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CHAPTER1
Sophia White
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll be the prettiest one of all.”
My stepfather’s voice rang out in the oversized dressing room. He didn’t care that I was right there beside him. As per usual, he ignored me and smiled broadly with eyes only for my mother as he kissed her, sliding his hands around her waist as he pulled her closer against him.
He didn’t even glance my way. I was the ever-invisible daughter. Sometimes, it was like I didn’t even exist at all.
I don’t know why I was expecting anything different. We had never had any kind of relationship at all. For the most part, he pretended I wasn’t there. Things weren’t much better with my adoptive mother, either. The only time she gave me literally any attention at all was when she felt threatened by me.
No matter what I did or said, she was utterly obsessed with comparing her beauty to mine.
I’d lived in her shadow my whole life. Madison White was a world-famous top model and actress who had been photographed in nearly every fashion magazine in print and on the web. She’d made the top list time and time again for her high cheekbones and perfectly plump lips, not to mention her olive-green eyes, radiant dewy skin, and her sculpted, toned physique. Her work in charity made her a reigning queen in the New York socialite scene too, which meant she was invited to the top events in the city.
But it didn’t end there. Some time ago, she’d gotten the idea in her head that a family would make her look even better to the press, which was where I came in.
My adoption years ago had solidified her selflessness in the face of the public, just like she thought it would, but I knew it was all a front to reaffirm her own vanity.
She didn’t love me. She never had.
Sometimes I wondered what my real mother was like, but she’d disappeared right after I was born and left me at an orphanage in the countryside of eastern Europe. I didn’t know if she had died or just hadn’t wanted me, but there were no records left for me to find her. I lived there from the time I was a baby until I was adopted when I was four years old, and I had no memory of her. There wasn’t enough information to even begin to find her. I didn’t have very many positive memories of the orphanage as a child, aside from rich donors coming to visit us on occasion. Our house mother always made apple strudel on those days.
Madison had been one of those wealthy people. She’d come in with a large donation, saying she wanted an older child, and after she’d given every child in the place a once-over, she eventually settled on me. I recall her kneeling down in front of me with her hand reaching out, gently brushing a lock of my dark chestnut hair off my forehead. At the time, her touch had felt nice. I’d welcomed it back then.
“Her eyes are the color of honey. They’re so bright against her pretty black hair,” she’d said.
Her gaze had searched my face, assessing me with shrewd calculation. It was only much later in life that I’d realized she’d been deciding if I was cute enough to stand by her side in pictures that would show how charitable she was for helping a poor orphan in need, not if I was a child she wanted to love, care for, and make an actual member of her family.
That understanding would come much later.
My stepfather’s loud voice jarred me out of my thoughts.
“They’ll all be looking at you tonight, Madison,” he proclaimed, his words echoing throughout the room with his biased confidence.
I sighed. Tonight was going to be like every other night, where I would trail behind them with a smile plastered on my face, presenting as the perfect daughter in the perfectly happy White family at yet another charity ball.
Inwardly, I scowled. I really wanted nothing more than to curl up with a book.
All three of us were dressed to the nines. A bright red Valentino gown hugged my stepmother’s every curve, highlighting the timelessly perfect shape of her body. Her makeup was impeccably done to hide even the slightest wrinkle that hadn’t been corrected yet by Botox or plastic surgery.
Her birthday had been only yesterday, but no one had uttered her age, not even once. It was practically forbidden, so much so that I think she denied it herself.
She’d turned fifty.
She had only gotten meaner and more bitter with every passing day. Her eyes slinked over me like a viper ready to strike, and I quickly dropped my gaze so as not to instigate her ire. But I wasn’t fast enough, and she lashed out at me anyway.
“You think you’re more beautiful than me, don’t you?” she accused, sneering at me. Her vitriol was always hard to bear, especially like this.
“I don’t think that, not at all,” I whispered.
Her twisted scowl told me that she didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth. I stared back down at the floor, and soon after that, the loud clicking of her heels against the marble tiles indicated that she’d turned her attention away from me and left the room. Only then did I hazard a glance in her direction. She didn’t look back at me, not even for a second. With a deflated sigh, I gazed at my own reflection in the mirror. I did feel quite beautiful tonight, but I’d never made the mistake of telling anyone that, especially her.
I fingered the side of my own fancy gown. It was a pretty slate blue color, much more subdued than that scarlet satin of Madison’s dress. It was some lesser-known designer than I’d already forgotten the name of, but it made me feel pretty anyway.
It was okay to feel pretty every once in a while, right?
Feeling a little defeated, I slid my feet into a pair of black and blue kitten heels and walked out of the dressing room into the front foyer. I caught a glimpse of the two of them walking out the door and stayed back, letting them climb into limo first before I followed and sat down in the seat across from them. They popped a bottle of champagne as the vehicle started but didn’t offer me any, even though it was technically the night before my twenty-first birthday.
