The Heiress Who Walked Away

At her grandmother's funeral, Hazel is offered a home by her aunt Vanessa, who once refused her until a trust fund appeared. But Hazel remembers another life: adopted by the Sterling family, raised without warmth, and blamed when the truth of a switched birth destroyed them all. On her eighteenth birthday she learned she was Vanessa's real daughter, and Chloe, the girl raised in her place, fled and died. Vanessa's grief turned to hatred, and her brother Ethan sent Hazel to Blackwood Manor, where three silent years drove her to her death.

Now she has opened her eyes at the funeral again. The lawyer is patient, the relatives are watching, and Vanessa is waiting. Hazel says she will not go with her. She knows the money is why they want her, and she knows what kindness costs in this house. To survive, she must keep her distance from Chloe and from Ethan, even as the truth of their births waits to surface.

This time, she only wants to live.