Chapter 1

I woke up with a gasp, the phantom pain of my last breath still clinging to me.

My eyes snapped open to the familiar silk canopy of my four-poster bed. Morning light, soft and golden, streamed through the sheer curtains of my bedroom at Sterling Meadows.

It was the day of my debutante ball.

The day it all began to unravel.

My custom-designed debutante gown, the one I' d spent months with the couturier perfecting, was gone from its stand.

In its place, a void.

A cold dread, sharp and familiar, snaked up my spine.

In my previous life, this "missing" gown was the first tiny crack, the prelude to Savy' s brazen appearance, her stolen spotlight, and then... then the cascade of betrayals, my father' s "accidental" death, my disinheritance, the hellish rehabilitation facility, and my lonely, mysterious end.

I remembered Savy' s smug face, Grayson' s weak compliance, Brent' s cruel dismissal.

They thought they had won.

They didn' t know I was back.

I rose from the bed, my movements calm, deliberate.

There was no panic this time, only a chilling resolve.

I walked to my mother' s antique armoire, a place where family heirlooms were kept.

Inside, wrapped in layers of tissue, was a gown of ivory lace and seed pearls, my grandmother' s debutante dress, more stunning, more regal than anything modern.

It fit perfectly.

Downstairs, the Sterling mansion buzzed with preparations.

The ballroom was a sea of white roses and crystal.

And there she was. Savannah "Savy" Dixon, my second cousin, the charity case my family had taken in.

She stood near the grand staircase, preening, surrounded by a small circle of admirers, wearing my gown. The one that had been "missing."

It was a perfect replica of my dream, down to the last hand-stitched bead. She looked like a cheap imitation.

I glided towards her, my heirloom gown whispering around me.

Her smile faltered when she saw me, then widened into that familiar, saccharine mask.

"Rory, darling! You found another dress! I was so worried when yours went missing. But look, they found it! Isn't it a relief?"

Her voice, dripping with false concern, grated on my ears.

I stopped before her, my gaze level and cold.

"Found it, Savy? Or did you instruct the staff to deliver it to your room after you arranged for it to 'go missing' from mine?"

The small crowd around her went silent.

Savy' s eyes widened, her hand flying to her chest in a gesture of wounded innocence.

"Rory! How can you say such a thing? It must have been a terrible misunderstanding with the staff."

"A misunderstanding?" I repeated, my voice dangerously soft. "A misunderstanding that led to you wearing a gown custom-made for me, to my debutante ball? The one you've been sighing over for weeks?"

Her face flushed. "I... I just tried it on. To see... and then there wasn't time to change..."

Lies. Always lies.

Brent Asher, my fiancé – or rather, my fiancé in that doomed previous life – stepped forward, his arm protectively around Savy' s waist.

His handsome face was creased with disapproval, aimed squarely at me.

"Rory, that's enough. Can't you see Savy is upset? It was clearly a mistake. Don't make a scene over something so petty. Show some grace."

He looked at Savy with a tenderness that had always been reserved for her, even when he was supposedly mine. They were cousins, a fact often forgotten, and secret lovers, a fact I now knew all too well.

I let out a small, icy laugh. "Grace, Brent? Is that what you call enabling a thief? Pettiness?"

I turned my gaze back to Savy, who was now trying to look tearful.

"The gown, Savy. Take it off. Now. Or I' ll have security remove it for you, and you along with it."

My voice was low, but it carried the weight of absolute authority, the authority of the Sterling heiress she so desperately craved to be.

This was my house, my ball, my life. And I was taking it back.