Chapter 1

I was the daughter who had been switched at birth, the fake heiress.

The day the Harrisons found their biological daughter, they refused to let her through the door.

Right in front of me, they even beat her with a broom.

"Get out! Grace is the only daughter in this family."

"You can show up here all you want, but you're not welcome!"

Because of that, I always felt guilty toward the real heiress.

I believed I had stolen everything that should have been hers.

When she was dying and needed a heart transplant, I signed the surgical consent form without a second thought.

But it wasn't until I died on the operating table that I finally learned the truth.

The whole thing had been a conspiracy from the very beginning.

Eighteen years ago, they had already set their sights on my healthy heart.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day the real heiress returned.

This time, everything that was supposed to be hers was going to be mine!

Chapter 1

I realized I had been reborn.

Vanessa Harrison was on our front steps, sobbing and begging to be let in.

Just like in my last life, my adoptive mother, Elaine Harrison, kicked Vanessa to the ground.

Then she swore up and down, "Grace, even though you're not our biological daughter, Mom and Dad will only ever love you."

"If you don't want her here, I'll throw this shameless little nobody out right now!"

As she spoke, Elaine shot a quick glance at Vanessa.

Vanessa burst into tears and clung to my legs.

She looked like a stray dog no one wanted.

"Grace! Please, I'm begging you!"

"Let me stay, okay? I won't take anything from you, I promise!"

"I can't go back to that small town and live like that again!"

I looked at her coldly.

In my last life, I felt guilty about what had happened to her and pitied her.

That was why I asked Elaine to let her stay.

I did everything I could to make it up to her, always giving her the best of everything.

I gave her my room, my clothes, my dresses, even my money.

Then I learned she had a congenital heart condition and was not expected to live past eighteen.

After that, I could barely eat or sleep.

Despite everyone's objections, I signed the consent form for a heart transplant.

On the day of the surgery, Elaine and Richard held my hands and thanked me over and over.

They promised they would never forget what I had done for them.

Vanessa sobbed that the heart she received would beat for me forever.

I thought I was doing something noble, repaying the people who had raised me.

But I had been so incredibly stupid.

Before I had even taken my last breath on the operating table, I heard them celebrating.

Elaine spat on my body.

"Finally rid of that pauper's daughter. She's as disgusting as her broke parents."

"All these years, I had to pretend to like her and pretend to care. It made me sick!"

Richard Harrison, my adoptive father, shook his head and tried to comfort her.

"It's fine. Our Vanessa's all better now. We don't have to pretend anymore."

That was when I finally understood.

Eighteen years ago, they had already set their sights on my healthy heart.

The baby switch was no accident. Elaine and Richard had planned the whole thing.

They used my compassion and my stupidity against me.

Step by step, they had lured me into their trap.

Even after I died, they still wouldn't leave me alone.

My dear 'little sister' Vanessa received my heart.

Then she stole my boyfriend and dumped my body into the ocean for the fish.

This time around, God gave me a second chance.

And I wasn't going to waste it being stupid again.

Chapter 2

I looked at Vanessa's hands. Pale and clean. Her clothes were neat and tidy.

She didn't look like someone who had suffered at all.

So I kicked her hard and turned to Elaine.

"Mom, since you don't want her here either, just send her away."

"I don't like her. I don't want to see her."

The moment the words left my mouth, Elaine and Vanessa both froze.

"Grace, I..."

Richard stood to the side, looking like he wanted to say something but held back.

None of them had expected me to answer so bluntly.

I looked up and put on my most innocent expression.

"Wait, do you actually want her to stay?"

"Mom, Dad, didn't you say I'm the one you love most? That I'm your only daughter?"

Seeing this, Vanessa looked to Elaine for help.

But Elaine was caught in a bind.

Left with no choice, they sent Vanessa to the staff cottage behind the main house.

Then they made a show of saying that technically counted as sending her away.

I nodded reluctantly and agreed to the arrangement for now.

After all, they couldn't really throw their biological daughter out on the street.

There was plenty of time. Vanessa and I could take this one step at a time.

Just like in my last life, Elaine and Richard still showered me with attention.

Anything good, I was the first to get it.

Even after Vanessa came back, they rarely so much as glanced toward the staff cottage.

I knew perfectly well it was all an act for my benefit.

They wanted me to believe they loved me more than their own flesh and blood.

I rested a hand over my heart and smiled bitterly.

Of course they loved me. They loved this heart beating inside me.

"Your room looks like a princess's!"

"And your clothes are so pretty!"

"I've never seen so many nice things before."

"Back in that little town, all I had were old, torn-up clothes, and my room was so tiny..."

Vanessa tugged at the hem of her shirt, her face full of longing.

She was always finding excuses to come near me, telling me sob stories and playing the victim.

She wanted to stir up my guilt and sympathy.

In my last life, that sad, helpless face had fooled me.

I gave her everything and willingly moved into a smaller room.

This time, I was not the one who would end up in the ocean, fed to the fish.

Chapter 3

I casually picked up a princess dress and met Vanessa's eager gaze.

"You want this?"

A triumphant look flashed across her face, and she nodded hard.

"Can I have it?"

She reached out as if it were already hers.

The next second, I slapped her hand away so hard that the back of it turned bright red.

"Who said you were good enough to touch my things with those filthy hands?"

"Get back to the staff cottage. From now on, you're not allowed in the main house without my permission!"

My voice dripped with contempt, my eyes full of open disdain.

Vanessa stared at me in disbelief.

"You! You're not afraid Mom and Dad will find out?"

I scoffed.

If foolish kindness had only gotten me killed, I might as well be the villain.

"So what if they find out? You think they'd believe some small-town nobody over me?"

"Wake up. Mom and Dad only care about me. I'm their only daughter."

Stung by my words, Vanessa opened her mouth to argue.

But her gaze dropped to my chest, lingered there for a long moment, and then she slowly calmed down.

"Fine. I was wrong."

"I won't come in without your permission again."

She spat the words through gritted teeth, then turned and left.

She knew that if she wanted what she was after, she had to learn to endure.

After that day, Vanessa mostly kept away from me.

She stayed in the staff cottage, sometimes even volunteering to do chores.

Over time, everyone began to think the fake heiress was the cruel one.

Not only had I taken her identity, but I was also bullying the poor real heiress.

I didn't care. I wasn't planning to stay in this house forever anyway.

The day my birth parents, Laura and Michael Bennett, came looking for me, Vanessa was pretending to sweep the floor.

Laura and Michael were heartbroken when they saw her. They wanted to take her back.

Vanessa, of course, refused.

She had finally escaped poverty and was about to live the good life.

She wanted nothing to do with her old home.

She pointed right in their faces and spat, "You pathetic losers! You actually think I'm your daughter?"

"Living in your dump for a few years was doing you a favor!"

"Go look in a mirror. You think you deserve me?"

Laura and Michael had no idea about the switch. They had always raised Vanessa as their own daughter.

Her words broke their hearts.

That was when Elaine and Richard came home.

They threw Laura and Michael off the property and warned them never to come back.

Laura and Michael stubbornly refused to leave. They insisted on taking me with them because I was their biological daughter.

In my last life, Elaine and Richard had poisoned me against them.

They made me believe my birth parents were bad people.

I thought they only wanted me back so they could use and mistreat me.

Only as I lay dying did I learn the truth: Laura and Michael had genuinely loved me.

They had only wanted to bring me home so our family could be whole again.

This time, when Elaine and Richard tried to turn me against them, I refused to give in.

Chapter 4

Elaine and Richard were terrified I might leave with my birth parents.

Only after I swore several times that I would not leave did Elaine agree to let me speak to them.

The moment they saw me, Laura and Michael started trembling.

They wanted to hold me, wanted to take me home, but I couldn't go with them yet.

I slipped them a bank card with enough money to support them for years.

I promised that once I had made something of myself, I would come find them.

Until then, all of us had to take care of ourselves.

We just had to hold on until the day our family could be together again.

A month later, it was time for school to start.

Even though Elaine and Richard kept up the act of not caring about Vanessa, they spent a fortune transferring her into my school.

They even put her in my class.

They probably thought putting us in the same class would help us bond.

But this time, their plan was going to backfire.

All I had in store for Vanessa were more nightmares.

I deliberately spilled ink on her clothes and stuffed a dead mouse in her desk.

The moment she finished her homework, I ripped her textbooks to shreds.

I even joined my classmates in mocking her for being poor.

Everyone in our class was wealthy. Vanessa was the only one showing up every day in cheap, worn-out clothes.

The Harrisons' favoritism gave me all the cover I needed to torment her.

The harder Vanessa cried, the harder I laughed.

I wanted everyone to know.

I made my hatred of Vanessa Harrison public. From then on, everyone knew Grace Harrison had a score to settle.

I didn't care if people said I was using my status as the fake heiress to bully the real one.

The Harrisons wanted my heart. They would not dare turn on me.

I was going to push Vanessa until she snapped, until she showed her true colors.

But Vanessa was far more patient than I expected.

Even when I drove her into a cardiac episode, she never said a word.

She just kept playing the fragile little victim.

Just like in my last life, my childhood sweetheart, Derek Cole, fell for it all over again.

He admired her stubborn resolve and pitied her fragility.

I remembered clearly how Derek had defended Vanessa to my face so many times.

He had even played a part in convincing me to donate my heart.

"Grace, don't you think you're going too far?"

"I don't mean anything by it, but you did take the life that should've been hers."

"You should be trying to make it up to her, not bullying her..."

I laughed and emptied an entire bottle of water over Vanessa's head.

"Make it up to her? Like this?"

After that, the more he defended her, the worse I treated Vanessa.

I wanted her humiliated in front of every single classmate.

A pampered princess like her could only take so much.

Soon enough, the opportunity I had been waiting for arrived.

Chapter 5

On our seventeenth birthday, Elaine and Richard threw me a lavish party.

I wore an exquisite gown, looking every bit the princess.

By contrast, Vanessa, who shared the same birthday, hid in a corner looking pathetic.

The guests all remarked that my adoptive parents treated me better than their own daughter.

But the guests never saw what happened when no one was watching.

Elaine patted Vanessa on the shoulder and told her to be patient.

I wasn't about to let this golden opportunity slip by.

To rub salt in the wound, I invited every single classmate.

I even brought Derek as my dance partner, and every one of us was dressed to impress.

Meanwhile, Vanessa, the family's biological daughter, could only huddle in the shadows like a cockroach.

How could she possibly accept that?

Right in front of her, I danced closely with Derek.

Our classmates whistled and cheered, calling us a perfect couple.

Then they turned and taunted Vanessa in her corner.

"Two daughters under one roof. One's a princess; the other is an ugly duckling."

"Vanessa, how do you manage to be so pathetic? Ha!"

That was when I piled on with a smirk.

"Poor Vanessa has never been loved by either of her parents."

"Careful you don't give her a heart attack."

Everyone burst out laughing.

Vanessa clutched her chest, glaring at me with pure venom.

Maybe she could endure everything else, but being humiliated in front of Derek over and over was more than she could take.

"You're all liars! You don't know anything!"

Vanessa smashed every wine glass on the table, her rage boiling over.

No matter how urgently Elaine signaled her to stop, nothing could hold her back.

"I'm the real heiress of this family!"

"Grace is nobody! Mom and Dad's love for her is fake, all of it!"

"Just you wait! Sooner or later, she'll be thrown out..."

Before she could finish, Elaine rushed over and clamped a hand over her mouth.

The entire room went silent. Every guest stood frozen.

Tears rolled down my face as I stared at my adoptive mother in shock.

"Mom, let her talk!"

"Is it true? Everything you've done for me... was it all fake?"

Elaine shook her head frantically, holding Vanessa tighter.

"Of course not, sweetheart. You're our precious daughter."

"Don't listen to her. She's just jealous, that's all."

Richard walked over and slapped Vanessa across the face.

"Shut up! You lying little brat!"

"No daughter of ours would be this disgraceful! What an embarrassment!"

He ordered the servants to take her away.

In front of all the guests, he announced that Vanessa would be confined to the staff cottage for a month as punishment.

Our classmates sneered that she deserved it, that she had no business picking a fight with me.

Vanessa's eyes burned with humiliation.

As the family's biological daughter, Vanessa had just seen her pride crushed in front of everyone.

No matter how hard she thrashed and screamed, none of it changed a thing.