Sebastian snapped from behind him, though when Celeste’s dark eyes shifted to him, the eighteen-year-old rebellious racer immediately averted his gaze, shoving his hands deep into his jacket pockets.
He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the Persian rug, his voice muttering out with defensive awkwardness.
“Uh… yeah. Welcome back. Don’t… don’t touch my gaming rigs or my cars in the garage, and we won’t have any problems. I’m busy most of the time anyway.”
Lucas didn’t even look up from his medical textbook, merely adjusting his glasses with a finger.
“I reside in the boarding dormitory at the affiliated high school during the week. Our paths will rarely cross. Try not to make loud noises after ten p.m. When I am home, I study.”
The hostility wasn’t overt, but the alienation was a thick, thorny barrier erected by three young men who had spent over a decade learning how to live without a sister, terrified that opening up to a stranger would only lead to another psychological wound.
Adrian’s face darkened with fury.
“You three brats! Is that how you speak to your biological sister after eleven years? I should—”
“Father,” Celeste interjected softly, lifting a single, gloved hand.
The gesture was so casual, yet it carried such an innate, commanding authority that the billionaire mogul instantly fell silent, turning to look at her in surprise.
Celeste looked at her three brothers.
Her lips curved upward at the corners, forming a wry, faint smile that didn’t reach the bottomless depths of her dark eyes.
To a normal twenty-year-old girl returning to her family, this cold, dismissive reception would have been a devastating emotional blow.
She would have wept, screamed, or retreated to her room in heartbreak.
But to Celeste, who had watched international syndicates betray their own blood brothers for a crate of munitions, and whose daily reality involved managing squads of heavily armed, mentally unstable mercenaries, this teenage defensive posturing was genuinely adorable.
They were like three prickly, defensive puppies barking at a tiger because they were afraid the tiger might eat their food bowls.
“It is perfectly fine, Father,” Celeste said, her voice laced with a genuine, amused tolerance that made Adrian’s eyebrows twitch in subtle confusion.
She looked at her twin, then at the rebellious racer, and finally at the detached scholar.
“Blood ties do not automatically generate familiarity. We are strangers who happen to share DNA. I am entirely comfortable maintaining a polite, non-intrusive distance. You do not interfere with my personal business, my schedule, or my dietary habits, and I will not interfere with your corporate boardrooms, your garages, or your reading materials. Is that agreeable?”
The three brothers blinked, completely thrown off balance by her absolute lack of emotional neediness.
They had braced themselves for a weeping, clingy sister demanding their affection and trying to force herself into their established dynamic.
Instead, she had just calmly and gracefully offered them a non-aggression treaty, treating them with the detached courtesy of a visiting dignitary.
Before Arian could formulate a response to this unexpected tactical maneuver, a soft, trembling voice drifted down from the grand staircase.
“Sister… oh, Sister, you’re finally back…”
Everyone turned.
Rosalle was descending the stairs, her movements so delicate and practiced that she seemed to float over the marble.
She reached the foyer, stopping just at the edge of the family circle, and looked at Celeste with eyes swimming in large, theatrical tears that refused to actually fall, a technique known in the underworld cinema industry as the “Three-Second Pearl Drop.”
“I… I am Rosalle Hartwell,” she said, her voice trembling with a carefully calibrated mixture of humility and underlying panic, her fingers nervously plucking at the lace trim of her white dress.
“I was… Mom and Dad adopted me when you were lost… to keep them company. But now… now that the true sun has returned to the manor, I know I am just a borrowed shadow.”
She turned her tear-drenched gaze toward Adrian Hartwell and Grace Hartwell, biting her lower lip until it went pale.
“Brother Arian… Brother Sebastian… I know I won’t be favored anymore. I am willing to pack my bags and move out to the secondary servants’ quarters in the south wing tonight! I don’t want Sister Celeste to feel uncomfortable seeing an outsider living in her house! Please… don’t fight with her because of me! Even if Mom and Dad don’t want me anymore, I… I will always pray for this family’s happiness!”
‘Bravo,’ Celeste thought, her interior monologue applauding slowly.
‘A classic, textbook Green Tea Overture.
Establish yourself as the victim before anyone has even accused you.
Frame the returning biological daughter as a tyrannical threat to the family peace.
Appeal directly to the protective instincts of the emotionally repressed male figures.
Score: 4.5 out of 10.
The lip-biting was a bit overacted, and the reference to moving to the servants’ quarters was too transparently manipulative.’
Right on cue, the trap sprung.
Sebastian’s expression instantly shifted from defensive awkwardness to fierce, protective anger.
He took two steps forward, instinctively placing his body between Rosalle and Celeste.
“What nonsense are you talking about, Rosalle? Who said you’re moving to the servants’ quarters? You’ve lived here for ten years! You’re our sister too! If anyone tries to kick you out or make you feel like an outsider, they’ll have to go through me first!”
Even Arian frowned, his cold gaze thawing just enough to offer Rosalle a reassuring nod.
“No one is displacing you, Rosalle. The Hartwell family is more than wealthy enough to provide for two daughters. Your position in this household remains unchanged. Do not speak of leaving.”
Adrian and Grace looked exhausted, caught between their overwhelming guilt toward their real daughter and their habitual, ingrained affection for the girl they had raised for a decade.
“Rosalle, don’t talk like that,” Grace said weakly, rubbing her temples.
“No one is asking you to leave, and you won’t ever have to. Don’t cry.”