Her secret CEO desire

Rejected Heiress: My Heartless Family's Regret

Cassandra

For seventeen years, I was the pride of the Carlisle family, the perfect daughter destined to inherit an empire. But that life ended the moment a DNA report slid across my father’s mahogany desk. The paper proved I was a stranger. Vanessa, the girl sobbing in the corner, was the real biological daughter they had been searching for. "You need to leave. Tonight. Before the press gets wind of this. Before the stock prices dip." My father’s voice was as cold as flint. My mother wouldn't even look at me, staring out the window at the gardens as if I were already a ghost. Just like that, I was erased. I left behind the Birkin bags and the diamonds, throwing my Centurion Card into a crystal bowl with a clatter that echoed like a gunshot. I walked out into the cold night and climbed into a rusted Ford Taurus driven by a man I had never met—my biological father. I went from a mansion to a fourth-floor walk-up in Queens that smelled of laundry detergent and struggle. My new siblings looked at me with a mix of fear and disgust, waiting for the "fallen princess" to break. They expected me to beg for my old life back, to crumble without the luxury I’d known since birth. But they didn't know the truth. I had spent years training in a shark tank, honing survival skills they couldn't imagine. While Richard Carlisle froze my trust funds to starve me out, my net worth was climbing by millions on an encrypted trading app. They thought they were throwing me to the wolves. They didn't realize they were just letting me off my leash. As the Carlisles prepared to debut Vanessa at the Manhattan Arts Gala, I was already making my move. "Get dressed. We're going to a party."

Modern Modern Revenge Drama Revenge Female-centered

Download the Book on the App

ELLA

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass looking into the ICU, trying to steady the trembling in my hands. Through the transparent barrier, my mother lay down surrounded by a bunch of machines, their rhythmic beeping the only sound in the room. Tubes and wires impaled parts of her fragile body, connecting her to the devices that seemed to mock me with their multiple beeping. I wanted her to wake up, tell me that everything would be alright and that I should focus on my life. Her chest rose and fell in time with the ventilator, but it was the only movement, the only sign that she was still here with me.

I watched a nurse walk up to me with a pained smile. Surely, she was aware of my suffering.

"You can get changed and go in to see your mother now." She smiled. I wanted to reciprocate the gesture but I didn't have it in me.

I got changed and walked into the room. Slowly and carefully, I sat by her bedside. I lifted one of her hands by the wrist and kissed it. Remembering how the last time that she was awake, we had finally decided to make bread that had carrots in it. I laughed at the memory.

"Mum, remember how you disagreed that carrots don't belong in bread dough? But you still agreed to make it," I sniffled. Holding back the tears.

"All because I wouldn't shut up about carrot cake and carrot bread being similar," My laughter was pained.

The steady beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound breaking my pained silence. Mum's face, once full of life, looked so pale and fragile. The oxygen mask covered her mouth, making her breathing shallow and labored. Had she always been breathing so hard since I came into the room?

I clenched her fists, trying to hold back more tears that threatened to spill. Something was wrong.

"Mum?"

What was going on?

The door to the room swung open, and a team of doctors rushed in. Soon, I was being ejected from the room by two elder nurses who had pitiable expressions on their faces.

"You need to leave the room miss, your mother will be alright." They reassured while sitting me down. They left almost immediately.

My tears finally came down like a waterfall. I stood up, placing my head on the glass window and watching as they tried to keep her alive. Still in this world with me.

I wanted to scream, to shatter the glass that separated us, as if that could break the spell that kept her imprisoned in that unmoving body. But I knew it was useless. I was as powerless as she was, standing here in the hallway with nothing to do but watch and wait as the doctors did their best.

The main doctor with Marud written on his name tag, approached me. He was a tall man with a stern expression. Looking at him made me fear the worst.

"Miss Fitzgerald? We need to act fast," he said, his voice calm but urgent.

"Act fast?" I was confused now. What did he mean? "Is my mum dying?"

"Your mother just had another heart attack. We're doing everything we can to stabilize her, but there's something else you need to know." He clenched his notepad.

My heart pounded in my chest, I could hear it with my breath catching in my throat.

"What is it?" I choked out, my voice barely a whisper.

Read Now