Chapter 1

On my first day back with the Bennett family, Lauren Bennett, the adopted daughter, grabbed my hand and burst into tears.

I smiled, slipped free, and wiped my hand three times in front of everyone. "Sorry, I'm a clean freak."

The whole room went dead silent.

Lauren’s face turned livid. My brother Andrew Bennett slammed the table and stood up. My mother Mary Bennett snapped that I had no manners, and my father Richard Bennett ordered me to apologize.

I only smiled. "Sorry. I'm a country girl. I don't know the rules."

They thought I was some doormat from the sticks.

Too bad for them, I was worse than all of them put together.

After all, a daughter raised by the Grant Family of Capital City never lets herself get the short end of the stick.

Evelyn Grant stood at the entrance to Bennett Mansion, a faint, unreadable smile on her lips.

Eighteen years after she was kidnapped, she had finally been "found."

Beside her, Mary clutched her hand and said tearfully, "Evelyn, I finally found you. You've suffered so much all these years."

Evelyn lowered her eyes to the hand gripping hers. She said nothing, but she didn't pull away.

There was none of the tearful excitement Mary had expected. If anything, Evelyn looked calm, like she was watching a show that had nothing to do with her.

Mary's heart skipped a beat, but she quickly comforted herself. The child had suffered so much outside. Being a little cold was only natural.

"Come on, I'll take you inside. Your father, your brother, and your sister are all waiting for you," Mary said.

At the word "sister," Evelyn's eyelids lifted slightly. She already knew Lauren, the Bennetts' adopted daughter, had been doted on here for eighteen years.

She followed Mary into the mansion's dazzling main hall.

Richard sat on the sofa in a sharp suit, a cigar between his fingers, while Andrew stood beside him, handsome and arrogant.

Next to Andrew stood a girl in a white dress with soft features and watery eyes.

Lauren Bennett.

One glance was enough for Evelyn to judge her a skilled actress, the kind who could hide a blade behind a pitiful face.

"Dad. Andrew," Evelyn greeted them evenly, like she was handling formalities.

Richard's brow twitched almost imperceptibly.

In Richard's mind, the daughter they had found should have been grateful and timid.

Instead, this girl in a plain white T-shirt and jeans stood straight in the luxurious hall, clear-eyed and composed. There lingered even an indefinable air of quiet composure about her.

"It's good to have you back," he said in a tone better suited to greeting a client.

Andrew didn't even bother giving her a proper look. He kept scrolling on his phone and said flatly, "Welcome home."

Lauren, on the other hand, clutched Evelyn’s hand tightly, her eyes instantly rimmed red. She said in a soft and sweet voice, "Evelyn, you’re finally back.

"Every day I worried whether you’d be cold or hungry out there. Everything’s fine now. Our family is reunited at last."

Her tears fell at the right moment.

Mary was so touched she wiped at her eyes. "Lauren is such a kind girl. She thinks about you even more than your own brother does."

Evelyn lowered her gaze to Lauren's hand, then met her eyes. There was nothing kind in them, only disgust, caution, and hostility.

Evelyn saw right through it all. After all, in her previous life, or rather, in the memories from her previous incarnation, she had already fallen victim once before.

Yes, Evelyn had memories from a old life.

In those memories, after returning to the Bennetts, she had thought she had finally found a home. She had tiptoed around them and bent over backward to please them, only to be framed by Lauren again and again.

In the end, she had been driven into a corner and nearly died out there. Was that weak little coward really supposed to be her?