Charlotte Elizabeth Anne Sackville-West walks out of the sprawling Vale mansion, relieved that everything has gone according to plan.
She thanks the butler and boards the car prepared for her. On her way home, she relishes in the memories of her two meetings with her sister's tormenter.
His shock, horror, guilt, and longing have been deliciously satisfying.
She is surprised that the two men did not resort to more brutish methods to force the information out of her. She has to reluctantly concede that Raylen Vale's reputation for chivalry and gentleness may be at least partly genuine.
It makes her feel like the hours she spent thinking about how the situation can unfold and how to best respond to each possibility have been wasted.
Nevertheless, that does not negate the fact that Raylen was the one who drove Charlotte's elder sister to her untimely death by abandoning her after years together.
The elder sister Charlotte resembles. The elder sister whose shadow she has been living under her whole life. The elder sister she barely remembers. The elder sister whose ghost still haunts the whole family.
And this is all Raylen Vale's fault.
It is a bitter injustice that Raylen is living his best life—he is heading several multi-million companies, married to a beautiful woman he undoubtedly will leave eventually, and father to two healthy kids—while her sister rots quietly in the ground, having never seen her twenty-fifth birthday.
Despite the sadistic glee Charlotte feels, she keeps a smooth face. The driver has surely been instructed to observe her. There is no doubt about that.
The trip home is long. After all, there is no way an average person like her can live in or near wealthy districts.
Charlotte doesn't mind the long trip. It gives her time to mull over the situation.
Her scalp is getting itchy from wearing a wig all day but she doesn't have much of a choice. Delaney's hair is too fair compared to hers. While she has bleached her hair to match, she does not want to be caught visiting salons to touch up her darker roots.
Her eyes are also getting tired from wearing coloured contacts for hours and hours.
They may have similar faces, but Delaney's hair and eyes resemble their mother's while Charlotte takes after their father.
She endures the discomfort for the entire hour it takes to reach the apartment she shares with Marianne, one of her closest friends.
After exchanging pleasantries with the driver, she unboards and makes her way slowly back to her apartment on the sixth floor.
Although she longs to rip her wig and coloured contacts off, she resists the urge. Marianne is not home yet—production must have been delayed yet again.
Charlotte systematically draws the blinds and curtains of every window before beginning her transformation.
The driver is surely still downstairs watching her apartment. But what can he report back? There is nothing suspicious about covered windows in the middle of the night. Especially when the residents are two young women. This is a common precaution.
She heads to the toilet before tearing off her wig, removing her contacts, peeling off her silicone prosthetics, and wiping her makeup. Looking in the mirror she finally sees not Janus Allister but Charlotte Sackville-West—Delaney's more vibrant, cheerful, and active doppelganger.
Delaney's surviving doppelganger.
Charlotte really looks like Delaney. With the exception of a tiny mole under Charlotte's left eye and the slightly more upturned nose she conceals with Marianne's help, they are practically identical.
Tomorrow, Marianne will apply yet another layer of carefully shaped silicone on her face to transform her back into Janus Allister.
Her disguise will not hold for long. This she is confident in. A mere commoner—and that is exactly what she is despite her noble surname—cannot outwit a billionaire with mountains and mountains of resources at his disposal. The cloud of emotions plaguing him will soon clear, and he will be astute again.
Perhaps he will send a private investigator to break into her apartment. Evidence of her hidden identity is everywhere—from the hair clumps in the shower to the bottles of contact lens solution to the disposed prosthetics. She puts some effort into hiding them, but not too much.
Or maybe he will investigate her replacement at the University of Greton and find out eventually that the real Charlotte is most definitely not studying.
But it does not matter. Seeing his distress has convinced her of one thing—he still feels guilt about her sister's suicide.
Which means it shouldn't be hard for him to become attached to her despite finding out about her deception.
Because so what if he eventually learns that she is lying to him? So what if he realises her schemes? So what if he knows that she is back for revenge?
How can he ever bring himself to act against her when she is the one souvenir Delaney has left behind in this world?