Chapter 1 PROLOGUE

CHARLOTTE'S POV

You think you can hurt me?

My own mother told me she regretted the day she conceived me. She wished I had died in her womb. She screamed those words at five-year-old me, pinning me to the floor with a dagger pointed at my neck.

Mummy, I'm sorry, my little voice had whispered.

It wasn't something new to me. I don't remember the first time, but I'm sure I must have cried-terrified and confused. Yet, at the end of each outburst, she never had the heart to finish me off. I guess she wasn't a horrible mother... just a broken woman.

That day, she had come home drunk from a failed date. He had rejected her for being a single mother to a Black child. That wasn't the first time. Apparently, my father's race was an issue for them. My unknown father-whom my mother loved dearly and dated against her family's wishes-left the country when she was seven months pregnant. He never returned. He never called.

So of course, I had to pay for his sins.

My mother was disowned by her family for "bringing disgrace" and "staining" the family name. And in return, she hated me for looking nothing like her but more like my father. I was told how ugly and fat I was since childhood. My own mother made sure I never forgot it. She reminded me every day-not just of my appearance, but of how deeply she hated me.

I can't say I loved her as a child, because truthfully... I didn't even know what love was. Not even the kind they call "motherly love."

Months after being rejected by her date, my mother regained her family's blessing and affection when she got engaged to a popular Hollywood filmmaker-a blue-eyed, blonde British charmer.

When I was six, my mother gave birth to my twin half-sisters. People said they were the most beautiful babies they had ever seen.

That was the moment I learned the difference between beauty and ugly. Six-year-old me stood in front of the mirror and accepted that I was the image of "ugly"... and my sisters, "beauty."

I wasn't even sad. At that age, I didn't see it as cruel. I saw it as my reality. My fate.

After their birth, my sisters became local celebrities. They were signed to endorsement deals for baby modeling in China. Family and friends adored them. Our grandparents worshipped them.

And that's when I realized what love actually was. I couldn't feel it. But I could see it. And honestly? That was enough for me.

It was beautiful to see someone being loved. To see my mother glowing-not drunk, not cursing, not breaking things, not threatening to kill me.

I was happy.

My favorite day was our family photoshoot for the twins' one-year birthday, with both sets of grandparents. My mother and my new stepfather were seated in the middle. Grandparents stood beside their children. I was told to sit on the floor beside my mother.

When the framed photos arrived and were hung in our living room, I was missing in every single one of them.

Maybe I was too fat to fit in. But I know I could've slayed that photoshoot-especially with my wide smile and a missing tooth while gazing up at my little sisters.

As I grew older, the hate turned into bullying-especially from kids in the neighborhood and classmates at school. I remember some encounters.

"N*gga!" one kid shouted. I didn't even know what that meant.

"Fat ugly girl!" another added.

I understood the latter perfectly, because my own mother called me that often. But I always replied with confidence:

Yeah, I'm fat and ugly-but I've got beautiful sisters! You got beautiful sisters? Noooo!

Yeah, I was that proud of them.

I literally raised them, when my mother was too busy with her work. I would bottle-feed them, and at a tender age I learned to change diapers, sing lullabies, and put them to sleep.

I loved them dearly but... unfortunately for me, they grew up and joined my bullies. They told their friends I wasn't even related to them.

Easy to believe-we looked nothing alike.

However, I can't blame them for seeing me as more of a maid than a sister. They learned from our mother.