I Let Her Steal My Name

Chapter 1

In September, Oakhaven University was bathed in a shower of golden-red sycamore leaves. The spires of the Gothic clock tower pierced through the crisp morning mist. On the cobblestone paths, the laughter of freshmen dragging their luggage echoed brightly, ringing like church bells caught in the wind.

Harper Sterling pedaled her creamy white, secondhand bicycle, coasting leisurely through the campus gates. A faded canvas backpack hung from the handlebars. She wore a basic light gray hoodie and a pair of jeans with faint white wear marks on the knees. To anyone looking, she was just an ordinary girl from a working-class family.

Nobody knew that 2 hours ago, Edmund Wilson, the butler of the Sterling family, had stood outside her bedroom door at the Sterling Estate in Bayside Bluff. He had respectfully presented a perfectly pressed custom-tailored blazer set, along with a luxury bespoke town car prepared by the chauffeur.

"Harper, Mr. Sterling said it would be safer to have the motorcade drop you off for your first day," Edmund said, his voice carrying its usual caution. "The department has already been notified, and your private suite is all prepared."

Harper had been crouching in the corner of her walk-in closet at the time, oiling her bicycle chain. She didn't look up as she replied, her fingertips stained with a faint trace of grease. "That won't be necessary, Edmund. I applied for a standard double dorm through the school, and I don't want the motorcade following me either."

"But Mr. Sterling..."

"I'll talk to my father," she said, standing up and dusting off her hands, her eyes shining as brightly as the morning sun. "I came to Oakhaven University to study and make friends, not to be the billionaire heiress of the Sterling family. If everyone only approached me because of my last name, what would be the point of these 4 years of college?"

The butler eventually compromised. He looked at the girl he had watched grow up since childhood. Even though she held all the winning cards in life that others could only dream of, she always wanted to tuck them away and live earnestly as an ordinary kid.

Harper pedaled her bike down the tree-lined avenue as the breeze caught the ends of her hair. She took a deep breath of the crisp, earthy air, a soft smile playing on her lips. A new school meant a new beginning, and it felt incredibly freeing that no one knew who she was.

That good mood was abruptly interrupted at the intersection near the campus library.

Two elaborately dressed girls stood side by side on the steps, whispering gossip to each other. The girl in the burgundy dress, Madeline Prescott, had a sharp, high-pitched voice that drifted right into Harper's ears. "Did you hear? The heiress of the Sterling family enrolled in secret this year! It's the same family that donated our new campus library!"

The blonde girl next to her, Brittany Caldwell, immediately chimed in. "Are you serious? We have to keep a close eye out. If we can get connected with her, getting into the elite sorority would be an absolute breeze."

Harper tightened her grip on the handlebars for a moment and shook her head helplessly. She hadn't planned on stopping and only wanted to quietly ride past. However, Brittany had sharp eyes and spotted her secondhand bike and faded hoodie right away. She let out a scoff and stretched out her arm to block the path.

"Well, where did you crawl out from?" Madeline looked her up and down, making no effort to hide the undisguised contempt in her eyes. "Is Oakhaven University really letting in people wearing discount rack clothes from the local dollar store now?"

Harper squeezed the brakes and raised her eyes calmly. "Excuse me. Please let me through."

"Let you through?" Brittany crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow. "I'm Brittany, and she is Madeline. What about you? What's your major, and what does your family do?"

Harper didn't reply. She simply tried to steer around them to keep moving forward. She didn't want to cause any trouble on her first day of classes, knowing there was no need to make things tense.

But her retreat came across as cowardice in their eyes. Brittany stepped forward, reached out, and swatted the light-colored baseball cap right off her head, tossing it carelessly to the ground. Madeline took it a step further, aggressively swiping the textbooks right out of her bicycle basket. The books tumbled onto the dew-soaked grass, their pages getting smeared with a thick layer of mud.

"We were talking to you. Are you mute?" Brittany laughed arrogantly as she stepped directly onto one of the fallen textbooks. "If you're broke, you shouldn't be hanging around a place like this."

The hat had rolled to the side of the road, picking up a few stray leaves. Harper looked at them, her brows furrowing slightly, but she still didn't lose her temper. She just bent down to gather her hat and her books.

The moment she leaned over, Madeline circled behind her, grabbed a fistful of her ponytail, and yanked it backward with a harsh tug.

"Ouch!" Harper let out a low gasp, stumbling half a step forward as she lost her balance.

"Oh, so you do feel pain?" Madeline laughed, letting go only to give her another hard shove. "I thought poor people had thick skin."

Harper stumbled and grabbed her bike for support. Before she could even steady herself, she saw Brittany pull a folding knife from her pocket, crouch down, and stab it straight into her front tire without a second of hesitation.

The hissing sound of escaping air was painfully loud.

Brittany stood up, dusted off her hands, and smiled with smug satisfaction. "There we go. Now you'll just have to squeeze onto the campus shuttle with the rest of the broke losers."

Harper looked at her flattened tire, then down at the ruined textbooks scattered across the ground. Her chest rose and fell slightly. It wasn't that she didn't have a temper, but she genuinely felt it wasn't worth the effort. Revealing her identity over something so trivial would only drag her down to their level.

She stayed quiet, crouching down to pick up her muddy textbooks one by one, carefully wiping the dirt from their covers.

Seeing her submissive reaction, Madeline and Brittany found the whole thing boring. They rolled their eyes and were just about to turn and leave.

Right at that moment, the deep, steady purr of a heavy engine approached from the distance.

A pitch-black premium SUV rolled to a slow stop by the curb. The door opened, and a bodyguard in a crisp black suit quickly circled to the back row. He respectfully pulled the door wide, placing a hand over the frame to protect the passenger's head.

A foot clad in a slender stiletto heel touched the pavement first.

The girl who stepped out of the vehicle was dressed in a red-and-black checkered tweed designer jacket layered over a sleek black dress. Sunglasses rested perfectly on her straight nose, and her curled hair tumbled gracefully over her shoulders. Every single movement she made exuded a carefully sculpted elegance.

She took off her sunglasses, hooking them onto the necklace resting against her chest. She glanced around at the students who had stopped to stare, her lips curling into a perfectly measured, arrogant smile.

"Get ready for me, Oakhaven University," she said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried enough weight for everyone nearby to hear clearly.

Madeline and Brittany stared in absolute awe. They exchanged a quick look before instantly pasting overly flattering smiles onto their faces and jogging over to greet her.

"Oh my god, you must be the heiress of the Sterling family!" Madeline blurted out first, her voice trembling slightly with sheer excitement. "I'm Madeline, and I've been waiting for you to arrive!"

"And I'm Brittany!" Brittany hastily added. "You are honestly even more gorgeous than all the rumors said!"

Hearing this, a fleeting flash of surprise crossed the girl's eyes, only to be quickly replaced by a profound sense of smug satisfaction. Her name was Camilla Thorne. She had maxed out three different credit cards just to rent this vehicle and her entire outfit. Her original plan had simply been to put on a show for her first day so nobody would dare look down on her.

It seemed her plan had worked flawlessly.

No one knew the truth. Camilla was nothing more than the daughter of a maid working in the servants' quarters for the Sterling family.

Three days earlier, that afternoon, Camilla had waited until her mother went into the kitchen to prepare a meal. She snuck into Harper's bedroom, hoping to snap a few photos she could show off online.

Splayed open on the desk was an admissions portfolio sent directly by Oakhaven University. Because Harper had made a last-minute request to hide her identity and register as an ordinary student, this file, originally meant for the billionaire heiress of the Sterling family, hadn't been returned to the school yet.

Inside the folder lay the original gift letter stamped with the family crest, and a welcome letter from the Oakhaven Advancement Office addressed to Harper Sterling.

Seeing all of this, Camilla developed a completely insane idea. She was going to pose as the wealthy daughter of the Sterling household.

Camilla tilted her chin up slightly, offering them a reserved and haughty smile. "Hello, I am Camilla Sterling."

The moment the words left her mouth, a wave of low gasps swept through the crowd. The onlookers stared with a mix of shock and burning envy, scrambling to pull out their phones to snap sneaky photos of her.

Not far away, Harper was still crouching on the ground, picking up her very last textbook. The second she heard the name Camilla Sterling, she froze completely.

She lifted her head to look at the girl surrounded by the adoring crowd, her brows pulling together into a deep frown.

A Sterling? Since when did she have a relative named Camilla?

Then, Harper recognized her. Or rather, she recognized her face. When she was a little girl, she used to wander into the servants' quarters at the estate to look for stray cats, and she had seen this girl before. She was the daughter of Martha Thorne, their head cook.

Was she actually pretending to be her?

Harper stood up, grabbed her backpack, and took a step forward, fully intending to confront her. But after only two steps, she stopped in her tracks.

She watched Camilla soaking up the attention of the crowd. The girl wore a cautious but triumphant expression, looking exactly like a child who had secretly tried on her mother's oversized high heels. Everyone surrounding her was practically tripping over themselves to flatter her, their eyes filled with desperate sycophancy for the Sterling name.

Suddenly, Harper completely lost interest in the whole charade.

She had come here specifically to hide her identity. If she stormed over and exposed her right now, it would do nothing but socially ruin Camilla in public and shackle herself right back to the billionaire heiress label. What would be the point in that?

Besides, her aunt Martha had worked diligently for her family for over a decade. If the poor woman ever found out her daughter had pulled a stunt like this, it would absolutely devastate her.

Harper averted her gaze, grabbed her bike with the flat tire, and turned to walk in the direction of the repair shop.

She decided to just give her a pass this one time. Once the novelty wore off, the girl would probably back down on her own. At least, that was what Harper told herself.

But she never could have anticipated that for some people, once the floodgates of greed were opened, they could never be closed again.

The following day during the intro seminar, Camilla walked straight to the center of the podium to introduce herself in front of the entire class.

"Hello everyone, my name is Camilla Sterling," she said with a warm smile, her tone perfectly gentle and appropriate. "I'm thrilled to be your classmate. I really hope none of you treat me differently just because of my background. I'm exactly the same as all of you."

Whispers erupted across the classroom instantly.

"Oh my god, she really is from the Sterling family! I heard her family even owns shares in the Zenith Tower!"

"She's so unbelievably humble. Beautiful and kind-hearted."

Sitting in the back row, Harper watched the theatrical performance unfolding on the stage and couldn't hold it back. She let out a soft, amused snort.

It was all way too fake, she thought to herself.

However, that quiet laugh reached the ears of the professor at the front of the room, coming across as a blatant provocation. Professor Alden furrowed his brows and pointed sharply in her direction. "You there, in the back row! What is so funny? Showing such blatant disrespect to your classmate on the very first day of school is unacceptable. Do it again, and I'll write you up for a disciplinary infraction!"

Harper blinked in surprise. She was just about to explain herself when she saw Camilla turn around and flash the professor an incredibly forgiving smile. "It's perfectly fine, Professor Alden. She didn't mean anything by it. I think she might just be a little jealous of me, that's all."

"You are very mature," Professor Alden said, nodding in strong approval. "Now that is the grace a true lady of a prestigious family should possess."

Harper stared at the girl putting on such a sickly sweet act, and the amusement slowly faded from her lips.

It seemed her willingness to step back had been thoroughly mistaken for weakness.

Having secured the professor's praise, Camilla only grew more arrogant. She swept her gaze across the classroom and casually tossed out a tempting offer. "Speaking of which, to thank everyone for such a warm welcome, I'm planning to host a private party tonight at my favorite restaurant. Space is limited, though, so I'll only be inviting friends I really click with."

The classroom immediately erupted into cheers. Brittany jumped right in, deliberately shooting a venomous glare at Harper while speaking in a shrill, mocking tone. "Obviously, we definitely don't want any random nobodies tagging along. Certain people should probably just focus on figuring out where they're going to scrounge up a cheap dinner tonight."

The entire class burst into a chorus of mocking laughter.

Harper remained seated, her face completely unreadable. She locked eyes with Camilla and suddenly spoke up. Her voice was quiet, but it rang out with crystal clarity across the entire room. "I've heard the Sterling family has an incredible oceanfront property over in Bayside Bluff. Honestly, instead of some restaurant, wouldn't everyone much rather go see the estate?"