chapter 6
Over the next four years, I went abroad for college.
Lily became more and more famous.
She starred in major films. Released music. Won praise for both her face and her talent. Her mother revived her own career too and clawed her way back to the top, eventually winning a Best Actress award.
From a distance, looking at the smiling photos online, anyone would have thought Lily had everything.
I knew what that smile cost.
She had done what I once did.
She had learned to endure.
To obey.
To survive.
Meanwhile, Damian stopped pretending.
He flew out to see me constantly under the excuse of being a protective older brother. If a guy showed interest in me, Damian would appear from nowhere and send him away with quiet menace and a perfectly polite smile.
Then later he would ask, almost awkwardly, “Do you like him?”
I always shook my head.
“No. I don’t like men. I don’t want to get married. Brother, will you support me forever?”
Each time, disappointment flashed through his eyes.
Each time, he still answered the same way.
“I promised I would protect you for life.”
And each time, something twisted in my chest.
He was good.
Too good.
And I—
I carried a life inside me that was stained by things I had never chosen and never wanted.
After the darkness of my first life, I no longer believed I deserved love. I only wanted peace. Safety. The ability to breathe.
So I told myself over and over that Damian’s feelings could never become mine to accept.
Instead, I built a different dream.
In my last life, I had seen too many talented girls chewed up by the entertainment world. Girls who wouldn’t submit. Girls with standards, with dignity, with real skill, crushed because they didn’t know how to play filthy games.
So I studied screenwriting, directing, production, financing—everything I could.
I would build a clean company.
A place for people like that.
Four years later, I returned to the United States with the script I had spent years polishing, ready to start.
At the airport, I ran straight into Lily.
Now she was fully grown into her beauty—more glamorous, more seductive, more polished than before. Fans packed the terminal to catch a glimpse of her.
When she saw me alone with my suitcase, she laughed and strode over.
“See this?” she said, sweeping a hand toward the screaming crowd. “These are my fans. I say one word, and they’ll do anything for me. And you? You’re just a useless rich girl living off your family’s name. No one even came to pick you up. Did the Carters finally realize you’re just decorative?”
Her fans started whispering.
“Oh my God, is that the Carter heiress?”
“So what if she is? Lily’s prettier.”
“Lily’s talented too.”
Lily glowed under the praise.
“I’m going to win the biggest awards in this industry,” she said softly. “And then I’ll step on you.”
I didn’t answer.
I just kept walking.
Outside, a black Maybach waited at the curb.
Damian leaned against it in a dark coat, expression already sour from watching the entire exchange.
The second I reached him, he said, “She threatened you. I can make one call and erase her from the industry.”
I grabbed his sleeve and smiled up at him.
“Not today. Take me home. Mom and Dad promised food.”
His face softened immediately.
“Everything you like.”
Back home, I learned what the family had been doing while I was away.
My father, true to form, had barely been handling the company. He had been traveling the world with my mother, eating, shopping, vacationing, and generally acting like a billionaire retired at heart.
Damian had been the one holding the Carter empire together.
I almost laughed.
The man really had trusted Damian enough to hand him the future.
When I brought up the idea of starting my own film company and producing my script, the family didn’t hesitate for even one second.
My father slapped the table. “Do it.”
Then, because he loved me too much to say no to anything, I tricked him into sitting as the public chairman for the new company.
“With you there,” I told him sweetly, “it’ll take off immediately.”
He looked like he wanted to regret every boast he’d ever made.
My mother pinched his ear and informed him that helping his daughter was the least he could do.
So my father and Damian began helping me recruit directors and actors.
And right on schedule, Director Lee—the same man who had once helped build Lily and her mother into stars—took the bait.
He loved my script.
He said he wanted in.
I smiled.
The fish had swallowed the hook.
Now it was time to reel.