Who Is That Girl

The branch office air conditioning was always set way too cold. Holding the project files, with numb fingers, my phone buzzed in my pocket—it was a social feed update. Swiping open my screen, a red and gold-embossed engagement invite hit me like a punch—it said, "Congrats to Miss Jones and Mr. Gabriel on their perfect match," with the names Tina Jones and Yale Gabriel printed side by side right in the center. Yale Gabriel's been my boyfriend for three years, yet I'd never heard of this Tina Jones before. What made my chest tighten even more was that the wedding's set at the Joy Hotel under the Lincoln Group—that's my family's place. I shook as I opened the Joy Hotel website, where the front-page announcement blared: "Hotel closed for two weeks due to daughter's engagement." Their daughter? Since when did my parents get another daughter? I sent the screenshot to Yale, deleting and retyping the message several times before finally sending just one line: "Why didn't you tell me you're engaged? Who's my parents' new daughter?" Half an hour later, Yale called, sounding 'sincere': "Quincy, don't overthink it, I'm not engaged. Tina is the goddaughter your parents just took in. You weren't home, and they felt lonely. The invitation was a hotel printing mistake. I was dealing with it just now and didn't reply sooner." I let out a soft 'uh-huh' on the phone, hung up, and immediately opened the ticket app—the last flight back to A City had only one seat left. After the payment went through, I grabbed my coat and left. When a colleague chased after me asking questions, I just tugged at the corner of my mouth without saying a word. Some things you just have to figure out yourself. By the time the plane landed in A City, it was already dark. I hailed a taxi and headed straight to the villa. On the way, I called Dad at the sanatorium. After a few seconds of silence, he admitted he'd accepted Tina Jones as his goddaughter, his tone deliberately gentle: "Quincy, you just got back and must be tired. Rest first, we'll talk tomorrow." After hanging up, I leaned against the car window thinking: Yale Gabriel is at the company, Dad's in the sanatorium, so the villa should only have Tina. But when I got to the villa gate, I just froze—the rose garden that used to be full of roses had been completely replaced by pink lilies, which I'm allergic to just by touching. The wind carried the scent of flowers, and I sneezed. A gardener frowned and stopped me: "This is Miss Jones's residence. No invite, no entry!" "This is my home." I pulled out my phone to call my parents when a black car suddenly sped by. The wind it kicked up knocked me to the ground, and my palm burned from scraping the concrete. The car door swung open, and a girl in the latest designer white dress jumped out. The pearl necklace around her neck and the bracelet on her wrist were all luxury logos. The gardener immediately put on a servile smile: "Miss Jones, you're back." Then he pointed at me and said, "She claims to be the owner and wants to call the boss." The girl turned to look at me, big eyes and fair skin, dimples showing when she smiled, but the pride in her eyes was impossible to hide—this was Tina Jones. She reached out to steady me, her tone accusing, "Sis, why didn't you say you were coming back earlier?" I shook off her hand. "Sis? Since when did I not know that Mom and Dad have another daughter?" Tina Jones looked completely innocent. "Yesterday, Yale called you, and I was right there." “They consider me their goddaughter because you haven't come back for three months; they're just so lonely. Sis, don't blame them.” Everyone's basically saying I'm unfilial. I noticed the pearl necklace on her neck—that was Grandma's gift for my coming of age, always kept in my jewelry box. "I heard you're getting engaged the day after tomorrow? Who's the groom?" Tina Jones smirked, pretending to stay calm: "He's a really nice guy, and his last name's also Gabriel. Sis, don't you think that's one crazy coincidence?" I sneered and turned around; my phone buzzed in my pocket—it was a message from the private detective. Opening it up, I found over a dozen photos and videos: the first was a picture of Tina Jones with another woman, with a detective's note saying, ‘Mary Jones, Ben Scott (Dad)'s first love.' There were also photos of Dad and Yale Gabriel planting pink lilies, and in the villa, my photos had been replaced with videos of Tina Jones. In a video from the entrepreneurs' conference three days ago, Tina Jones was wearing a red dress, holding the Moon Group (my company)'s trophy, and Dad was proudly saying from the audience, “This is my daughter Tina, and next to her is her fiance Yale Gabriel. The engagement is in five days.” There's also a video of Yale Gabriel engraving a diamond ring; the detective said it's for Tina Jones—before, whenever I mentioned getting engaged, he always said, "Wait a little longer."