The Real Heiress Only Wants Cash

You're back. But don't go getting ideas about competing with Cici.

That was the welcome I got the day my birth family finally tracked me down and brought me home.

I looked at the four of them. At the whole tidy little welcome-home ambush.

Then I smiled, reached into my bag, and set a contract on the table.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," I said. "A blood relation is a legal fact. But you want me to play the sweet, well-behaved daughter who lies down so your adopted princess can shine? That's a premium emotional-labor service."

"It's going to cost you extra."

Chapter 1

My biological father flicked a bank card across the table.

"Two thousand on it. Your allowance for the next six months."

"You're a Sinclair again now. So you'll live by Sinclair rules."

"One. You do not make trouble for Cici. She isn't ours by blood, but we raised her for twenty years, and you will not get it into your head that you can take her place."

"Two. You keep quiet about who you are. For now, to anyone outside this house, you're a distant relative."

"Three. Whatever you picked up out in the sticks, you leave it at the door. Head down. Don't embarrass this family."

Beside him sat my mother. Marguerite, dressed in the full uniform of a society wife.

"Cici is sensitive. Delicate. She doesn't take stress well, so you'll make allowances. And you will not make her cry."

I'd heard all of it before. Every word.

Last time, I came back to this house starving for them to love me. I learned which fork to use, practiced the right way to laugh, made myself small and grateful and careful. Poured years into earning a seat at a table that was never going to set a place for me.

It ended with me put out of this house like something that had stopped being useful. Alone. In the cold. With nothing.

I know how this story goes. I've already lived it, all the way to the end.

So this time I looked around the eight-figure house they'd dangled in front of me, and I made a different call.

Caring got me killed. This time, I keep the books.

I picked up the card and smiled.

"Sorry. I did my due diligence before I came."

"Sinclair Group cleared five billion in profit last year."

"And from what I hear, Cici's monthly shopping runs into six figures."

"So if you're this worried about her feelings, and this embarrassed by your backwoods daughter, why bring me back at all?"

I let it sit.

"It's because the Knoxes asked for the real Sinclair heir by name. For the marriage. Isn't it."

Conrad Sinclair had been halfway out of his chair. He went still.

"Who told you that."

I reached into my bag and drew out a printed document. Family Member Role and Performance Agreement.

"That part doesn't matter. What matters is the deal I came to offer."

"Bringing a blood-related stranger into a household is, at its core, a high-risk merger."

"I understand you didn't have a choice either."

"So since none of us are enjoying this, let's make it a transaction. You need me to play the mascot. The marriage-alliance instrument. The flattering backdrop that makes Cici glow when the occasion calls for it. I'll do all of it."

"I'm just not doing it for free."

Conrad's face hardened. Marguerite's went white.

I caught it before it landed, that look two people get right before they reach for the family card. I cut them off.

"Chairman Sinclair. Ms. Ashford. Please don't talk to me about blood being thicker than water. That's agrarian logic."

"In a market economy, emotional labor and taking the fall are services. Expensive ones."

"If I take abuse under this roof, that's a workplace injury. If you need me to handle Roman Knox, that piece of work, that's hazard pay, billed per incident, and you're buying me the highest coverage on the market."

"As for the two grand you just slid me. That's what you throw a beggar."

"Given how specialized this role is, and how irreplaceable, I want a hundred thousand a month. Full benefits, maxed out. Year-end bonus on top of that."

Neither of them moved.

I'd just put a price on being their daughter. Now we'd all find out whether they could afford me.

Chapter 2

"So you're for sale."

My older brother finally spoke. Everett had been watching the whole thing from the side like it bored him.

"I suppose that's what we should expect. Raised in the sticks. You can hear it on you. A price tag on everything."

I shook my head.

"There's no warm family bond between us to insult. This runs on money. So I take the money, and I do the job. That's just clean accounting."

"Think about the return. A hundred K a month for a quiet, harmonious household. That's a bargain."

Conrad cooled off first. Of course he did. He was a capitalist long before he was anyone's father.

I watched him run the math behind his eyes. They felt nothing for me, true enough, but a hundred thousand a month was one bottle from his wine cellar. If a single bottle bought an obedient, low-maintenance marriage instrument that ran itself, that was a margin he'd never walk away from.

In a house like this, any problem money could fix wasn't really a problem.

He picked up his pen and signed, clean and quick.

"You'd better deliver. And stay in line."

The next morning, I clocked in.

Cici drifted into breakfast like she might wilt if anyone raised their voice. I'll give the Sinclairs this much: the product they'd spent a fortune raising was beautifully made. Every spec of the fragile-little-darling fantasy, met.

She saw me, and her eyes went pink on cue.

"Why are you glaring at me?" she said. "Did Cici do something wrong?"

"Cici's sorry. Please don't be mad at her."

When I said nothing, she turned to the other three, small and trembling.

"Daddy, Mom, Everett. Should Cici not have come down to eat?"

"I know I'm only the adopted one. I don't have the right to sit at the table. I'll go."

Conrad and Marguerite melted on the spot. They were already rounding on me.

I got there first.

"Miss Cici. Your execution is weak."

She blinked, tears clinging to her lashes. "Wh what?"

I looked her over, top to bottom.

"As the Sinclairs' flagship socialite, your core competency is being beautiful, fragile, and easy to pity. But look at your form."

I tapped the corner of my own mouth.

"When you cry, you drag the corners down too far. Reads stiff. Overdone."

"And the groveling. In front of the outsider, no less. On the favored daughter, that plays small. Cheap. Like Chairman Sinclair and Ms. Ashford never trained you properly."

"If the wrong person saw it, they'd think the Sinclairs had a quality-control problem."

Conrad had opened his mouth to tear into me. He closed it again. I watched the thought land: the Sinclairs were old money, and old money did not raise daughters who flinched.

"So what do you suggest," he said.

"I'll be her competitive analyst. Image consultant on the side."

I settled into a cleaner posture.

"Starting now, I run her through simulations. The cruel older sister. The nightmare mother-in-law. Every sweet-faced rival who'll come for her down the line. I pressure-test her. I pick her apart. I sharpen her until she can walk into any family in this city and hold her own, and never embarrass the Sinclair name."

Cici stared. She had clearly never heard anyone make bullying sound so wholesome.

"Relax. It's included in my monthly rate. It just needs cooperation from the subject."

"Take right now."

My voice dropped. The warmth went out of it.

"Come here. Clear my plate."

Chapter 3

Cici's eyes darted to our parents on reflex.

I gave a thin little laugh.

"What are you looking at them for? When your future mother-in-law has you waiting on her hand and foot, are you going to cry for Mommy then, too?"

"You think being a daughter-in-law in a house like this is easy?"

Conrad considered it. And then, to my genuine interest, he nodded.

"She's right, Cici. It's time you toughened up."

Cici's face went white, shock and humiliation in equal measure. She carried my dishes into the kitchen like she was carrying her own dignity.

I gave Conrad a small smile.

"See, boss? Catfish effect."

"Sardines only survive the tank when there's a catfish chasing them. A flower raised in a greenhouse has no competitive edge. It can't move on the open market."

Conrad looked at me then. Differently. Like he was reassessing the asset in front of him.

I took to the job of real Sinclair heir fast.

The version of me that used to live this life had dressed loud and fought Cici for the spotlight, and gotten laughed at for trying too hard. Not my problem. I was here to clock in.

Every day I came down in sharp tailored suits, hair pulled back clean, moving through that house like I already ran the quarter.

I passed Conrad. "Morning, Chairman Sinclair."

Marguerite. "Ms. Ashford."

Everett. "Mr. Sinclair."

Cici. "Miss Cici. Your foundation's caking today. Switch formulas."

That was the day the leading man of this whole tragedy came knocking. My fianc on paper. Roman Knox.

The Knox golden boy. Famously untamable. He'd always wanted Cici, and old Mr. Knox was forcing him to marry the real Sinclair heir instead, so he walked in already hating me.

"So you're the one from the sticks." Roman looked at me down the length of his nose. "I'll give you this, there's a little of your parents in the face. Shame about the rest. You can put a sparrow in a Sinclair gown. It's still a sparrow. Don't go thinking crawling back here makes you one of us."

Truly, the dialogue. Somewhere a daytime soap was missing its washed-up villain. I couldn't be bothered.

Cici nestled into his side, still working the watery eyes.

"Roman, don't talk about my sister like that. She's trying so hard. We shouldn't laugh at her."

"You're too good, Cici. That's your problem."

He gathered her in like she might break, then leveled a look at me over the top of her head, all warning.

"I'll say this once. Stay away from me. Don't get ideas you've got no business having. My fiance is only ever going to be Cici."

Fine. I'll own it. My tolerance for idiots runs at zero.

I set down the tablet in my hand, the company financials Conrad had just started letting me look at. After I'd proven my worth enough times, he'd finally cracked the door on some of the peripheral business. I valued every minute of real work. And this idiot was eating into mine.

"Mr. Knox. About this engagement. As assets go, it's a bad one. Risk I can't control, returns near zero. I've got no interest in taking the liability off your hands."

Roman's brow pulled tight. "What did you just say. Bad asset?"

"Isn't it?" I met his glare and didn't blink. "Poor emotional regulation. Conducts himself badly in public. No basic respect for a potential counterparty. Leads with personal attacks. As a future life partner, your performance is severely below standard."

"You"

The word died. Roman shot to his feet, the polished heir cracking straight down the middle, like if he just stood tall enough he could win an argument he'd already lost.

Chapter 4

"Hold still."

It came out cold and flat, and the weight of it stopped him mid-motion.

"If you insist on being Cici's white knight, let's see your qualifications for the post."

I ran my eyes over him, slow, X-ray slow, and let them settle at his waist.

"Open your shirt."

Roman blanked. He had no idea how the conversation had gotten here.

"What?"

"What do you"

"Get your mind out of the gutter." I cut him off and rolled my eyes. "I'm doing quality control on the family gene pool. The market's drowning in alpha-male heirs these days. Oversaturated. At this point a face and a body are the only hard currency left."

"Cici's delicate. Easy to pity. The kind of pretty that draws every predator in the room. If you don't even have abs, how are you protecting her, exactly? How are you a presentable thing to have on her arm? With that mouth that only produces garbage?"

Roman went scarlet. If there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was being looked down on. Especially in front of fragile little Cici.

"I work out three times a week. I've got plenty of muscle."

I lifted an eyebrow. Pure doubt.

"Anyone can say that. I could just as easily say your footwork's soft, your stamina's shot, you're all show, nothing under that suit but room-temperature dough."

Then I turned to Cici and sighed.

"I'm not trying to stir anything, sweetheart. But if Mr. Knox won't put in even this much effort, I'm not convinced he actually likes you. And even if he does, be careful. Men like this look glossy and run hollow. Can't even work up the nerve to prove what's under the shirt. Probably insecure. Probably doesn't perform in other departments either."

Cici frowned and started studying Roman herself.

"Roman, my sister's only looking out for our future. There's no harm in showing us. I'd like to see if you really have an eight-pack."

Roman looked at her like she'd handed him to the wolves.

And under our gentle, relentless, we're-only-thinking-of-the-bigger-picture pressure, the heir to the Knox fortune got handled for the first time in his life.

Jaw clenched, out to prove to the girl he loved that he was every inch a man and to wipe the contempt off my face, he lost his head and ripped his own shirt open.

"Open your eyes and look, then."

Cici gasped and covered her mouth, flushing.

Roman looked at me like he'd already won the war.

"See that, hick? Can you shut up now?"

I didn't give him the flustered little defeat he was banking on.

I just stepped in closer, face blank, the way you'd lean over a meat counter.

"Body fat's middling, by eye. Definition's soft. On a scale from smokeshow to forgettable, you scrape in as an NPC."

"Fine. Button up. You're cluttering the view."

The triumph froze on his face.

I settled back onto the couch and lifted my tea.

He wasn't only smarting because I'd panned him. For as long as anyone could remember, women had been the thing on display, and men had gotten used to running their eyes over us like a tape measure, fixing a price to whatever they found.

A minute ago, I'd taken the tape measure out of his hands.

Roman left cursing under his breath.

I wasn't finished with him. Not even close.

Chapter 5

So I got his number.

Me: [Mr. Knox. Per the stress test just now, you fell short on every metric the position of Sinclair kept man, pardon me, son-in-law, calls for. Emotional stability, resilience, service orientation. All below standard.]

Me: [That said, a failing grade isn't a hopeless one. I can offer a bespoke training program. Working title: How To Be A High-Value Male.]

Roman: [Get lost.]

Me: [I genuinely want this to work out between you and Cici.]

Me: [You love her. But your love is cheap. It can't handle your family, and it can't handle her tears.]

Me: [Picture her face when she finds out you wouldn't even learn to be a good husband for her. You're already the man who couldn't stand up to his own family for her sake. You really want to let her down again? And again after that?]

Five minutes passed.

Roman: [How much.]

Ha. Lovesick money is the easiest money there is.

I sent him a quote with every line padded to the ceiling.

Over the next stretch of days, I ran Roman by remote.

Me: [Mr. Knox. Cici's in a mood today. Don't send cash, it's tacky. Go learn to cook her favorite, the whole branzino. You buy the fish yourself, at the market. Film it and send it to me for sign-off.]

Me: [Mr. Knox. Cici held that actor's eye a beat too long this afternoon. You should feel threatened. Gym, now. Two hours, glutes and legs. Men who skip leg day end up useless where it counts.]

Roman cursed me out the entire time and did every bit of it anyway, for the new-and-improved good-man image he wanted Cici to see.

I wasn't idle either.

I took the videos and photos Roman sent and forwarded them straight to Cici.

"See? Men need training. If I don't play the bad guy, how does he ever learn to behave?"

Cici watched the footage, Roman drenched in sweat, cooking and lifting to please her, and got completely choked up.

A good chunk of her hostility toward me melted off. She even brought me a present, a limited-edition Birkin.

"Thank you, sis."

Then, sweet as anything:

"But let's keep things straight. I'm still the most adored little princess in this house. Don't go getting ideas about pushing me out."

I looked at the bag. So this was the quiet joy of being the middleman, skimming the spread.

Breakfast. Conrad and Marguerite were out.

Cici had started greeting me on her own now. But one look at the table told me the spread was all cold, Continental, picture-perfect.

She was busy cutting Everett's bacon for him. When she caught me sitting still, the tears came back on cue.

"Is sis upset with Cici?"

"I know you didn't grow up around all the forks, so Cici had your place set simpler, just for you. Cici didn't want you feeling lost. You don't think Cici did it on purpose, to embarrass you? Cici would never. Tuesdays are always a cold breakfast. Cici got up early just to make Everett his favorite."

She went on and on. I didn't move. I just watched Everett, smiling.

He felt it. The hand he'd raised to wipe Cici's tears stopped in midair.

"What."

Only then did I draw my eyes politely back.

"You don't look well. Have you been especially tired lately?"

His hand drifted to his own face. He got careful.

"Is it that obvious?"

Chapter 6

Being noticed is a need like any other.

In this house, every eye orbited fragile, sickly Cici. Everett was the heir, which made the job description simple. Be strong. Be controlled. Be unbreakable. Nobody actually cared whether he was tired.

Cici included.

She made him breakfast with her own hands and did her tearful wilting routine in front of him, but underneath all of it she was withdrawing his emotional labor, not depositing any. He'd always known that. Minding his delicate little sister was just a reflex Marguerite had drilled into his bones, one lecture at a time.

What I'd said wasn't a critique. It was me telling him I could see the cracks.

That was what rattled him.

"This breakfast isn't right for you." I shook my head. "An iced Americano on an empty stomach, morning after morning. How's your stomach supposed to take that? Cici doesn't know better. What's your excuse for not looking after yourself?"

Cici went pale and started to pink up around the eyes again. I got there first.

"Don't cry, sweetheart. I know your heart's in the right place. But your brother grinds himself down holding this whole family up. As his sisters, we don't get to make it about our own feelings."

Cici forced the tears back down.

Everett drew back the hand he'd been about to offer her and turned to me.

"So what should I be eating."

"Something that won't wreck your stomach." I held his eyes. "There's an old place across town. Marlow's. Their congee and soup dumplings. Easy on the gut, and actually good. You should go."

"That's across town. No time today."

He looked at me, expectant. Probably hoping I'd offer to go get it and run it to his office.

The girl I used to be would have. The Sinclair heir has a bad stomach. Last time around, I'd bought a stack of nutrition books and made him something different every single day, balanced and planned, and carried it to his office through any weather.

She was trying to join this family. I'm not. I'm an employee. I clock in to bleed the company for everything it's worth.

I propped my chin in my hand and gave him my most sincere look.

"Time's like a sponge. Squeeze and there's always more. Walk me through your day and I'll optimize it for you."

Everett showed me his schedule. And I arranged for him to find the time himself, to detour to that old breakfast counter.

When he finally turned up, a little the worse for the trip, and set the hot congee in front of me, I took a sip and let my eyes fall shut.

"Now that's good. Breakfast hits different when the CEO of Sinclair Group fetches it himself."

Everett watched me enjoy it, and the tight line of his mouth eased at one corner.

Before he left, he looked at me, and for once the thanks reached his eyes.

"Thank you, Ember. That congee really does settle the stomach."

I dabbed my mouth, unhurried.

See? He thanks me. Because I was the first person to notice his stomach hurt.

The girl I used to be noticed too. But one-sided over-giving depreciates fast, in any relationship.

In a house like this, you don't earn your footing by playing the maid. You earn it by being the client. You learn to hand out the tasks. You learn to manufacture the chances for them to be needed. You guide them into investing in you, time and feeling both.

It isn't that I matter to him, so he gives.

It's that once he's given, I start to matter.

Economists have a name for that. Sunk cost.

Chapter 7

Everett's response came fast.

That same night, he wired a million dollars into my account.

The memo was short. Buy yourself a bag.

I looked at the transfer notice and smiled. Textbook Sinclair big-brother love.

For twenty years, Cici's closet had filled with limited-edition Herms and Chanel. Every time she pouted, Everett's way of giving the feeling back was a transfer and a handbag.

Today he'd finally clocked my plain, low-key clothes against the showroom in Cici's wardrobe, and somewhere a guilty conscience had stirred. He felt like he owed me. So now he was trying to treat me the way he treated her.

The girl I used to be would have shoved it back, mortified, with something like, we're family, talking money cheapens it. And Everett would have decided she was small. Maybe even that she was angling for more with a sob story.

I didn't shove it back.

I kept it. And I handed him a document in return. A New-Media IP Incubation and Monetization Strategy Deck.

"I won't fritter this away," I told him.

"I'm going to use it as angel funding and stand up a media studio. Limelight Media."

"You put up the capital. That makes you my partner."

"That's the plan. If you're interested, we can talk details."

Everett read it. He was quiet a long time.

Then he looked at me. Less of the pity you hand someone beneath you. More of the respect you give someone across a table.

Three days later, his assistant got in touch.

What came over wasn't a catalog of new jewelry. It was a cap-raise agreement. Five million more, out of his own pocket, straight into my project.

See, when all you do is hold your hand out for candy, people buy you candy.

When you run yourself like a venture with upside, capital chases you down.

That five million was where his respect actually started.

I got to work on my surroundings.

Last time around, the staff in this house had read the room and made life hell for the real heiress. The gossip, the petty sabotage, the open question of whether she was even allowed at the table.

So I built a clean KPI structure.

"Service attitude is tied to your year-end bonus. Anyone running cliques or pulling workplace-bullying is fired and blacklisted across the industry."

To make the lesson land, I let Mrs. Whitfield go. The one near Marguerite who loved to run her mouth most.

A week later, service in that house hit five-star-hotel standard.

Conrad was very pleased.

"Em's got a head for management. She's a Sinclair after all."

Blood doesn't always matter much. What matters is what you can do for them.

Which is why I don't want their love. I want their money and their power.

Like the saying goes. Love without money is a house built on sand, and family without shared interest is just a performance, one bad day from caving in.

Or maybe nobody says that. Maybe I made it up.

Back in my room, Marguerite, my own mother, came in hot.

"Ember. You've been back five minutes and you've already turned this whole house upside down."

"Firing Mrs. Whitfield is one thing. Who said you could spend all day bullying Cici?"

Chapter 8

There's a particular kind of mother in a house like this one. The kind whose favoritism runs Pacific-deep.

To her, even with her blood in my veins, I was defective stock, raised feral out in the sticks, nowhere near as sweet or as polished as the Cici she'd spent twenty years grooming.

But her script was running behind.

Cici had dropped enough rounds to me by now that she'd moved her energy to her love life and quit the tearful tattling. Marguerite was only coming at me out of habit, the habit of treating a daughter like a doll she could vent on.

Cici had been adopted after I went missing. To survive in this house, she'd had to play that doll well.

Marguerite just had one thing wrong. I don't depend on her to survive.

I dialed Everett, right there in front of her.

"Dear investor. Your mother is harassing me at work. It may affect my output."

Then I put it on speaker.

Everett's voice came through, threaded with weariness.

"Mom. Em is handling business for me. Don't make a scene. If you've got time on your hands, go book a spa day."

Marguerite froze.

It landed on her all at once. In this house, seniority didn't equal standing. Output equaled standing.

She was a net-negative asset the Sinclair fortune carried. I was the partner turning Everett's money into more money. When the family card meets the P&L, a capitalist picks the P&L. Every time. Without blinking.

Watching her face fall, I was more sure than ever. The way to handle a mother who plays favorites is never to wag your tail for scraps of attention.

It's to prove your time is worth more than her nagging. Then make her shut up, fast.

Five months later, the Sinclair gala.

This was where they meant to do it. Conrad and Marguerite would formally announce who I was, and in the same breath announce that Cici was being handed an eight percent stake in the company.

A gift to Cici. A slap to me. Two birds, one stone.

Last time around, I'd worn the wrong gown to this and gotten torn to shreds for it.

This time I walked in wearing a couture suit I'd bought with my first paycheck. Sharp. All business.

Cici drifted in beside Roman in an extravagant princess gown.

Roman had been handled into something close to Stockholm syndrome lately. He caught sight of me and, on reflex, sucked in his stomach and squared his shoulders.

"Ember." Stiff. Awkward.

I nodded, signing off on a finished product.

"Solid progress. You've filled out. Keep it up. Cici deserves the best."

Cici glowed.

Halfway through the night, before they could reach their big announcement, I stepped up and took the mic first.

"Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming. While I have the room, I'd like to introduce the newest venture under the Sinclair Group, and the person running it. Me. Ember Sinclair."

I didn't talk about bloodlines. I talked about business.

Bloodlines are vapor. People file them under gossip and move on. Business is solid. Business pays.

The room had come for a real-heiress-versus-fake-heiress soap opera. Instead I fed them a pitch deck and a five-year vision.

A beat of silence. Then, low, somewhere in the crowd:

"That's no backwoods nobody. The way she talks, the way she thinks, she's sharper than half the moguls in this room."

Chapter 9

Conrad was the first on his feet, clapping. He crossed the stage, took the mic, and beamed at the room with all the warmth of a proud father.

"Em is young and formidable. She reminds me of myself at that age."

He was a businessman. He wanted the face and the substance, both. If this daughter could bring glory to the Sinclair name, then whether or not he felt a thing for her was beside the point. Because I had value, he could slide into the role of doting father between one breath and the next.

The eight percent for Cici never came up. Marguerite stood at the foot of the stage looking faintly stranded, a whole tear-jerking speech about sisterly devotion drafted and now useless in her hands.

Cici, blissfully clueless, had her mouth open, waiting for Roman to feed her a peeled shrimp.

One of the daily KPIs I'd written for him.

When the toasts wound down, Marguerite finally found her opening.

"Em. The Chanel gown I sent you. Why aren't you wearing it?"

"This whole evening is for you, and you show up dressed so plain. People will think the family doesn't value you. That I don't love my own daughter."

I tipped back a sip of champagne and answered without a ripple.

"That dress wasn't right for me."

Marguerite's brow creased.

"It was right for a daughter of this family."

She sighed, letting just the right measure of disappointment show.

"Cici never makes me worry about any of this. She knows what to wear and when. Why do you always have to fight me, child? Why can't you be a little more like Cici? Sweet. Easy."

There it was again.

Last time around, every time the girl I used to be stepped out of line, Marguerite reached for that exact sentence to put her back in her place.

I set down my glass and looked at her, calm.

"Ms. Ashford. You've got it backwards."

"Cici's job is to play sweet and deliver emotional value. My job is to be the professional and deliver commercial value. Different tracks. We aren't in competition. There's nothing to compare."

Marguerite choked.

"Do you have to talk like that? I'm your mother. Not your investor."

I only let out a soft sigh.

"Wrong again. In this house, you happen to be my single biggest investor."

"What?"

"Your influence with the society wives is an intangible asset."

I took out my phone, opened a proposal I'd had ready and waiting, The Vesper Club, and sent it to her.

"It's a spin-off line from the entertainment venture I mentioned earlier. I need a woman of real taste, real standing, real presence as my first ambassador."

I let my eyes travel over her, head to toe, with precisely the right amount of admiration.

"I've looked all night. There's no one in this room more suited than you. Put your name behind it and the project's half-built in New York already."

The flattery landed before she could duck it. Every grievance she'd loaded up scattered on the spot.

She glanced down at the proposal on her screen without meaning to.

"What is this nonsense? I don't understand any of it."

Chapter 10

"You don't need to understand it. You only need to understand fashion and beauty. In that arena, your eye is the gold standard."

I smiled and straightened her shawl for her.

"Between the facials, the card games, and the shopping, the truth is you're bored hollow. You've sunk every feeling you have into Cici, which is why one crying spell from her sends you into a panic. That's textbook single-channel investment risk."

"For the good of your inner life, I'd recommend investing in my new studio."

"Isn't that more satisfying than standing around at home watching the staff mop floors?"

Marguerite opened her mouth. The anger in her eyes thinned into confusion, and beneath that, at last, a flicker of interest she hadn't meant to let show.

Below me, the whole glittering crowd.

Cici threaded through it like a happy butterfly, basking in her parents' indulgence and Roman's attention.

I stood alone, up above it, the letter of intent I'd just closed still in my hand.

Some people would call that pitiable. To have turned family into a business.

The way I see it, it's the steadiest bond the adult world has on offer.

I thought of a line Virginia Woolf wrote in A Room of One's Own. That a woman needs money, and a room of her own. I'd always carried it past the page. Earn enough, by whatever means you can, to travel, to be idle, to think for yourself. To have a door that locks from the inside.

Because money is the cover charge for a self that belongs to you.

If I couldn't draw clean, uncomplicated love out of the family I was born to, I could at least make certain I always had the means to turn and walk away.

Life went on like that.

I worked the Sinclair house like a side quest, farming it for everything it was worth, and instead of getting ground down, I leveled up.

I'd cultivated Cici into a textbook trophy. Not much upstairs, but obedient, lovely, and without a hostile bone in her body.

I studied that face of hers.

Credit where it's due. She really was beautiful. The kind of soft, harmless pretty that trips every protective instinct in a person. Peak innocent-and-magnetic, ceiling-high.

Wasting it as a houseplant was a crime. This was top-tier viral material. A born screen-saint.

"Cici. Want Roman to love you even more?"

I led her along, gentle.

Her eyes lit up. "You've got another idea?"

"Of course. People are wired contrary. We only want what everyone else is scrambling for. The day you're the nation's sweetheart, a star the whole country looks up at, he won't just want to protect you for being fragile. He'll look up at you too. He'll be scared out of his mind to lose you, like a dog gone rabid."

Cici was spellbound by the picture I painted.

"But I heard the industry's a mess."

"That was before."

I slung an arm over her shoulders, the big bad wolf in grandma's bonnet, walking Red Riding Hood off the path.

"You've got me now. I run a company. I'll make you a star myself. A real campaign, built around you. You can start in vertical microdramas. You won't even have to memorize lines. Your only jobs are to be beautiful, to cry, and to give the camera that breakable look. Leave the rest to me."

Cici teared up, moved, and threw her arms around me.

"Sis, you're so good to me. I was such a brat before. I honestly thought you'd hate me."

I patted her back, eyes on the dollar signs floating in the empty air.

Silly girl. Of course I don't hate you.

Who hates a money tree?

Chapter 11

The moment I signed Cici, my business loop closed for good.

Everett put up the money. Marguerite put up the connections. Cici put up the face and the following.

I put up the brains, and took the biggest cut.

Three months later, the microdrama I'd backed dropped out of nowhere.

Cici played the lead. A sweet, fragile, dim little beauty drowning in a billionaire's affection. Playing herself, essentially.

The plot was trash. It was also completely addictive.

Cici blew up.

Blew up enormously.

Her socials gained three hundred thousand followers overnight.

Roman panicked.

Because the comment sections were wall-to-wall with women lining up to fight him for his wife.

He stormed into my office and slammed the desk.

"Ember! What the hell are you trying to pull? You put Cici out there for the whole world to ogle, and now you've got her doing a couples bit with that male lead!"

I leaned back in my chair and slid a fresh quote across the desk.

"Mr. Knox. Settle down."

"This is the bid sheet for the male lead in the next microdrama. Opening bid, five million. You can dote on Cici however you like on camera. I'll have the writers tailor the script to your notes."

"It's a perfect chance to let the whole internet witness your great love. Free PR for the Knox Group while you're at it."

"So. Are we doing business or not?"

Roman looked at me like he was looking at the devil himself.

He ground his teeth. Then he reached for his checkbook.

"Five million, fine! But the lead is me!"

I took the check, beaming.

"Pleasure doing business."

Last time around, the girl I used to be had bloodied herself fighting these people for scraps of their love.

This time, I'd turned them into my capital, my talent, and my paying customers.

And right on cue, with Cici blowing up, her birth parents came crawling out of the woodwork.

The greedy pair had dumped her as a newborn, back when a baby was just a cost they couldn't carry and wouldn't, an obstacle between them and easier money. Now that word had reached them she'd landed in a rich family, they were back to shake that family down.

Last time, terrified of losing her wealthy parents' favor, Cici had kept it quiet. She'd wired those leeches money on the side, and they'd sunk their hooks in and bled her dry.

But the timeline had shifted this round. The quiet little reunion never happened.

The two of them planted themselves outside the Sinclair estate, opened a livestream, and wailed into the press cameras until their voices cracked.

"Our poor, suffering daughter! We searched for her for twenty years!"

"To know she was taken in by such a fine family, living so well, we could die happy! We're not here for money. We only want to see our little girl!"

"Sweetheart, why won't you come out and see us?"

The acting was overblown, the lines were stale, and it was more than enough to set public opinion on fire.

Cici was terrified. She hid in her room, not daring to come out, crying prettily.

Conrad found it humiliating. He wanted to pay them off, and feared that paying once would only teach them to keep coming back.

Marguerite spun in helpless circles.

"So what do we do? Just let them make a scene out there? Does Cici get to have a life? Does this family have any dignity left?"

That was when I stepped forward.

"Crisis PR is a value-added service. This one runs you five million."

Chapter 12

Marguerite stared at me, disbelieving.

"Ember! Look at the state of things and you're still talking money? Do you have a heart at all?"

There it was again. The moral guilt-trip.

I looked at her, cold.

"If money talk cheapens the feeling, by all means, go out to the gate and negotiate feelings with them yourself. We'll see whether your motherly love moves them, or whether they just spit on your Herms."

Marguerite had nothing.

Conrad asked, low. "Can you guarantee this ends it for good?"

I straightened my collar.

"Everyone to their specialty. I spent twenty-odd years living in conditions a lot like theirs. I know how to handle that brand of shameless deadbeat better than any of you."

The money hit my account. I put on my professional fake smile and walked out to the front gate.

The couple was still sobbing into their phone camera.

"There's no justice left in this world! The rich, stealing a couple's own child! We only wanted to see our daughter!"

The comments were a wall of contempt.

Viewers: [The crying's so fake. Classic "we need a payout for the son's wedding" routine.]

Viewers: [Even money can't buy peace. Getting leeched by trash like this.]

This crop of viewers had seen the tearful-reunion grift a hundred times. Nobody was buying it.

I didn't have them cut the stream. I walked right into the shot, easy and unbothered.

"I hear you two want your daughter back? That's a beautiful thing. Flesh and blood, reunited. Just as it should be."

The couple froze. The comments froze with them.

The wind changed in a single beat. Every cruel word that had been pointed at the parents came flooding in at me instead.

Viewers: [Wait, isn't that the real heiress they just dug up?]

Viewers: [Ice cold. Shoving her own sister into the fire just to be rid of the adopted one? Rich-family infighting really is filthy.]

Viewers: [She looks so respectable, and her heart's blacker than the bloodsucker parents.]

Seeing how agreeable I was being, the man's eyes darted, and he scrambled right up the pole I'd handed him.

"Yes! Yes! We just want to bring our girl home!"

I gave a small smile and took out the calculator I'd had ready all along.

"No problem at all