Chapter 2

"The Page family's bloodline can't be messed with. If you're fake, I won't let you off easy," Charlie said.

His words carried great authority, but I didn't grasp the meaning behind them. I just kept nodding and stammered out what Jenny had told me.

I had the pendant, and I looked just like Judy. They had no choice but to take me in.

Susan was clinging to Charlie and Judy, bawling her eyes out. She said that since I came back, she didn't dare to stay in the Prime Minister's Residence anymore. She would leave.

Susan was the girl Judy had adopted. I heard that Judy couldn't stop crying day and night after I went missing. In the end, she had no choice but to bring Susan home.

Judy tenderly wrapped her arms around Susan at the sight of her heartbroken crying, telling her not to do anything foolish.

She also said she had raised Susan as her own since she was little, and in her heart, Susan was no different from her real daughter. Then, they wept in each other's arms.

Leo Page, my elder brother, said that Susan did nothing wrong. The whole thing had nothing to do with her. He didn't even spare me a glance as he said this.

Charlie also wore a worried frown.

A heavy gloom hung over the whole Page family, but I just stood there, totally at a loss.

In the end, Charlie said, "Susan has been our daughter for so many years, and it wouldn't be right to turn her away now. So, we'll keep Susan and Ella both.

"But to everyone else, we should say Ella is the adopted daughter. That way, Ella will have a place in the family, and Susan won't feel left out."

I was too young to accept being just the adopted daughter at that time. So, I begged them and held the pendant, insisting, "I'm not the adopted daughter but your real daughter."

Susan was sobbing her heart out. Even with tears streaming down her face, she still looked stunning. Next to her, I felt like the clown on stage.

Charlie finally lost his patience and sent me off to the country estate to learn some proper rules and manners. He said, "A daughter from our family shouldn't behave so disgracefully. You can't come back until you learn how to behave yourself."

I was so stupid at that time that I couldn't realize the disdain in their words. I thought that once I learned the proper rules and manners well, Charlie and Judy would accept me as their real daughter.

So, I followed the old governess to the country estate.

Learning all those rules and manners was pure torture. I kept practicing how to walk, sit, stand, and all the proper manners.

I tried to memorize poetry and prose, desperate to become a girl of good breeding, so that my parents would accept me as their real daughter.

But the only thing Jenny had taught me was how to write my name. As for what a well-bred girl should know, including poetry and prose, proper manners and rules, I didn't know a thing about them.

Charlie said I couldn't return until I learned it all, so I knew every second mattered. I pushed myself day and night, staying up late, reciting famous poems over and over, afraid to waste a single moment.