Chapter 4

For three days the Delgados threw themselves into preparing the family recognition banquet.

Not that they cared much about it.

Felicia had simply come up with more ways to make sure my very first day in that house would drown me in humiliation.

I only did my job as her teacher, telling her to keep her mind on the competition problems.

She rolled her eyes, bored, and ground her foot down onto my white shoe.

"Don't think a little kindness from Mom and Dad means you get to lecture me!"

"Someday this whole family will belong to me and Roland. You're nothing but some teacher who came out of an orphanage!"

She turned away with a sneer and went back to directing Roland's pack of hangers-on.

"Move the champagne tower to the left of the door! Roland, when the time comes you make her walk in through that one!"

"Kevin Lambert, tomorrow you stick your foot out and trip her! The gown I ordered for her is nice and long, she'll fall right into the champagne tower for sure!"

"Eustace Simmons, you like photography, don't you? Make sure you get plenty of shots of that idiot tomorrow!"

The lot of them kept rehearsing it, breaking into laughter every so often.

Barret and Penelope saw all this and only cautioned her, "Felicia, tomorrow you play the gracious one, don't do anything with your own hands!"

"Dirtying your hands and your reputation over someone like that isn't worth it."

They waved a hand and told the housekeeper, "Go message what's-her-name, tell her to be here on time the day after tomorrow!"

Their tone was light and careless, like they were dealing with garbage nobody wanted.

Then Barret turned around and pressed the gilt-edged invitation into my hands, his face all pleading. "Teacher James, if the titan Winston James would honor us at the recognition banquet, that would be wonderful."

"I hear his most treasured student is you, and that he's been recommending you to take over at all sorts of company labs..."

I took the invitation and cut him off coolly. "My mentor will come. And he'll bring those friends of his along."

Barret couldn't hide his excitement, thanking me again and again.

Because today he'd already gotten the rejection email, and now he was just waiting to curry favor with my mentor.

I looked away and let the mockery curl at the corner of my mouth, where he couldn't see it.

Thank me for what? They were coming to stand behind me.

I knew exactly what Barret and the rest were planning.

Put on a carefully staged recognition banquet so everyone would think they weren't heartless people.

Then work in a scene to humiliate me, to prove I was slow-witted, unfit to be a daughter.

So that even when they cast me off and married me to that old man, it would all seem perfectly understandable.

It would keep them from losing face in high society while shoving me down into the dirt for everyone to spit on. What a clever little scheme.

Back in my room, when I opened my personal phone, the housekeeper had sent not only the time and place of the recognition banquet but also where to pick up the gown.

I went and collected it, long and sheer, so that one splash of wine would leave me without a scrap of privacy.

Felicia. Truly vicious.

I folded the gown away into my bag and went back to the Delgado house.

Penelope was instructing the servants, "The only young lady in this house is and always will be Felicia. Tomorrow when that so-called real heiress shows up, you treat her like she's not even there, don't pay her any attention!"

"And don't let her out of the bedroom. Just throw something together for her meals."

She glanced up, saw me, and explained on reflex, "I only worry she'll get jealous that Felicia and Roland have you as their private tutor, and start making a scene about wanting lessons too, and cause you trouble!"

I gave a small smile and didn't respond to her explanation, only said, "Mrs. Delgado, I'll see you tomorrow."

The next day, everyone in the Delgado family was dressed to impress.

Not only had the society crowd come, my mentor had brought every heavyweight from the academic world along with him.

The moment Barret spotted my mentor he was like a cat that had seen a fish, forever trying to crowd up against him.

My mentor wore a faint, unreadable smile. "Let's talk after the recognition banquet."

Everyone was waiting for this real heiress who had come knocking on her own.

"I hear she's not very bright, nowhere close to Felicia."

"Bad at her studies, timid on top of it, a complete stain on the Delgado name!"

Roland's friends stood at their assigned spots, itching to begin.

But ten o'clock came and still no one pushed open the door and walked in.

Penelope's displeasure showed on her face, and she lowered her voice. "No manners at all, just as I thought. Actually daring to be late!"

She picked up her phone and dialed.

The ringtone went trilling out across the banquet hall.

The moment I drew my personal phone from my bag, the look on Roland and Penelope's faces was like they'd eaten dirt.

"That's impossible!"