Sold to the Wrong Family

01

My foster parents doted only on my sister. I never fought for anything, and still my family called me a stuck-up fake.

I'd barely made it to the edge of college when my birth parents, a wealthy family, sent their butler to bring me home to Metropolis and reclaim my place among them.

【Run! The Hensons want sons over daughters. They dumped you at the orphanage on purpose the second they saw you weren't a boy!】

【That's right. They adopted a fake heir, and someday the whole fortune and every connection goes to him!】

I stared at the warning pop-ups that had appeared out of nowhere, frozen in place.

【They only want you back now because the Hensons need a marriage-alliance tool. You'll be forced to marry some widowed old man!】

【Yeah, and the fake heir hates you. He'll team up with the old geezer and have someone play with you until you're dead. It ends brutally.】

I shook my head fast and turned the butler down on the spot.

"No, thank you. I'm an adult now and I can support myself, so I won't be going back to Metropolis with you."

But the very next second, my sister rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath.

"Who are you kidding with that stuck-up act? It's disgusting."

Then she raised her hand, eyes shining, and looked at the butler.

"Sir, can I go back to the family in my sister's place?"

……

The words made me freeze. I lifted my eyes to Carly Fox, not quite able to believe it.

Her face held nothing but eagerness now, her gaze locked on the butler.

As if terrified of losing a chance that came once in a lifetime.

The butler looked Carly over twice and said, polite but distant,

"Understood. I'll relay your request to Mr. and Mrs. Henson exactly as you've stated it."

Then he said nothing more, turned, and left with the servants who'd come with him.

In the cramped, narrow doorway of our home, only Carly and I were left.

I frowned gently, a little helpless.

"Carly, don't do something reckless."

"Life in that family isn't the glossy thing you imagine…"

I thought again of the dense stream of warning pop-ups in my head.

Once you were taken back into the Henson family, it really was dangerous.

Carly and I didn't get along, but I still couldn't stand by and watch her jump straight into the pit.

But Carly rolled her eyes so hard it was almost obscene, her whole face full of scorn.

"Carly? No, I think the one being reckless here is you."

She looked down her nose at me, contempt in every line of her face.

"What is this above-it-all, wants-nothing act you keep putting on?"

"I know you've always wanted to find your birth parents. And now that a wealthy family has come in person to claim you and take you home, suddenly you don't want to go?"

I pushed down the tangle of feelings and said flatly,

"It's not an act. I really don't want to go."

But the plain truth only made Carly angrier.

"I think you're deliberately playing the stuck-up saint to win the Hensons over."

"You want them to beg you again and again, so you can go back to Metropolis looking down on everyone, right?"

"It's disgusting. You've been like this your whole life. Never fighting for anything, never wanting anything."

"You just have to play the girl with no desires, so everyone gets the wrong idea and thinks I'm the vain one!"

"Let me tell you, I'm going to the Hensons this time no matter what!"

I watched Carly rage, and something bitter settled in my chest.

My foster parents couldn't have children, so they adopted me from the orphanage.

But the second year after they took me in, my foster mother suddenly got pregnant.

That was the year Carly came into this house.

To them, Carly was the flesh and blood they'd struggled so hard to have, a treasure heaven had granted them.

Everything good in the house always went to Carly first.

I tried, once, to fight for my share. All it earned me was my foster parents' scolding.

Little by little, I turned quiet, stopped reaching for anything, stopped fighting.

And then my foster parents scolded me for being cold and ungrateful.

Carly called me a hypocrite, a stuck-up fake.

No matter what I did, it was wrong.

I drew a soft breath and tried one last time.

"Carly, the Hensons' situation is complicated. It isn't as simple as you think."

"If you rush into it, all you'll find is trouble…"

"Enough!"

Carly cut me off sharply, her face ugly.

"Spare me the doom and gloom!"

"I think you're just a stuck-up fake. You want that family to invite you a few more times, then you'll go back all reluctant, so everyone can praise you for caring nothing about fame and money!"

"What, now that you see me going after this chance, you're panicking?"

At that, the last flicker of any urge to talk her out of it died in me.

"Suit yourself."