The Heiress's Sweet Revenge

"Girl, I wouldn't spend one more day in this batshit family if you paid me. Good luck!" Turns out the fake heiress ran faster than I did. Didn't even take her suitcase.

Just left this note on the bed. I'd just found out I was the real heiress, swapped at birth. I left Logan, West Virginia at first light and went straight to the Ashfords. Me: ...?

Later I found out the three Ashfords really were out of their minds. Good news is, so am I. How out of my mind? Put it this way.

Years later, the person who pried my own father out of the top chair at the Ashford Group was me.

Chapter 1 On the drive over I'd pictured a hundred versions of the realheiressmeetsfakeheiress showdown, and a thousand ways to handle her.

What I had not pictured was the fake heiress clearing out faster than I did, without taking a single thing with her. Not like me.

When I walked out of the Boone house, I took the AC remote, the drain hose off the washing machine, and Cody's finished summer homework packet.

I folded the note and put it in my pocket. Said nothing. I was only curious about one thing. Exactly how batshit was this batshit family? I found out fast.

It was full dark before anyone in this house showed their face. "You didn't change? Look at you.

You look like you crawled out of a dumpster." I looked down at my Tshirt, washed so many times the color had given up. Then I looked at the shirt on the man saying it.

So slick a fly would've skidded right off it. I was still working out who Big Mouth was when the house manager came sprinting across the floor to explain on my behalf. "Mr.

Ashford, her clothes are still with the tailor. Rush order. They'll be here first thing in the morning." Mr. Ashford. So Big Mouth was my biological father. Ha. It was funny.

I held it in. He didn't look satisfied. His eyes came back to me, bored and impatient. "You're in this house now.

Drop the trashy little act." "Whatever habits you picked up out there, you get rid of every one of them.

Do not embarrass the Ashford name." I looked at that long sour face and gave him my sweetest, most harmless smile. "Yes, Dad." The obedience did it. His face eased.

He stopped picking at me and left in a hurry. The next one on stage was a beautiful woman. Pale, elegant, expensive from the shoes up.

She stayed at a distance and studied me for a few seconds with no warmth at all. "She does have my face.

And the old man's." A pause. "Got the makings of a real little maneater." Well. That settled who she was.

I smiled up at her. "Thank you for the compliment." She flicked her eyes over me, said nothing else, and went up the stairs like a woman leaving a room she'd already won.

The last one home came in on the stroke of midnight. The Ashford heir. Sebastian. Two years older than me. He walked past me in a cloud of whiskey. Stopped. Walked back.

He looked me up and down through drunk, unfocused eyes, like he was trying to remember when the house had acquired a peasant.

Chapter 2 I blinked at him, slow and helpful. "Hi, big brother." Somewhere behind his eyes, a wire connected.

Sebastian snorted and lifted his chin, and the first thing out of his mouth nearly killed me. Physically. "From now on. Hic. Stay out of my way. Hic. Behave yourself.

Hic." My composure is world class. I smiled until my eyes curved. "Sure thing. Hic hic." Something odd crossed his face. Like he hadn't planned for me to be this agreeable.

That was the welcome, apparently. A brisk, kind woman took me upstairs for a bath.

Miss Wanda saw my arms, thin as broom handles, and her eyes went straight to shock and then to hurt.

She peeled the old clothes off me swearing, and dumped them in the trash still swearing. In the time it took me to bathe, she cursed out my foster parents over a hundred times.

I lay in the tub with just my head above the water and enjoyed every second of it. An heiress's bed is something else.

Miss Wanda got me up, did my hair, and opened a closet full of clothes cut to fit me. I picked a white dress. In the mirror it made me look soft and sweet and easy to push around.

Another day playing the sweet innocent thing. All three of them were already downstairs when I came down for breakfast. The table was long. The seating was interesting. Mr.

Ashford at one end, Mrs. Ashford at the other, Sebastian dead center. Nobody within reach of anybody, all three wearing the same pissy face.

I'd barely reached the table when Sebastian started up. "Look who finally graced us.

We're almost finished." I pointed at his plate, which was missing exactly one bite, and let my eyes go wide. "Wow, big brother. You eat like a bird. That's you full?" He choked.

He couldn't figure out whether to put his fork down or keep holding it, so he just stabbed me with a look. I pretended not to notice and walked calmly to the chair beside my father.

Sebastian pounced. "See, that's what small towns get you. No manners. That is not your seat." My father's brows drew together. His entire face said: The CEO Is Not Pleased.

He was one second from correcting me, so I got there first. "Dad, thank you for my new phone." I cupped it in both hands and let my face fill up with delight. "It's the exact model I wanted.

And my favorite color." A lie. He'd opened his mouth once. Mr. Marsh, the house manager, picked it out.

Still his money, though, so I said it with a clear conscience. "Glad you like it." He kept the cold face on, but his eyes softened. He liked hearing it.

I doubt anyone in this house had thanked him for anything in years. Miss Wanda took the opening and put a plate in front of me, and I sat down with it. My father didn't object.

Sebastian's face went black. Through the whole meal, Mrs. Ashford was the calmest of us. She treated all three of us like furniture. Sebastian had the most expressive face.

He sat there pulling that same pissy look, like somebody had swindled him out of eight million dollars.

The second my father was out of the room, he turned those eyes on me and started shooting. Chapter 3 Before he could start yapping, I got up and slipped out after Mrs.

Ashford, who had finished eating. We went up the stairs one behind the other.

Out of nowhere she turned and looked at me, and she didn't bother hiding how tired of me she already was. "Drop the act.

It doesn't work on me." "And don't knock yourself out calling me Mom. I don't like being called that." I looked up at the face that was sixty percent mine. She was beautiful.

Beautiful in a loud, direct way, like she came with her own lighting. Well kept, too. You couldn't find a single year on her.

Next to her, my rough skin and my arms with the tan line cutting them in half didn't belong in the same photograph.

I looked her in the eye and smiled, agreeable as anything. "Of course, Ms. Marchetti." She went still.

Clearly she hadn't expected to hear her own maiden name out of her own daughter's mouth. She didn't comment on it. She turned and walked away. Miss Wanda was beside herself.

She leaned in and whispered, "Don't take it to heart, miss. The missus has always been like that." I didn't take it to heart. Who doesn't have something wrong with them these days.

Back in my room, I looked at the handle written on the back of the note for a long time. In the end I sent the request.

Accepted in seconds. [@WalkedOutForGood accepted your follow request] The messages started before I could type a word. [Hey girl!!] Good news: I had a direct line to the fake heiress and could fish for information.

Bad news: this person does not stop talking.

The second she accepted, my phone started rattling like a paint mixer. [HAHAHA you actually added me] [Girl your foster parents are a whole show] [They've been fighting for an hour straight because they can't find the AC remote HAHAHAHA] [Also the washing machine in this house sprays water out the side] [They were pushing a mop around till two in the morning HAHAHAHA] [Unrelated question.

Is it normal for the little brother to scream cry.

He's been hugging his backpack crying for a full day and night] [He's so ugly when he cries though it's so funny HAHAHAHA] [...] [?] [why aren't you saying anything] I pinched the bridge of my nose.

I couldn't read the words anymore. All I could see was HA. The greeting I'd typed was still sitting in the box. I sent it anyway. [Hi.

Are you settling in okay?] The rattling started again. [hi hi!] [fist bump gif] [It's fine I guess, bed is a little small, I can't straighten my legs] [Way better than I expected though, I thought I'd be sleeping on the floor HAHAHA] I didn't answer for a moment.

I slept on the floor, at first. That closetsized room she was in was the storage room I won at twelve, after months of wearing the Boones down. It's small.

It's also dark. [The stool by the wall. Put it at the foot of the bed.] Chapter 4 [Yooo I tried it and it actually works, my legs fit.

Thanks girl!] I typed back. [You could always come home, you know.] Not a chance. I just wanted to see how she felt about the Boones.

She answered instantly. [no gif] [no gif][no gif] [same gif x9] Me: [You don't like the Ashfords?] Fake heiress: [Actually I have a rare medical condition] My fingers stopped.

Fake heiress: [It's called Ashford PTSD] [One look at them and my stomach hurts, my liver hurts, my head hurts] [Miracle doctor says if I want a few more years on this earth I have to never see them again] [HAHAHAHA] Some miracle doctor.

I was going to fish for more, but Miss Wanda knocked. "Time for your lesson, miss." Right. My father had mentioned it that morning.

To turn me into a presentable Ashford heiress, and stop me from embarrassing anyone in public, he'd signed me up for a few classes. "Why are there so many?" I stared at the schedule.

It was packed solid. I was fairly sure he'd only said etiquette, social graces, and art appraisal.

I looked up into Sebastian's face, lit with the joy of a small man winning something. "You think those few classes are going to fix a hick like you?" "So I did my duty as your big brother and signed you up for a few more." I let the shock take over my whole face.

He laughed harder, meaner. "Cry all you want, it won't help. This is what heiresses are supposed to know. Have fun." I lowered my head. My shoulders shook, held carefully in.

His mouth curled into a little check mark. He leaned down over me and said it soft and vicious. "Cross me and there are consequences." I gripped the schedule tight. Consequences?

What consequences? He meant the extra classes on the sheet. Equestrian. Golf. Fencing. Violin. Ballroom dancing