Runaway Heiress Gets Her New Life

The Sanders family has one rule: a daughter who attends her debutante ball without a partner will have her marriage decided by the family. As the unwanted adopted daughter, Thea knows no one will ask her. Desperate to escape an arranged marriage, she asks Jonathan Bale, the man she has secretly loved for years, to be her partner, and he agrees.

But that night Jonathan arrives at the ball with Raine Sanders, the family's real daughter, on his arm. When Thea begs him not to do this to her, he only seems annoyed, joking that he can just marry her tomorrow and that no one else will want a fake heiress. Laughter spreads through the ballroom, and Thea slowly lets go of his sleeve.

With no partner and no way out, Thea is summoned to her father's study, where he tells her the Fairmont family has already agreed to the marriage and threatens her biological mother to force her compliance.