentally sent the massive block of text to the wrong chat.
The recipient wasn't my friend. It was Emerson Beard, the elite, ruthless brand consultant I was supposed to desperately network with.
I waited for the professional execution, terrified of the massive five-figure penalty fee hanging over my head.
Instead, he didn't block me. He critiqued my unhinged draft.
He saved my career through late-night, encrypted phone calls, his deep, commanding voice becoming my only lifeline.
But when I heard a woman with a sultry French accent knocking on his hotel door during our call, my ugly jealousy flared.
I yelled at him and hung up, completely humiliating myself.
I thought I was just a pathetic, annoying workaholic interrupting his romantic getaway.
But he texted back to clarify he was entirely single, and in the process, realized I was actually twenty-five, not a fresh-out-of-school teenager like he had assumed.
The cold, distant mentor instantly vanished.
In his place was a man radiating a raw, aggressive, and predatory energy that bled right through the screen.
"Texting is too inefficient. The full integration requires face-to-face communication."
He dropped a location pin for an ultra-exclusive Manhattan club, demanding I meet him to save my contract.
Wearing a desperately bought emerald silk dress, I pushed open the heavy oak door, stepping right into the trap of a man who had just taken off his leash.
8.8
I've always been the unwanted child-the invisible one. The rebel no one ever tried to understand.
And yet, I never resented my perfect, beloved sister. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy.
But one cruel twist of fate-and a devastating betrayal by someone I trusted-changed everything.
I woke up in a stranger's bed, losing the one thing I had guarded so carefully. Back then, I thought that was my greatest loss.
I was wrong.
Because not long after, my sister introduced me to her fiancé.
And the man standing in front of me... was the same stranger from that night.
Now he haunts me-day and night, in my dreams and in my waking hours. And just when I start to believe the nightmare might finally fade with the dawn, Alan walks back into my life.
This time, he has no intention of letting me forget.
Not the insult I dealt him.
...or that one unforgettable night.