Chapter 1
"Sister..." A soft feminine voice reached the room before its owner did, accompanied by the clank of high heels on the ground. A fairy-like beauty slowly made her appearance.
With skin as fair as snow and long curly ash hair that reached her waist, framing her exquisite oval face, she exuded an aura of innocence mixed with fatal seduction. She was a woman everyone admired and envied—Julianne Moore, a famous Hollywood celebrity.
Even at her young age, the awards she had won were numerous and meaningful, the most important being the Academy Award, popularly known as the Oscar. She was one of the most famous actresses in the world. Yet at this moment, the woman whom many would die to meet was inside a small, musk-scented hospital ward.
On the yellow bed lay a frail figure, almost skeletal. Her appearance painted the picture of a woman who had been sick for years, and she seemed as if she would die very soon.
Coming closer, one could make out her emaciated appearance, her bloodless grey eyes that spoke of her impending death but lit up the moment she saw the visitor. A small, almost indistinguishable smile appeared on her face as she tried to sit up, but her body seemed to lack the strength, and she slumped back onto the bed.
"Sister," Julianne called out again, her curvaceous hips swaying as she made her way to the stool beside the hospital bed, crossing her legs elegantly.
"Anna..." came the dry voice of the sick woman, like that of a wanderer in a desert whose throat hadn't welcomed a drop of water in days.
"I'm here, Sister," Julianne smiled gently. Even her slight smile was enough to make a man stare. "Sister, the doctor told me you don't have much time left..." She stressed the word "much" as she placed her bag with the logo L&L beside her.
"Anna..." The woman on the bed opened her mouth but then closed it back as she had no words to console her beloved little sister.
"Actually, I've waited for this day for so long, so long I can't even remember." She sighed, the smile on her face deepening as she looked up and met her stepsister's confused eyes. "But it's here now. In the next few hours, maybe even minutes, you'll be gone."
"Anna?"
"I imagined this day so many times, and even though it's not quite like I pictured, it's still satisfying. All that's left of the famous Young Lady Leila is bones. Who would've thought?"
She chuckled, her sweet, soft voice the only sound in the room as the figure being confessed to remained in a state of shock, her eyes blank.
Leila Faisal, the woman lying on the bed, was once associated with the most famous socialite.
Leila was the only daughter of Chief Faisal, the owner of the top L&L brand, one of the high-end luxury brands that specialized in clothes, bags, and even shoes.
She had everything people would be jealous of—wealth that could last a lifetime and beauty that could beguile anyone.
She had only been seen by a few, yet they could never fail to recount the ordeal of their meeting word for word even after many years. But here was that woman, the seemingly dream woman of many, unattainable, lying on a creaking bed, left with no strength.
Julianne Moore seemed to have finally found an outlet for all her dissatisfaction as she slowly let out all the awful feelings she had harbored for days, maybe years, all those pent-up frustrations either directly or indirectly.
"When Father brought you back, I was happy... very, very happy to have an older sister. But the moment I laid my eyes on you, Sister, I don't know why, but I couldn't bring myself to like you. Something about you shattered all my fantasies into tiny pieces, and that was even more so during your first Christmas Eve in the mansion where I, the usual protagonist, was reduced to nothing but your little bag. All the praises for how I looked like the moon were stolen by you. Even the most famous jewel by Ferris Wu worn by me couldn't gain any attention the moment they laid eyes on you."
"Do you know, that day was one of my favorite days every year, where every relative tried to get closer to me, Auntie's kids tried to get in my good books, and Uncle's children followed me around, but you, you ruined it all! All the praises, all the envious eyes I should have received were poured onto you! They all tried to please you! They... they surrounded you as if you were the sun, pushing me through the crowd until I fell down."
Leila still couldn't bring herself to register what was going on. Her head was buzzing, and she didn't want to believe what Julianne was saying at all, but her gut feeling told her everything Julianne said was heartfelt. There was no reason to lie to a woman who is soon going to meet her creator.
And that's more of the reason she couldn't accept it. The sister she had spent years grooming, the sister she would trade her soul for, saying this to her was bringing her more pain than she ever expected. It was a never-felt pain before, as if someone was squeezing her heart. It felt so painful.
"Then you came..." Julianne whispered, pretending to be unaware of the pain in her sister's eyes. Her eyes were calm as she gazed at the window, the past playing like a movie before her.
The day her father told her he was bringing a sister home, a timid little sister. Julianne had expected nothing like what she saw; she had envisioned a smelly village girl, ugly and boorish, a little slave she could bully around, a lackey that would help her get things done at school like the White Sisters' cousin.
But what she saw was a little princess. Skin rosier than hers and looks far better, and since that moment, like a moth attracted to a flame, jealousy rose stealthily for her new sister.
Her father, who had always been busy with work, suddenly rarely needed to go to work. Many times, he would accompany her sister around, and during her sister's birthday, he specifically ordered a very large white cake for her. When her sister had been hurt by a kitchen knife, he had carefully bandaged it for her, and when Leila had requested to learn ballet, even though Julianne too had once expressed her interest in it, her father had agreed to her sister without hesitation while he had denied her.
She had wondered, was it because Sister was timid and she was lively? Was that why their father cared for her more? She thought she was right from all her observations, so she started acting shy with her father, but the only reply she got was, "What the hell are you doing? You are giving me goosebumps."
Her confidence had received a total blow at that time, and she had run into her room crying. From then on, the jealousy in her heart brewed into something even harder—desire.
