After Returning Home, an Impostor Appeared in My Family

1: 1

Fresh back from studying abroad, I started work at the finance firm my brother ran.

On my very first day, a disagreement over how to sell one of our financial products put me on the wrong side of a fellow intern named Joy Sutton. A coworker who'd taken a liking to me looked at me with something close to despair.

"Of all the people to cross, you had to pick her? That's the Farley heiress. She's got the whole Farley family behind her, and the CEO is her own brother. Good luck to you."

The Farley heiress?

The CEO is her brother?

After that little speech, I smiled.

So someone was out here playing the real-princess, fake-princess game with me.

Swinging a sword right in front of the real deal. She wasn't even worried about throwing her back out.

...

I genuinely hadn't expected it. While I was off getting my degree abroad, someone had stolen my identity clean out from under me.

I pushed down the urge to march into my brother's office and pour it all out, calmed my coworker, took the files my supervisor had handed me, and went back to my desk.

Ever since I'd offended Joy that morning, every senior coworker had started drifting away from me, deliberately or not, terrified of getting on her bad side.

My direct supervisor started leaning on me too, piling on an absurd amount of work.

Luckily, all of it was well within what I could handle.

"Some people really don't take a good look at who they are before they go offending our Miss Joy. Just wait for it to catch up with her."

"Right? And honestly, Joy's being generous. If it were me, she'd have started Monday and been out the door by Wednesday."

"Oh, stop it, you two. We're all interns here. We should look out for each other. Don't drag my status into it."

Listening to Joy's little fan club run their mouths behind my back, I smiled.

I picked up the proposal that had just been greenlit and tossed it onto the heiress's desk. "Sorry," I said lightly, "but my proposal got approved, which is why my supervisor loaded me up with the same amount of work. Not like you, still fuzzy on who you actually are, coasting on whatever flattery the people around you feed you. Isn't that right, Miss Farley?"

I finished, and I caught the flicker of panic across Joy's face before she smoothed it over.

"Well. Congratulations to you, then, Bailey Abbott."

Her handful of loyal fans, cheeks red with anger, looked ready to fire something back, but Joy's phone started ringing and they all fell silent at once.

A little after four that afternoon, the company called a meeting. Once the clients were seated, the proposals up on the screen came out of the USB drive a scrambled mess, and a few of the files were completely blank.

The executive demanded to know, loudly, who had been responsible for this.

Before I could get a word out, Joy jumped in.

"Honestly, this is on me. Ever since Bailey joined, our team's been running smoothly, and I think this one was left to her too. Sir, I really think Bailey's just been under too much pressure lately. A few slip-ups are only natural. As team lead, I can't dodge my share of the blame."

"Nonsense, Joy. This isn't your fault. I know what you're capable of. You just can't afford to coddle certain people. I heard Bailey used to be one of your family's charity scholarship students, isn't that right? As the one in charge, you need to hold a little more authority over her."

"You're absolutely right, Mr. Larkin."

2: 2

On his way out, Mr. Larkin shot me a look, his face black with anger.

"Bailey, I want an explanation from you. Otherwise, there are plenty of other people who'd be glad to take over this project."

I bit back the urge to expose Joy's little act right there, because I knew there was no point in tearing off her mask now.

The next morning I spent hours going through the security footage before I finally caught it: at one point that USB drive had been switched out by one of the girls in Joy's little circle.

She'd bundled herself up so carefully I almost missed it. If it hadn't been for the agate bracelet on her wrist, the one she'd spent so long showing off the day before, I never would have caught her on camera.

But even if I put the truth out there now, the worst that would happen was that one of Joy's people got punished, and Joy herself would slip away clean.

So I decided to wait for my moment.

That evening, as luck would have it, Joy and I ended up waiting by the lobby doors at the same time.

When she saw me, her face went stiff for an instant, then she said to me, a little coy about it,

"What a coincidence. It's raining out there. Here, borrow my umbrella, Bailey. My boyfriend's almost here."

I was about to tell her not to bother, that my brother had gone back to the garage for the car and would be pulling around any second.

But before I could get a word out, a familiar figure came into view.

It was the ex-boyfriend I'd broken up with before I went abroad to study.

Laurence Joyce. The moment I saw him, memories I'd sealed away came drifting up like water rising.

He'd been an upperclassman at the college I attended back home; we met freshman year and started dating soon after.

For all the time we were together, he was generous with the emotional stuff and never once actually helped me with anything.

If anything, he used my connections in college to land the position of student council president.

Back then I was as clean and naive about love as a blank sheet of paper. A few sweet words off his lips were enough to win me over.

It wasn't until he was about to graduate that I found out he had another woman on the side.

He'd only stayed with me because I was the so-called "campus queen," the girl everyone chased.

That made him, the "campus king," want to win me, to claim the prize.

Once he graduated, I had no value to him anymore.

That was my "first love." A relationship so ridiculous it was almost funny.

Laurence seemed to notice me too, glancing over a few extra times without placing my face.

"Ahem, Bailey, let me introduce you. This is my boyfriend, Laurence Joyce. Laurie, this is Bailey, a coworker who just started at the company today."

At the sound of my name, Laurence looked like something had suddenly come back to him. His face changed, and without so much as a glance my way he grabbed Joy and bolted out into the rain, umbrella still folded.

I figured he'd recognized me.

It made sense he hadn't at first. After all these years, I was nothing like the girl I used to be.

So let me take a guess. A man like Laurence, always chasing advantage and steering clear of anything that isn't, was surely with Joy because of her supposed tie to the Farley family.

I really hadn't expected that Laurence's current girlfriend would, by some twist of fate, turn out to be my coworker.

"Little Bailey, why aren't you answering, standing there all this time? Aren't you cold? Get in the car, it's warm."

A cool, pleasant voice cut through my thoughts, and my brother Nolan Farley, whom I hadn't seen in so long, was suddenly there in front of me.

Inside, the car was clean and warm, the faint good smell of expensive men's cologne drifting through it now and then.

But I was in no mood to enjoy it. Thinking back on my first day of work, shut out by my coworkers, and then this so-called heiress who'd stolen my identity showing up on top of it all.

All at once it got to me, and I poured out every bit of it to him, the whole bucket of grievances.

3: 3

Still sulking, I demanded my brother tell me what was going on.

Nolan steered with one hand and reached over with the other, brushing my forehead in that spoiling way of his.

Then, in a low, unhurried voice, he told me everything that had happened at home while I was studying abroad.

It turned out that after I went overseas, the family had attended a charity gala the firm put together.

There was a girl there who came to represent everyone from the poor district at the fundraising event. That girl was Joy.

Mom and Dad heard she'd gotten top marks in every subject and earned a place at a good college, but her family had no money to send her. And since she was about my age, it stirred their sympathy, so they had my brother start sponsoring her.

From the day the family began sponsoring her, she started coming around all the time.

She knew I existed, the daughter of the house, so whenever Mom was missing me, Joy would loop her arm through Mom's and stay by her side, keeping her cheerful.

One thing led to another, and Mom's heart softened even more, until she simply let Joy move in.

"Let me be clear, this part has nothing to do with me. Mom's just always been too soft-hearted, and that Joy is far too good with her words. After graduation, Mom pointed out that Joy's major lined up perfectly with the firm, so she brought her straight in."

"As for the rumors she spreads at work, I actually spoke to her out of respect for her feelings and told her to put a stop to them herself. But it always ends up going nowhere. I've talked to Mom and Dad too, but the moment Joy sweet-talks her, Mom's heart melts for her all over again."

For a moment I didn't know what to say. I thought it over and let out a sigh.

"Never mind. If it makes Mom happy, that's fine. It's just a few more chopsticks at the table. But one of these days I'll have a talk with her, make her understand that a person has to be honest."

The second I said that, I caught my brother giving me a strange look. Then he shook his head.

"All right, don't lecture Mom either. Of the two of us, you're the one most like her. A sharp tongue and a soft heart."

I pursed my lips and said nothing.

So when soft-hearted me got home and found my sweet pink princess bedroom already taken over by someone else, every one of those saintly little notions got smashed to pieces.

4: 4

Unbelievable. She didn't just steal my identity, she took over my room too.

All those guest rooms, and she had to sleep in my bed.

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

There's only so much a person can stand.

So I spent a few hours clearing my room out.

As for Joy's things, I packed every last one and dumped them in the guest room farthest from mine.

I thought I was being pretty generous, honestly.

I didn't throw her luggage out the front door, so she was getting off easy.

Once I was done, I lay down on my freshly made bed and slept for a while.

Half-asleep, I heard a shrill scream.

No question about it. Joy was back.

I watched her without a flicker of expression, savoring that instant of panic and confusion on her face.

A moment later, once she'd recovered, she started demanding answers at the top of her voice.

"Bailey?! What are you doing in my house, sleeping in my bed? Wait, where are my things?"

Right on the heels of Joy's shrieking came Laurence.

"You?! What are you doing in Joy's house? This is breaking and entering, do you understand that?"

"Oh, I get it now. Did you go digging into me? Bailey, we're over. All these years, I never imagined you still hadn't moved on. I'm a son-in-law of the Farley family now. We're worlds apart, don't you know that?"

Hilarious. I hadn't said a word yet, and the two of them had already decided I was some outsider who'd broken in.

I couldn't be bothered to explain much, but just to knock this Laurence off his self-absorbed high horse and cure that baffling sense of superiority, I fired back:

"Laurence, the smartest decision I ever made in my life was leaving you. And this family doesn't want you here, so go back to wherever you crawled in from."

Laurence flushed with fury, the finger he jabbed at me trembling.

"Who do you think you are?! This is Joy's house, and I'm Joy's boyfriend, her future husband! What right does an outsider like you have to throw me out?"

"Right? Let me tell you exactly what right she has. Bailey is my own sister, and your so-called girlfriend is a charity case we sponsored. You two are the outsiders here!"

When Joy heard my brother say that, her eyes rolled back like she couldn't take it, and she fainted dead away.