She Thought She Was the Heroine

"I'm back. Time for you to hand over my place." The "real daughter" knocked the package out of my hands the second she came through the door, and sneered the warning at me.

I blinked at her. I hadn't worked out how to explain any of it yet.

Her brother was already coming down the stairs, frowning. "What are you screaming at your sisterinlaw for?" The triumph on her face froze solid.

I picked the La Mer up off the floor and couldn't help giving her a headsup. "The one you're actually looking for, I'd leave her alone." "She's not in your lane." "She isn't fighting over who gets loved more.

She's fighting for a seat on the board." Chapter 1 Brooke's face went from shock to confusion.

It settled, finally, into a look of wounded fury that said we were all in on it together, all lying to her. "That's impossible!" She jabbed a finger at me and screamed. "The novels spell it out.

The real daughter comes back, and there is always an impostor in the house who's been living her life for the last dozen years!" "And to keep her here, you'd actually make up a lie like 'sisterinlaw'!" She turned to Griffin, and the tears finally broke. "Griffin!

How could you do this? I'm your own sister! You'd lie to me like this, for an outsider?" Her logic was making a muscle in Griffin's temple twitch.

He came over and pulled me up off the floor. He took the bottle of La Mer out of my hand on the way and set it on the table.

Only then did he turn to Brooke, his voice as heavy as iron. "Brookie, Margot is my wife. We've been married two years." "She's your sisterinlaw.

She isn't some impostor." He paused, then added: "And nobody is lying to you." "There is an adopted kid in this family.

It isn't her." Brooke stared at me, then at Griffin's hand holding mine tight.

Her entire worldview seemed to be going through a major earthquake. "M—married?" My mouth twitched as I looked at her. This was the brain that was going to compete with Vienna?

Just then my fatherinlaw and motherinlaw came hurrying in from the garden, drawn by the noise.

My motherinlaw, Diane, took one look at Brooke crying and, aching for her, rushed straight over to gather her up. "Brookie, baby, what's wrong? Who's been picking on you?

Tell me." Brooke had found someone to hold the line for her. She let out a wail and cried harder. She pointed at Griffin and me and got the accusation out in the wrong order. "Mom!

Griffin lied to me! He wants to keep that impostor in the house—" "so he actually said… he said she's his wife!" Diane blinked, and her face went awkward.

She patted Brooke's back and soothed her, soft. "Brookie, you've got it wrong. Maggie really is your sisterinlaw.

She's your brother's wife." "We did adopt a girl after you went missing, but it isn't her." "Then who is she?" Brooke's head snapped up.

I said, helpfully: "She flew to Singapore today for a crossborder acquisition.

She probably won't be back until next week." Brooke's eyes whipped back to me, wary and full of suspicion. "You know her schedule that well? I knew it.

You two are in this together!" I had nothing left to say. My fatherinlaw, Rupert, was not a man who smiled much.

He came over, took one look at the mess on the floor, and spoke, low. Chapter 2 "Enough. Brookie just got home.

Stop this." "Marg, take Brookie upstairs and see whether she likes the room we set up for her." Clearly this was meant to give the two of us a chance to warm to each other.

Before I could turn it down, Brooke had already refused for both of us. "No! I don't want her taking me anywhere! How do I know she won't do something to me up there?" She stopped.

Something occurred to her, and her eyes lit up. "I want the impostor's room!" "I'm taking back everything that belongs to me!" The living room went silent.

I very nearly lost my straight face. Rupert's face darkened, and Diane looked caught in the middle. Only Griffin let out a snort.

He took his time answering. "Brooke Holloway, I'd drop that idea." "Even I don't dare just walk into Vienna's room." "Why?!" Brooke wasn't having it.

She stamped her foot and started yelling. "That room should have been mine in the first place!" "What gives some impostor the right to squat in it like a cuckoo in the nest?" "Because she had a double degree from MIT at fifteen and joined the company at seventeen." "Because she increased the group's numbers fivefold in three years, and because she's the youngest board member the company has." "And because your father handpicked her as one of the people who'll run it after him." I finally couldn't help myself, and I gave it to her slowly, word by word.

With every word, Brooke went a shade paler. "Any one of the files in that room, if it leaked—" "would be enough to buy that entire La Mer set you had your eye on today." "Actually, no.

Enough to buy an entire La Mer counter." I looked at Brooke and finished: "So. You're sure you want to touch her things?" Brooke was cowed into silence.

Her mouth opened, and nothing came out of it for a long moment.

Clearly a plot where the impostor is a monster of a businesswoman was well outside the range of the novels she'd read.

Diane hurried in to smooth it over and pulled Brooke toward the stairs by the hand. "All right, all right.

I had a whole new princess room done up for you." "It's much prettier than that one. Let's go and look, okay?" Brooke let herself be towed away, dazed.

For a moment it was just the three of us in the living room. Rupert sighed and gave me an apologetic look. "Margot.

I'm sorry you had to take that." "Brookie… she had a hard time out there. She runs to extremes. Bear with her." I shook my head. It was fine.

I was just mourning my Treatment Lotion.

Griffin put an arm around my shoulders and looked down at me. "She didn't scare you, did she?" I glanced up at him and gave the muscle of his arm a light pinch. "I was just wondering.

If that suitcase wheel had rolled over me back there, would that count as a workplace injury?" "Does your family's workers' comp pay out?" Griffin laughed in spite of himself and pinched my cheek. "It pays.

Ten sets." He paused, then said: "I'll talk to Mom later. She should cancel Brooke's card." "Why?" "On the way home today she had the driver take her to Fifth Avenue." "Five hours.

One point two million dollars on my mother's card." Griffin said it lightly, but I could see perfectly well that he was angry. I had no words. Well. She really could spend.

Chapter 3 Right in the middle of that, my phone buzzed. A new message, from the one Brooke had cast as her number one rival, the "impostor." Vienna.

Her contact photo was the default gray. In my phone she was one name, Vienna, no last name, no note.

The messages themselves were efficient to the point of being insulting. [Margot, I hear there's a new kid at the house?] [Keep her out of my room and off my things.

Thanks.] See, that's what infighting in a rich family is supposed to look like. No tears. No accusations.

Just cool, efficient instructions and absolute control over private territory that was not up for discussion. Next to her, Brooke was a Care Bear going up against Wolverine.

I sent back a thumbsup. Then I put my phone away and said to Griffin, thoughtfully: "Is Brooke really your parents' kid, with that IQ?" My joke turned out to be accurate.

Brooke successfully turned that evening's family dinner into a disaster. It started with the pot of lobster bisque that had been going all afternoon.

Diane had the kitchen make it specially, to welcome Brooke home. Brooke took one mouthful, slapped the spoon down on the table, and her eyes went red again.

All of us put down our forks and looked at her.

She pointed at the soup and demanded of Diane, her voice shaking: "Mom, why are you giving me this?" Diane looked lost. "It's… it's very nourishing. I had them make it just for you.

You don't like it?" "That's not it!" Brooke shook her head, the tears dropping one after another. "The novels all say so.

The wicked impostor wants the family money, so she makes sure the real daughter can never have children." "She drugs her soup!" "This pot is full of expensive things nobody can even name.

How does anyone know Vienna didn't do something to it?" Pfft. I nearly sprayed a mouthful of soup across the table and got a napkin up in time.

Next to me, Griffin's face had gone dark as a storm. Vienna just stared at her, disbelieving, her dinner forgotten.

Rupert slammed his knife and fork down on the table with a sharp crack. "What is this nonsense?" A vein stood out on his forehead as he roared at Brooke. "Is there anything in your head besides those trashy novels?" Getting yelled at by her own father broke Brooke completely.

Her eyes went red, and in a second she was sobbing so hard she couldn't breathe. "I… I'm just scared!

People pushed me around out there for eighteen years, and I finally got home." "I don't want anyone hurting me anymore… what did I do wrong?" She cried beautifully, tragically.

The whole pitiful picture. Diane melted on the spot. She shot Rupert a glare and pulled Brooke in, soothing her. "All right, all right.

It's your father's fault, he was too loud." "Don't cry, Brookie. Nobody is going to hurt you.

We're your family, and so is Vienna." Brooke lifted her head out of Diane's arms, hiccuping. Through the tears, she looked at me. "What about her?

Is she my family too?" "Griffin married her, so doesn't half of everything in this family go to her one day?

Then what about mine?" I was elegantly working a piece of crab out of its shell. My hands stopped. I spread them and laid out the facts for her. "I married in.

I don't own a single share of this family." "Vienna, on the other hand…" I let the sentence turn.

Chapter 4 "The shares she holds are the real thing." "Instead of worrying about me, you should be thinking about how to get a project out of her to learn on." Brooke stared at me and forgot, for a moment, to keep crying.

Brooke probably had the fastest recovery time of anyone I'd ever met.

The meltdown and the accusation at the family dinner had burned off entirely by the time she came downstairs the next morning. She had changed into a new Chanel suit.

Full makeup, heels, the whole look of an heiress ready to take over the family business. She sat down at the table at her leisure and picked up a piece of toast, elegantly.

As if the person who'd cried about poison in the soup the night before had been somebody else. "Dad. Mom." She cleared her throat and announced: "I've decided.

Starting today, I'm going to work at the company." Rupert, halfway through his coffee, nearly choked. Diane froze too. "Brookie, you just got home.

Don't you want a few more days' rest?

The company can wait." "No." Brooke's face was set, and there was a glitter in her eyes that said she'd already decided it was hers. "I've lost eighteen years.

I can't waste any more time." "What belongs to me, I'm taking back with my own hands." Her gaze swept pointedly across the empty air, as if Vienna were sitting right there