Chapter 2

"Hazel! I thought after all these years you'd have grown up, learned some sense. Why do you insist on fighting Sienna over Adrian?"

Julian's fury was exactly what I'd expected. There was even something like contempt in his eyes.

"I know what you're after. You just want the Sterling name — the life of luxury that comes with it!"

"You and Adrian barely know each other. Sienna and Adrian grew up together. Why are you so selfish? Why hold on to this engagement just to torture her?"

I actually laughed.

"Julian, since you agree the Sterlings are such a good match — why are you asking me to hand him over to Sienna?"

"You're worried about Sienna's pain. But not mine?"

I took a step forward and locked eyes with him.

"And while you're at it — why don't you ever ask me, your actual sister, whether I even like Adrian?"

Julian's voice almost cracked. "How dare you even —"

My gaze went cold. He caught himself, then glanced away, clearly uncomfortable under the knowing contempt in my eyes.

What a joke. Same daughters of the Harringtons, and when it came to me, all I got was "how dare you."

I let my eyes drop, and dust on the mahogany floor suddenly stung them. I turned on my heel.

"Don't bother with the room. I'm heading back to campus this afternoon. I've got an internship starting — I won't be staying."

Julian's voice chased after me. "Hazel! You bullied Sienna all through school — you drove her into depression, made her drop out! Don't you feel even a little guilty?"

I stopped.

My eyes burned before I could stop them.

Bullying?

Even if I wore my voice out explaining, they would only ever believe the girl they had raised.

I walked down the stairs. In the living room, my mother — who'd been fussing over Sienna, spooning her a dessert — stood up too quickly.

"Hazel, you're not staying for dinner?"

I stood there, staring at the woman whose eyes and brows looked so much like mine. And for a secret, foolish second, something like hope stirred in me.

"I've got the internship starting soon. I'm going back to campus."

She paused, and the look on her face was almost like relief. Then she tried to speak and couldn't quite get the words out.

"About Sienna — never mind. Just — drive safe."

The air held still for a few seconds. I gave a tired, almost-laugh.

"...Okay."

This house. Eight years ago, eight years later — nobody ever welcomed me.

Not even my own mother.

I walked out of the estate without looking back.

On the bus, my phone buzzed.

A message from Julian, pompous and self-righteous.

"Hazel. You owe Sienna for what you did, and you need to make it right. As your older brother, it's my responsibility to see justice done — and my responsibility to teach you right from wrong."

I turned off the phone.

Eight years ago, Sienna and her little circle at school had cornered me constantly. They'd thrown my textbooks in the trash, hacked off chunks of my hair, dropped silica packets into my water bottle, ambushed me on the walk home to smack me around.

Compared to the beatings and endless chores back at St. Agnes, it almost felt manageable.

I didn't understand yet what it meant to be the Harringtons' only biological daughter. All I knew was that Mom and Dad and Julian loved Sienna — pretty, polished, delicate Sienna.

I told myself that if I just got along with her, I could stay in this beautiful polished family.

I didn't want to go back to the orphanage. Ever.

So I told myself: just endure it. Just a little longer. Same as St. Agnes.

But Sienna wasn't willing to share a roof with me.

She changed tactics. Started giving herself injuries. Rallied her friends to testify that I bullied her every day at school. Paid for a forged psychiatric evaluation and sobbed her way into an early withdrawal.

The stuffed doll Adrian had given me became the final straw.

She snatched it from me, snarling.

"What right do you have to keep something from Adrian? A piece of trash like you should have died in that orphanage. Why did you even come back to steal my family's love?"

The first time I ever fought back was over that doll.

It was the only gift I'd been given the day I came home.

My house. My name. My brother. My parents. All of it already belonged to her.

I couldn't understand why she even needed this one little doll too.

That night, Sienna wailed until the whole house shook, then pulled up the security footage.

And there it was on camera: me, hitting her.

Every piece of bullying she'd carefully staged, her fake depression — all of it got hung around my neck because of that footage.

And that was how I was packed off to Wickham — exiled from the Harringtons.

And in the eight lonely years that followed, that stuffed doll — and the boy I'd met exactly once, Adrian — were the only things I had to hold on to.