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 3
Glenwood stared at the girl. His cloudy eyes widened a fraction. The muscles around his mouth twitched in surprise.
He leaned his weight onto his cane and slowly walked forward. The rubber tip of his cane crunched over a piece of broken porcelain. He stopped exactly one step away from Cordelia.
Glenwood looked down. His eyes locked onto the dried blood smeared across the back of her small hand. His thick white eyebrows slammed together.
"What happened here?" Glenwood's voice was a low rumble that vibrated in the floorboards.
Alton jumped forward, his hands waving in panic. "Father, she is clumsy. She knocked over the coffee and broke the cup, and then she had the nerve to talk back to-"
BANG.
Glenwood slammed his ebony cane against the marble floor. The noise cracked like a gunshot.
"Shut your mouth, Alton," Glenwood barked.
Alton's jaw snapped shut. He swallowed hard, stepping back.
Glenwood turned his attention back to Cordelia. The harsh lines on his face softened just a millimeter. "What is your name, child? And who taught you to curtsy like that?"
Cordelia did not look at her parents. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the old man.
"My name is Cordelia," she said. Her voice was steady, completely devoid of the tremor a normal child would have.
She paused, letting the silence stretch for one second. "It means 'daughter of the sea' in Latin. The woman who picked trash out of the dumpsters to feed me gave me that name."
A sharp, wet gasp ripped from Antoinette's throat. She slapped a hand over her mouth. Her face turned the color of ash. The shame of hearing the word "trash" associated with her biological daughter felt like a physical slap to her face.
Glenwood's eyes darkened. A complex mix of guilt and intense curiosity swirled in his gaze.
"Do you not know that Antoinette is your real mother?" Glenwood asked softly.
Cordelia slowly turned her head. She looked at Antoinette. Her blue eyes were completely hollow. There was no longing. No sadness. Just ice.
"She is not my mother," Cordelia said. The words dropped from her lips like heavy stones. "She only cares about the sister who throws cups at people."
Antoinette staggered backward. Her knees buckled slightly, and she had to grab the wooden banister of the staircase to keep from falling. Her chest heaved as she struggled to pull air into her lungs.
Hallie saw her mother falter. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced out a loud wail. "She's a liar! Grandpa, she's lying!"
Glenwood slowly turned his head. He shot Hallie a single, lethal glare.
Hallie's mouth snapped shut. She choked on her own saliva, swallowing her fake sobs instantly.
The living room fell into a deathly silence. Everyone waited for the patriarch to pass judgment on the disrespectful girl.
But Cordelia was not finished.
She took a half-step forward. She deliberately closed the physical distance between herself and the old man, entering his personal space. She tilted her head up.
"Grandpa," Cordelia said, using the title with surgical precision. "I know the law says I have to return to this house."
She kept her voice low, but the acoustics of the room carried every syllable. "But the law does not say I have to be their punching bag."
Alton's face turned purple. The blood rushed to his head so fast his ears rang. He pointed a shaking finger at Cordelia. "You ungrateful little animal! I will teach you-"
Glenwood lifted his cane horizontally, blocking Alton's path. He did not look at his son. He kept his eyes on Cordelia. "Go on."
Cordelia took a deep breath. She let the air fill her lungs, preparing to drop the bomb she had calculated since the moment she woke up in this timeline.
"The law says I have to live here, but can I choose who takes care of me?" she stated.
The bold question hung in the air.
Leland choked on his own breath. He stared at the seven-year-old girl as if she had grown a second head.
Antoinette pressed both hands over her mouth. Her eyes widened, but a sick thrill of joy shot through her stomach. She thought she was finally going to be free of this embarrassment.
Alton felt his stomach drop. The humiliation burned his throat like stomach acid. His own flesh and blood was firing him in front of the head of the family. It was a direct attack on his authority as the heir.
Glenwood's grip on his cane tightened until his knuckles turned white. The shock in his eyes melted into a fierce, burning admiration.
The old man narrowed his eyes. "Do you even know what you are asking for? Who do you want to be your new guardian?"
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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.