They Swapped Me Away, Then Begged Me to Return Chapter 06

They Swapped Me Away, Then Begged Me to Return Chapter 06

The next morning, Tessa knocked on my door while I was already awake.

She didn’t barge straight in; instead, she called through the wood.
“Can I come in?”

I froze for several seconds. Back in my old house, Mom would throw open the study door without ever asking if I wanted company.

I told her she could come in.

Tessa carried medicine and breakfast into the room, drawing the curtains halfway open first. “Tell me if the light bothers you, and I’ll close them again.”

Warm sunlight spilled across the covers.

I stared down at my plate, a strange twinge of unfamiliarity settling over me.

Breakfast here came with soft-boiled eggs, oatmeal, and some biscuits.

Tessa spoke up. “Dylan pulled your allergy records from the system. We threw out all the mango products.”

My spoon hovered mid-air. “Why’s he going out of his way for me?”

Tessa glanced over. “Because your tears yesterday were genuine. Lucy never cries unless she’s about to gain something from it.”

Later that morning, Dylan drove me to the office. The second we stepped into the conference room, every head snapped toward me.

Someone let out a bitter scoff. “Lucy has the nerve to show her face here?”

I lingered by the doorway, my spine going rigid with tension.

Dylan didn’t waste time making long excuses. He just set a stack of documents on the table. “This isn’t Lucy. At the very least, hear her out.”

I flipped through the project proposals Lucy had stolen page by page.

Some of the technical jargon went over my head, but it was obvious dozens of spreadsheets had been cobbled together from separate files.

I pointed to a line of data. “The growth rate numbers here don’t add up. If you pitch this to investors, it’ll hide massive operating losses.”

The room fell silent. A middle-aged woman stared at me for a long stretch. “Lucy would’ve just argued everyone misunderstood her. She never once admitted a single flaw in her work.”

I spoke quietly. “I’m not here to beg forgiveness for what she did. But I can help you track down every piece of work she stole, bit by bit.”

Tears pricked the woman’s eyes.

She introduced herself as Fiona—Lucy had swiped her flagship project and framed her for leaking confidential data.

I lowered my gaze. “I’m so sorry.”

It wasn’t my crime, but this face had hurt her deeply.

Fiona didn’t offer instant absolution, but she slid an old laptop across the table toward me. “Can you run data audits?”

I nodded.

“Start sorting through the original source files, then.”

I sat down and rested my fingers on the keyboard, stunned to realize I still knew how to do real work.

By dusk, we headed home to find Tessa had left all the lights on for me.

A handwritten note waited on the table: [You worked hard today.]

I stared at those four words for ages.

This was what normal kindness felt like. No need to suck up, no need to prove I was useful to earn basic decency. All I had to do was get through a day, and someone acknowledged my effort.

That night, Dylan handed me a thick folder of files. “Lucy didn’t suddenly become brilliant out of nowhere. She’s been siphoning other people’s work through that weird app this whole time.”

I scanned the pitch deck that had landed her investor funding—its original creator wasn’t Lucy at all.

It was Fiona, the woman in this world who’d been suspended from her job thanks to Lucy’s sabotage.

My fingertips turned cold.

My family had never fallen for some better version of me. They’d fallen for a thief who knew how to take what wasn’t hers.

I held the documents tight to my chest and sat alone for hours.

Outside, office workers streamed home from their shifts, and the distant hum of a food truck down the street.

This world was plain and ordinary. No one revolved around me, no one treated me like a pampered little princess. But for the first time, I felt grounded.

Here, people hated Lucy because she’d genuinely done terrible things. They chose to keep me around because I’d genuinely put in the work to make amends.

Dylan paused at the door before leaving. “We’ll pick this back up tomorrow. Don’t rush—take it slow.”

I nodded.

That night, I slept in a bedroom with a window. When the breeze drifted inside, I didn’t dream of the locked study, or any of them.

This quiet peace was more than enough.