The Heiress’s Revenge Chapter 17
Middle school through high school. They protected me.
Then freshman year. Skylar transferred in.
The woman who brought her was my stranger of a birth mother.
She stared at me for a long time.
That was before the sensational Boston reunion.
But in Jasper and Dax’s eyes, the story was different.
I was the “real daughter” who’d barged in halfway. Snatched everything from Skylar. Her status. Her home. Her mother’s attention. They forgot—Skylar’s twenty-two years were stolen from me.
I had the truth delivered to Jasper.
Skylar was never the innocent angel he’d imagined.
That day in the media room. She was trying to forge my father’s seal. Take out loans. I locked the door. Drew my father and the guests away. Saved her.
I didn’t play that card then. Expose her—one moment of satisfaction. Hold the secret—leverage for life.
The fever story. Just her sympathy act afterward. I’d just returned to Wentworth. Too much to balance. Not worth the fight.
Jasper waited outside my apartment for three days after learning the truth.
I never looked down.
If I don’t want to see someone, they never see me.
No need. Not in this life.
A month later. Dax’s family hedge fund exposed for regulatory violations. Ten-year-old skeletons dragged into daylight.
Dax burst into my office. Eyes bloodshot. “Thea. You have to destroy everything?”
I closed the quarterly report. Looked up. “Mr. Dax. Business competition. Survival of the fittest. Besides—the SEC dug up the evidence. What does that have to do with me?”
“You think I don’t know who handed over the files? Thea. You’re a goddamn ungrateful viper. Back in school—”
“Back in school?” I cut him off. “You treated me like an amusing toy. If Skylar hadn’t transferred—” I smiled. “I’d never have known what you all looked like when you actually cared about someone.”
I stood. Walked to the window. “After I returned to Wentworth, you were already Skylar’s people. What was I? A real daughter who’d appeared out of nowhere. In the way.”
Turned back to him. “So now what? You want my gratitude? For not playing me to death back then?”
His face went white. Nothing came out.