Chapter 1

I was the true heiress, my identity swapped.

Five years after giving birth out of wedlock, my biological parents finally came to claim me. They told me I had to fulfill an engagement with the Maxwell family's scion.

I brought my daughter home, and the fake heiress, Charlotte, sneered, “Sister actually brought this burden back? How shameless!”

Blake Maxwell, the family scion, publicly broke off our engagement, scoffing, “Make me raise someone else's bastard? Do you even deserve that?”

I didn't say a word, just lowered my head and offered my daughter a comforting smile.

My daughter wasn't some bastard.

She was the true heir of the Maxwell family.

0The atmosphere in the Hayes family banquet hall was dead silent.

All the friends and relatives present stared at my daughter and me.

This evening's banquet was supposed to be a special event to welcome me home.

But the moment I walked in with my daughter, before I could even speak, the fake heiress, Charlotte, derailed the whole topic with that single word: "bastard."

Blake Maxwell, the scion of the Maxwell family – the wealthiest family in the city – felt publicly humiliated. His face was thunderous as he broke off the engagement, then stormed out.

He left behind a hall full of guests, buzzing with whispers.

“What a low-class mess. I can’t believe the Hayes family would make such a spectacle of bringing her back. Don’t they have any shame?”

Only Blake Maxwell’s aunt, Eleanor Maxwell, smiled and tried to smooth things over. “Blake had too much to drink; he didn't mean any of that. How could a childhood betrothal between the Maxwell and Hayes families just be called off? I'll make sure Blake comes to apologize tomorrow once he's sober.”

My father’s humiliated expression finally eased a bit.

After the guests left, his face immediately darkened. He raised his hand and slapped me across the face.

“What did I tell you yesterday?”

“I told you not to bring that little brat home, or you wouldn't be allowed through this door yourself. We’re lucky Mr. Maxwell was delayed tonight and didn’t make it to the banquet. Otherwise, with the spectacle you made, how would the Hayes family ever explain this to him?!”

The Mr. Maxwell my father spoke of was Alexander Maxwell, the current head of the Maxwell family.

Alex Maxwell was middle-aged and unmarried, with a naturally low sperm count.

The chances of him having children in this lifetime were next to none.

His nephew, Blake Maxwell, was expected to inherit the Maxwell family’s billions if nothing went wrong.

So, when my mother found out that the daughter she’d raised for twenty-five years, Charlotte Hayes, was not her biological child, she desperately sought me out, her true daughter.

And she forced my father to agree to my marriage into the Maxwell family.

All to make up for the love I’d missed over the years.

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