To be with me, Elwin Gilbert gave up his position as heir to his family's empire.

After cutting ties with his clan, he lived with me in a basement apartment, surviving on instant noodles.

We built our company from nothing. In just five years, we took it public.

At the IPO gala, he walked toward me—diamond ring in hand, bouquet of roses cradled in his arm.

But he brushed past me.

He stopped in front of his secretary, dropped to one knee, and proposed.

I stared at him, stunned. "Why?"

He didn't even look at me. "Valerie is the daughter of Capital City's richest man. She defied her family to help me, came all the way to Bayview City alone. I have to take responsibility for her."

"From now on, she'll be my wife. You'll be my business partner. Together, we'll take this company to new heights."

I laughed out loud.

After my brother turned out to be a lost cause, my parents decided to toughen me up the hard way—raising me with nothing so I'd learn to fight for everything.

Funny. I didn't know I had a secret sister.

Just to make sure I wasn't about to destroy the wrong person, I pulled up Valerie's photo and dropped it into the family group chat.

I tagged my father, who was currently on a flight to Bayview City:

[Old man, did you go behind Mom's back and father some illegitimate daughter I don't know about?]

1.

A second later, my phone rang. My father's voice exploded through the speaker:

"You little brat! Are you so tired of suffering that you're trying to sabotage my marriage? I'm chained to your mother's waist twenty-four-seven—when would I have time to father a secret child?!"

My mother's thunderous roar erupted in the background, accompanied by my father's yelps of pain.

That confirmed it. Valerie Pruitt was a fraud.

I hung up and turned to Elwin. "Are you sure you want to marry her?"

"Yes."

He spun around, eyes shining with hope as he gazed at Valerie. "Valerie, will you marry me?"

His hand trembled as he held out the ring. The excitement radiating off him was almost painful to watch.

This was the scene I'd imagined a thousand times. But the woman he was proposing to wasn't me anymore.

Five years. Five brutal years of building this life with Elwin Gilbert.

My parents, determined to forge me into something unbreakable, had set my life to nightmare mode. Unless I was in mortal danger, they refused to lift a finger.

His parents, furious that he'd severed ties with the family for some "nobody from the middle of nowhere," wouldn't help him either—even if his life depended on it. They wanted reality to crush him until he crawled back, begging for forgiveness.

He never did. Not once.

For five years, we poured everything into one goal: taking this company public. Proving ourselves.

He wanted to prove he could make it without his family. That he could give me a better life.

I wanted to prove myself worthy—so my parents would finally reveal my identity, and his family would accept our marriage.

We clawed through every obstacle together, teeth gritted, backs against the wall.

He'd promised me countless times: the day the company went public, he would propose to me in front of everyone.

He would give me the grandest wedding imaginable.

And I had made up my mind to finally tell him who I really was.

"Yes!"

Valerie shot me a look of pure triumph before accepting the flowers with tearful grace. She extended her left hand to Elwin.

His eyes glistened as he slid the ring onto her finger. Then he pulled her into a kiss.

As if, in that moment, he had everything he'd ever wanted.

Around us, the crowd erupted in applause and cheers—mocking me. Not a single face showed surprise.

So Elwin had been cheating with Valerie all along.

I was the only fool who hadn't known.

My eyes burned. The smile frozen on my face must have looked grotesque.

Someone shoved me from behind.

"Maureen Farley, did you really think a nobody like you could transform into a phoenix?"

"Only a true heiress like Valerie deserves someone of Elwin's status. If you're going to cry, do it somewhere else!"

I didn't cry. My eyes just burned, raw and stinging.

But that didn't stop me from tendering my resignation and demanding my shares back.

Elwin actually laughed.

"Maureen, stop being dramatic. Without Valerie backing you all these years, how could you have possibly held onto your position and that generous salary? Leave Starlight, leave me, and you'll be nothing."

So that was how he saw it. Everything I'd poured into this company—invisible. All of it credited to Valerie.

I couldn't help but laugh.

"If your precious Valerie weren't the billionaire's daughter, would you still be marrying her?"

He didn't even hesitate. "No—I love her, not her status."

"Just like I once loved you."

My stomach turned.

"You've always said you wanted to be part of my family, haven't you?" He tilted his head, magnanimous. "Valerie is generous. She's agreed to let me take you on as my sworn sister. As long as you behave, my parents will accept you too. Getting you into the family registry might be difficult, of course."

"Unless you return the Starlight shares to Valerie..."

He stood there, looking down at me with absolute certainty that I would agree.

I laughed out loud.

I must have loved him too much, once. Enough to make him think I'd accept this absurd charity.

He mistook my laughter for joy. After all, the Gilbert family was one of the most prominent in Crescent City.

"Little sis, I knew you'd be sensible!"

He'd already changed what he called me before I could even respond.

The crowd around us erupted.

"Oh my God, even someone like Maureen gets to be the Gilbert heir's sworn sister? Does that mean we qualify too?"

A chorus of voices started calling him "brother."

Elwin basked in the adulation, chin lifted like a preening peacock. He gestured to his assistant, who handed me a document.

"Maureen, sign this agreement, and you can settle into your role as the Gilbert family's adopted daughter. With me and your future sister-in-law looking after you, you'll never want for anything."

The agreement stated in black and white that the Starlight shares were registered under my name.

But the actual shareholder was Valerie.

The date was three years ago.

Elwin was trying to use a forged proxy agreement to steal my equity.

Whatever love I'd once felt—that towering, overwhelming love—crumbled to ash.

I looked away and turned to leave.

Elwin grabbed my arm. "Little sis, where are you going?"

The seamless way he'd adopted that title made my hand move before I could think. My palm cracked across his face.

"Shut up. You think you're fit to call yourself my brother?"

He clutched his reddening cheek, disbelief written across his features.

"Maureen, what is wrong with you? Becoming a Gilbert daughter is something people would kill for. Why can't you just be grateful?"

"I suffered through everything to be with you. I thought love could conquer anything. But apparently, all my success was really because Valerie was secretly helping me behind the scenes."

"She sacrificed so much for me, and all she wanted was the title of Mrs. Gilbert. You're the one benefiting from all of this—you're about to leap up the social ladder. Why can't you just see the bigger picture?"

"If you could help me take this company public the way Valerie did, I wouldn't mind giving you the Gilbert name either."

I froze.

Valerie—the decorative secretary who couldn't even carry a cup of tea without spilling it—had helped take the company public?

Then what were my five years of blood, sweat, and tears?

I spent my days fixing the flaws in Elwin's development work. My nights were spent drinking with clients, securing investments.

I'd been hospitalized for stomach bleeding more times than I could count. And where was Valerie during all of that? Checking in at nightclubs. Eating street food at night markets.

Then showing up the next morning with heavy smoky eye makeup to hide the dark circles.

Thinking back to all those times I couldn't stand Valerie's garish makeup and told her to pay attention to her appearance—and how Elwin always defended her—it hit me all at once. He'd been cheating on me even then.

I'd just been too buried in work, too busy helping him build his business empire, to notice his heart had already drifted to another woman.

And now, at the very pinnacle of his career, he wanted to demote me from girlfriend to sworn sister—a neat little cover for his betrayal while making himself look loyal and honorable.

Fine. Then I wouldn't hold back either.

I'd taken Starlight Corporation public. I could just as easily bankrupt him.

But this was still the company I'd poured everything into. I didn't want to destroy my enemy at the cost of destroying myself.

"I need to use the restroom. Give me five minutes to think."

Elwin saw me wavering and took it as my last show of resistance. He let me go.

I left the celebration and called Elwin's biggest rival.

"Thirty percent of Starlight's shares. Interested?"

Because of Elwin, Arnold Delgado and I had always been on opposite sides—competitors, even enemies. But that never stopped us from respecting each other's abilities.

As Arnold put it, Starlight's equity was nothing to him.

What he actually wanted was the product patent I was bundling with the share transfer.

It was a surprise I'd secretly prepared for Elwin, meant to celebrate today's IPO.

Too bad. He'd missed his chance.

I didn't mind selling it to Arnold at a premium—and throwing in the Starlight shares as a bonus for him to play with.

Whatever he did with them was no longer my concern.

Arnold's response was immediate:

"Time and place. I'm on my way."

While Elwin and Valerie celebrated their engagement upstairs, Arnold and I signed the contract in the ground-floor café.

Once the money hit my account, we raised our glasses in a toast.

But Elwin, still fixated on getting me to sign that nominee shareholder agreement today, had sent someone to find me in the restroom.

When Phineas Sullivan spotted me downstairs with Arnold, he immediately ran to fetch his boss.

"Maureen! What the hell is this?"

I didn't spare Elwin a single glance. I clinked glasses with Arnold again.

"Mr. Delgado, here's to a successful partnership."

Being ignored made a vein throb at Elwin's temple.

"Maureen, what kind of deal did you make with him? You know he's my enemy!"

Before I could answer, Valerie appeared out of nowhere and cut in:

"Elwin, isn't it obvious? She's exactly what the rumors say—only ever interested in your status as the Gilbert heir!"

"Since she can't be Mrs. Gilbert, she's latched onto your rival just to spite you!"

"Who knows? She's probably already sold company secrets to him!"

Elwin's patience snapped. He lunged forward to drag me from my seat.

Arnold raised a hand and blocked him.

"Elwin Gilbert. You're an embarrassment to men everywhere. You cheated, and you have the nerve to interrogate your girlfriend?"

"Oh wait—ex-girlfriend now. And while we're at it, let's update our relationship too. 'Rivals' sounds so harsh. From now on, we should call ourselves partners."

Arnold deliberately waved the share transfer agreement in Elwin's face.

Before Elwin could read it, Arnold turned to me with a wicked grin.

"Maureen, what do you say—should I crash Starlight's stock price right now? Give everyone a front-row seat to watch Valerie Pruitt, the so-called billionaire's daughter, try to save the day?"

Even Arnold, an outsider, knew that Starlight's success was entirely my doing—not Valerie's.

Yet Elwin couldn't see it.

He was so blind, so willfully ignorant, that he believed every lie Valerie fed him.