Chapter 8

The woman could hardly believe what she was holding. She had heard about black cards, of course, but this was the first one she had seen in her life.

A moment ago, she had decided the girl must come from a comfortably wealthy family. That hardly covered it. How many ordinary rich girls carried one of these around in their bags?

The salesman finally got a clear look at the card too. He stared at Elise, stunned.

What was wrong with rich people these days? Did they dress like that just to trick unsuspecting people trying to make a living?

Elise had no idea what either of them was thinking. She had heard of black cards, and Vivian supposedly had one. Presumably, everyone in those circles did.

All she wanted was to finish the paperwork and get home to her books. School would be starting soon.

Once the payment had gone through, the woman laid the card across her hands and offered it back with both hands, her manner almost reverent.

Elise reached to take it. The movement exposed her bracelet, and the blue diamonds caught the showroom lights, glittering against her slender, pale wrist.

The woman stopped. Her gaze stayed on the bracelet until Elise gave her a questioning look.

“That bracelet of yours is beautiful...” she said with a smile.

Elise smiled back. She loved it too. Her brother had given it to her yesterday, and she had put it on the very next morning.

“Isn't it? I think it's lovely. I really like it.”

The woman hesitated before asking, “Would you mind telling me how much it cost?”

Please, let an ordinary person hear the number.

She had seen that bracelet in a news report a few days ago. According to the report, Princess Diana had designed it herself, and it had been the final lot at the charity auction two days earlier. One of the blue stones had distinctive silver diamond accents. The woman looked again. She was certain this was the same bracelet.

The bidding had started at $2.8 million. By the time it sold, that figure could easily have doubled.

Just imagining the final price made it difficult to breathe. She had thought buying a $900,000 car on a whim was extravagant enough, and here was a bracelet worth several times the price of the car.

“Oh, this?” Elise answered candidly. “My brother gave it to me. It was only sixty dollars.”

The woman stared at her.

Sixty dollars? Was she sure?

Elise looked completely sincere. The woman glanced at the bracelet again and felt even more certain that it was the one from the news.

“Well... that certainly was a bargain.” She swallowed.

A bargain she might never be able to afford in her entire life.

By the time the purchase paperwork was finished, both employees were looking at Elise very differently. The woman studied her clothes, thoughtful now. Perhaps she had failed to recognize the label. Some wealthy girls did have rather obscure tastes.

When Elise explained that she needed someone to drive the car and take her home, the woman immediately volunteered. A customer this generous deserved the best service she could give.

The Maserati eased out of the showroom. At the entrance, the woman turned the wheel with painstaking care, terrified of putting the smallest scratch on it as she pulled onto the road.

Across the street, Brooke Carter and Kayla Morris were sheltering from the rain beneath the same shop awning where Elise had stood earlier.

They had followed her all this way. After watching her make a phone call and hurry into the dealership under her umbrella, they had waited for her to come back out. What was taking so long? They still wanted a few ugly pictures of her getting soaked to post on the school discussion board.

Then a brand-new Maserati rolled out, drawing the eyes of everyone along the street.

Brooke watched it enviously. As she made out the passenger, her expression changed.

“Is that Elise in there?”

Kayla took a closer look.

“The person beside her looks like someone from the dealership. She's still in uniform, isn't she? And that's a new car!”

For new-car handovers, this dealership tied two red ribbons to the rearview mirror. Both ribbons were there in the car carrying Elise.

“What is going on?”

They looked at each other, equally stunned.

Elise had gone in there to buy a car?

What had happened to the supposedly poorest rich girl at school? She had bought used books, then walked into a showroom and bought a Maserati.

If someone who could afford that car counted as poor, what did that make the two of them? Even poorer?

Upstairs at the Whitmore house, Vivian had spent the whole day in her room. Julian's suggestion that morning that she be reunited with her birth parents had left her miserable.

His sudden coldness toward her was bad enough. Seeing how attentive he had become to Elise made it worse. Now she was certain that, if he found her birth parents, he might actually send her back to them.

The first thing she had done on returning to her room was message her other brothers. An entire afternoon had passed without a reply from any of the three.

Adrian, her second-oldest brother, was a singer. An original song had made him a sensation at the very start of his career, and he had become one of the biggest stars in the business. He was on the other side of the world now, rushing from one stop on his concert tour to the next.

Theo, the third brother, captained a U.S. championship-winning PUBG team. He had taken the team to Russia for a closed training camp, where they couldn't use their phones or contact anyone outside.

Miles, the youngest of the four, had gone to Antarctica with his classmates at the start of summer break and still hadn't returned. From what Vivian had heard, bad weather had grounded the flights, and even the signal came and went.

When would any of them see her messages?