The Double ( or More ?) Life of The Fake Heiress

Chapter 12

From a young age, Delilah always found herself at the center of her friends‘ playful jests whenever she brought her daughter around her besties. They would tease her incessantly, scrutinizing her and her daughter’s faces, joking suggesting that maybe there had been a mix–up at the hospital because the child bore no resemblance to her.

It wasn’t as though her daughter wasn’t attractive. Quite the contrary. All of Delilah’s children had been cherubic in their youth. Yet Summer, when compared with her older brothers, seemed remarkably plain, compounded by the fact that both Delilah and her husband were exceptionally good–looking. This only fueled further teasing from her friends.

As Delilah reminisced, there was a painful truth to those playful words. Shaking off her wandering thoughts, she softly called out. “Mira.”

Mirabella’s expression remained as impassive as ever, lacking the excitement one might expect upon seeing one’s birth parents. She merely nodded a polite greeting.

Seeing Mirabella’s frosty demeanor, Summer quickly jumped in to explain, “Mom, Mira just got back from the countryside. She might need some time to get used to everything again.”

a few months prior and had sensed her withdrawn nature. So, while she felt a twinge of disappointment that Mirabella didn’t call her ‘mom,‘ she wasn’t particularly surprised. After all being mistakenly switched at birth and raised by the Gilbert family in a quaint town before returning to her biological family was bound to require

such a dear, going to the airport

“Emmitt, would you mind taking Ms.

‘Summer‘ to ‘Ms. Summer‘ flushed Summer’s cheeks with embarrassment. She

at Summer with a hidden ache but didn’t let it show. Collecting her thoughts, Delilah’s smile seemed to grow more distant. She cut Summer off

raised slightly in

of grace and composure. Although she was in her fifties, she looked no more than in her thirties, with barely a wrinkle to betray her

thoughtfully, her gaze

a great injustice. She couldn’t understand how the woman who had once doted on her could suddenly become so cutting, all because her biological daughter had returned. If that was the case, it seemed a cruel hypocrisy. Summer felt