CHAPTER 2: THE SECRET HIDDEN FOR TWENTY YEARS
The ballroom froze as the maid reached into her apron and removed a sealed legal document.
The moment Eleanor saw it, panic flooded her face.
“Where did you get that?” she demanded.
The maid ignored her.
Instead, she slowly opened the document before everyone.
“My name isn’t Emily,” she said.
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“My name is Sophia Hawthorne.”
Gasps erupted throughout the ballroom.
The document in her hands was a birth certificate.
Proof that she was the Hawthorne family’s firstborn daughter.
The rightful heir.
Sophia revealed the truth that had been buried for two decades.
Twenty years earlier, a devastating fire had consumed part of the Hawthorne estate.
Everyone believed Sophia had died that night.
But she hadn’t.
A groundskeeper had rescued her from the flames and raised her in secret after discovering evidence that someone wanted the child erased from the family forever.
The room turned toward Eleanor.
Sophia’s voice trembled.
“You didn’t lose me.”
“You abandoned me.”
The accusation struck like lightning.
Isabella looked at her mother in disbelief.
“Mom... tell me she’s lying.”
But Eleanor couldn’t.
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Because every word Sophia spoke was true.
And the foundation of the Hawthorne empire was beginning to crack.
