Chapter 2

Seeing my father’s rage, my mother immediately stepped in front of my daughter and me, vehemently arguing, “Aria is our biological daughter, and her daughter is your own flesh and blood! How can you call your own granddaughter a mongrel?”

But my father refused to acknowledge my daughter.

He eyed us with disgust.

“You shameless wretch, having a child out of wedlock! You’ve completely disgraced the Hayes family. I think Charlotte should go through with this marriage instead of you.”

With that, he turned and walked away.

“Dad, don’t be angry; it’s bad for your health. Sister didn’t mean to—”

Charlotte quickly followed him, cooing at my father while not forgetting to turn back and give me a smug smile.

My mother watched her, spitting in disgust, and cursed under her breath, “That little bitch, Charlotte, she’s just like her birth mother—ungrateful vipers, both of them.”

Charlotte’s birth mother was a college student my mother had once sponsored.

After graduating, Charlotte’s mother not only showed no gratitude but took the opportunity to seduce my father, becoming his mistress he kept on the side.

Later, she and my mother became pregnant at the same time and gave birth to daughters on the same day.

While my mother was unconscious after childbirth, she bribed a nurse at the hospital and swapped me and Charlotte.

Charlotte became the pampered heiress, having everything she ever wanted since childhood.

As for me, Charlotte's mother left me to be raised in a remote fishing village, hard to reach and cut off from the outside world. I didn't even finish college.

It wasn't until a month ago that my mother learned the truth and found me.

“But your father is right,” my mother’s tone softened slightly, her gaze lingering subtly on my daughter. She sighed wistfully, “You really shouldn’t have brought the child home. And it’s lucky Alex Maxwell didn’t come; otherwise, who knows how we would have salvaged tonight.”

As the head of the Maxwell family, Alex Maxwell was known for being cold and ruthless.

My act of bringing my daughter home tonight was undoubtedly a slap in the Maxwell family’s face.

If Alex Maxwell had been present, he wouldn't have let it slide so easily.

But precisely because I knew he would be attending the banquet, I decided at the last minute to bring my daughter.

I covered my left cheek, still stinging from my father’s slap, and looked at Luna’s eyes, identical to Alex Maxwell’s. I whispered, “Mom, if Alex Maxwell had been here tonight, I wouldn’t have gotten this slap. Maybe Dad would even be trying to butter us up, Luna and me.”

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