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 6
Byron snapped out of his shock. He jumped back a full foot, trying to put physical distance between himself and the tiny girl pointing at him.
He waved both hands frantically in the air. "No way! Old man, don't listen to her! I can't even keep a cactus alive!"
Byron's chest heaved with panic. "I go to sleep at three in the morning! My apartment is full of empty bottles! She will starve to death if she lives with me!"
Alton saw his opening. He sneered, his chest puffing out again. "At least you know you are useless. Father, this is a circus."
Alton marched toward Cordelia. He dropped his fake smile and reached out with a large, aggressive hand, aiming to grab her wrist.
"You are coming with me. I will hire the strictest etiquette tutors to beat some sense into you," Alton snapped.
Before Alton's fingers could graze her skin, Cordelia moved.
She darted forward like a frightened rabbit. She threw herself at Byron. Her small arms wrapped tightly around Byron's thigh, her fingers gripping the expensive fabric of his tailored trousers. She pressed her entire body against his leg.
Byron froze. His muscles locked up. He looked down at the mop of yellow hair attached to his leg. His hands hovered awkwardly in the air, terrified to touch her, terrified to push her away.
Cordelia buried her face deep into the fabric of his trousers, completely hiding her dry eyes. Her shoulders began to shake violently.
"I won't go!" Cordelia screamed. Her voice cracked, tearing through the room with raw, agonizing terror. "I don't want to go with him! He will kill me! Uncle Byron, save me!"
She did not shed a single tear, but with her face completely concealed, the sheer panic vibrating in her vocal cords stabbed into the eardrums of everyone in the room.
Alton's hand hovered in the empty air. His face flushed a dark, ugly purple. He felt the eyes of the servants burning into his back. His dignity was being shredded.
Glenwood watched the girl tremble. His disgust for his eldest son reached a boiling point. The old man slammed his cane into the floor again.
"Enough, Alton!" Glenwood barked. "You have disgraced yourself enough for one day."
Alton ground his teeth together. The muscles in his jaw popped. Desperate to save face, he forced his mouth into a sickeningly sweet smile.
"Cordelia," Alton said, his voice dripping with fake warmth. "I am your biological father. Blood is thicker than water. I was just upset. Come home, and Daddy will buy you new dresses."
Cordelia peeked out from behind Byron's leg. Her eyes were dry and lethal.
"You don't even know my favorite color," Cordelia said, her voice trembling perfectly. "You just want to turn me into a mute puppet so your fake daughter can have everything!"
The words acted like a scalpel, slicing Alton's fake mask right off his face.
Alton's eyes bulged. He lost his mind. "You ungrateful brat!" he spat.
Byron looked down at the tiny girl clinging to his leg. He felt the heat of her small body against his skin. He felt the violent tremors shaking her frame.
A strange, heavy sensation expanded in Byron's chest. The protective instinct he had buried under years of alcohol and parties suddenly clawed its way to the surface.
Byron slowly lifted his head. The lazy, playboy smirk vanished from his face. His blue eyes turned into shards of ice as he glared at his older brother.
"Did you hear her, Alton?" Byron's voice was dangerously low. "She would rather live with a degenerate loser than spend another second with you."
Byron reached down. He hooked his large hand under Cordelia's arm and lifted her off the floor in one smooth motion. He tucked her against his side, his arm wrapping securely around her waist. The hold was awkward, but fiercely possessive.
"I'm taking the kid," Byron announced. He lifted his chin, challenging anyone to stop him.
Alton shook with rage. He pointed a finger at Byron's face. "You will regret this! If you take that burden, I will make sure you never see another dime from the trust fund!"
Byron let out a harsh laugh. He raised his free hand and flipped his brother the middle finger.
"Keep your money," Byron sneered. "I keep the kid."
Glenwood watched the two brothers. A faint, calculating gleam flickered in the old man's eyes. He struck his cane on the floor one last time, sealing the deal.
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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.