Starving While They Feasted
Agatha Christie · Ongoing · 6.8k Words
Introduction
The plan was simple: fake being poor, watch my sister's construction worker boyfriend run when times got tough, then reveal the truth and break her heart. I was supposed to be the convincing proof of our "poverty."
But I didn't know I was acting. For ten years, I lived their lie for real. Starved while they feasted in hiding. Worked myself to the bone while they watched me suffer.
Then I got my dream job and burst through the door to save everyone—only to find my sister's engagement party in progress.
But she'd dumped the construction worker for a tech mogul. "Maya's suffering was so authentic," she laughed to her guests. "It showed me exactly what I'd become if I stayed with Jake. Thank God I came to my senses."
My pain was her wake-up call.
Chapter 1
My family used me as bait to destroy my sister's happiness.
The plan was simple: fake being poor, watch my sister's construction worker boyfriend run when times got tough, then reveal the truth and break her heart. I was supposed to be the convincing proof of our "poverty."
But I didn't know I was acting. For ten years, I lived their lie for real. Starved while they feasted in hiding. Worked myself to the bone while they watched me suffer.
Then I got my dream job and burst through the door to save everyone—only to find my sister's engagement party in progress.
But she'd dumped the construction worker for a tech mogul. "Maya's suffering was so authentic," she laughed to her guests. "It showed me exactly what I'd become if I stayed with Jake. Thank God I came to my senses."
My pain was her wake-up call.
Maya's POV
I stared at my sister Fiona's glowing face, clutching the job offer in my trembling hands.
The joy I'd felt moments ago turned to pure devastation.
Ten years. Ten years of living in poverty—all a lie.
"Couldn't have done it without you, Maya." Fiona wrapped her arm around her new fiancé Brian's, flashing me a triumphant smile.
I stared hard at that face—so identical to mine, yet pampered, well-fed, radiant.
"Watching your miserable life these past ten years really opened my eyes about Jake and his poverty." She leaned close to my ear, dropping her voice. "Being poor is just terrifying, isn't it?"
Rage shot through me.
Mom Margaret walked over with a champagne flute in hand. "Maya, you got the NeoTech offer?"
She glanced at the letter, voice casual as ever. "Oh, decent job. But look at you..." She frowned. "Go change into something appropriate. It's your sister's engagement party—don't look so pathetic."
"Mom, I thought we were broke?" My voice shook.
"It was all fake. Had to show your sister Jake's true colors."
"WHAT?"
Dad Charles adjusted his tie. "Maya, we know these ten years were tough on you, but it was character building. You should be grateful."
"Grateful?" Tears started streaming down my face. "You dumped me in that crappy school when I was eight! Those rich kids called me white trash every single day! No hot water in winter—I had to take freezing showers!"
"Don't be so dramatic—" Mom waved dismissively.
"Dramatic? I got up at 4 AM washing dishes! My hands were raw and bleeding! Three jobs a day! I had a toothache so bad I couldn't sleep, but I couldn't afford a dentist, so I just suffered through my SATs!"
"ENOUGH!" Dad slammed the table. "We were toughening you up! You should be THANKING us!"
Thank them? That's when it all hit me.
Every time the family was "broke," I'd hand over every penny I earned. I thought I was saving us from bankruptcy.
Whenever Fiona was "sick" and needed medicine money, I'd give her my meal money without hesitation.
I wore rags to school and got mocked mercilessly. Fiona would always comfort me afterward, saying so "guiltily," "I'm sorry, Maya. With the family like this, we just need you to sacrifice a little more."
For ten years, I'd been working myself to death for a poverty that never existed.
Fiona straightened up, tightening her grip on Brian's arm. "I owe you big time, Maya. Seeing how pathetic you were showed me I could never end up with Jake. So I chose Brian—a man who's actually worthy of me."
Something snapped inside me. I lunged forward and shoved her. "You BITCH!"
SLAP!
Dad's hand cracked across my face.
"How DARE you touch your sister? She's always been delicate—you should protect her, not attack her!"
"Delicate?" I pointed at Fiona. "What's delicate about her? Have you denied her ANYTHING these past ten years?"
"Maya, you're out of line." Dad's voice turned ice cold. "After everything we've done for you. This is how you repay us?"
"Done for me? You used me as your LAB RAT! Made me think we were actually poor!"
Mom shook her head. "You still don't understand family responsibility. Someone has to sacrifice. Fiona is our precious daughter—her happiness comes first."
"What about me? Aren't I your daughter too?"
Dad stared at me coldly. "Of course you are. But some kids are meant to pave the way for others. That's your role, Maya."
Something broke inside me.
"You CAN'T do this! I'm your daughter, not your TOOL!"
"Daughters sacrifice for family." Dad turned to the security guard. "Marcus, take Maya to the basement. Let her think this through."
Two guards moved toward me. I fought desperately.
"When you figure it out, you can come back up!"
Last Chapters
You Might Like 😍
The Deadly Mafia Princess
Her gang take the matter in their own hands, to try to save their leader from the horror of her home. What none of them know, they wasn’t her real parents, and now Ro will be sent away to live with her real family. That makes her closest members in her gang pack up and move as well. They don’t want to be far away from their leader.
The CEO's Unspoken Love
Before I could answer, he moved closer, suddenly looming over me, his face inches from mine. I felt my breath caught, my lips parting in surprise.
"Then this is the price for speaking ill of me to others," he murmured, nipping my lower lip before claiming my mouth in a real kiss. It began as punishment but quickly transformed into something else entirely as I responded, my initial rigidity melting into compliance, then active participation.
My breathing accelerated, small sounds escaping my throat as he explored my body. His touches were both punishment and pleasure, drawing shudders from me that I thought he felt reverberating through his own body.
My nightgown had ridden up, his hands discovering more of mine with each caress. We were both lost in sensation, rational thought receding with each passing second...
Three years ago, to fulfill the wish of his grandmother, I was forced to marry Derek Wells, the second son of the family that had adopted me for ten years. He didn't love me, but I had secretly loved him all along.
Now, the three-year contractual marriage is about to end, but I feel that some kind of sentiment has developed between Derek and me that neither of us is willing to admit. I'm not sure if my feelings are right, but I know that we can't resist each other physically...
Omega Bound
Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life.
Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
Accidentally Crossing the Tycoon
Four years ago, the Bailey family faced a devastating financial crisis.
Just when bankruptcy seemed inevitable, a mysterious benefactor emerged, offering salvation with one condition: a contract marriage.
Rumors swirled about this enigmatic man—whispers claimed he was hideously ugly and too ashamed to show his face, possibly harboring dark, twisted obsessions.
Without hesitation, the Baileys sacrificed me to protect their precious biological daughter, forcing me to take her place as a pawn in this cold, calculated arrangement.
Luckily, in those four years, the mysterious husband never asked to meet in person.
Now, in the final year of our arrangement, the husband I've never met is demanding we meet face to face.
But disaster struck the night before my return—drunk and disoriented, I stumbled into the wrong hotel room and ended up sleeping with the legendary financial mogul, Caspar Thornton.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
They'll Regret This
My fiancé didn't just dump me—he proposed to her that same night. My so-called family handed me bus fare and a one-way ticket to the countryside.
Perfect. Let them think they won.
They don't know who I really am. The anonymous genius surgeon who saves lives when elite hospitals give up. The legendary artist whose paintings sell for millions at auction. The undefeated shadow queen of the underground fighting circuit. And the true heiress to a fortune that makes theirs look like pocket change.
Now my ex-fiancé begs on his knees. My fake sister's jealousy is eating her alive. And that cold, arrogant CEO who once threw our engagement contract in my face? He's hunting me down like a man possessed, desperate for one more chance.
They threw me away like trash to upgrade their lives.
Joke's on them.
I was always the upgrade.
Taste of Fate: The Vampire King's Human Mate
He reached for the back of my head and pulled me up just enough to reach my neck. When his fangs slid into me, the pain was instant, electric. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. My hands found his shoulders, clawing for something to hold. My legs kicked. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
He moaned against my throat as he drank, and the sound was devastating.
From Substitute To Queen
Heartbroken, Sable discovered Darrell having sex with his ex in their bed, while secretly transferring hundreds of thousands to support that woman.
Even worse was overhearing Darrell laugh to his friends: "She's useful—obedient, doesn't cause trouble, handles housework, and I can fuck her whenever I need relief. She's basically a live-in maid with benefits." He made crude thrusting gestures, sending his friends into laughter.
In despair, Sable left, reclaimed her true identity, and married her childhood neighbor—Lycan King Caelan, nine years her senior and her fated mate. Now Darrell desperately tries to win her back. How will her revenge unfold?
From substitute to queen—her revenge has just begun!
The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)
The saint to my sinner. with her innocent eyes and devilish curves.
A Madonna that was meant to be admired but never touched.
Until someone took that innocence from her.
She left.
The darkness in my heart was finally complete.
I avenged her, I killed for her, but she never came back.
Until I saw her again. An angel dancing around a pole for money.
She didn’t know I owned that club. She didn’t know I was watching.
This time I won’t let her escape.
I will make her back into the girl I knew.
Whether she likes it or not.
2/ Judge and Jury- I can’t stop watching her.
I’m not even sure I want to.
Taylor Lawson, blonde, beautiful, and totally oblivious to how much dangers she’s in.
She’s also the one juror in my upcoming murder trial that hasn’t been bought.
The one who can put me behind bars for a very long time.
I know I should execute her.
After all that’s what I do.
I am the Judge.
I eliminate threats to The Family.
And Taylor is a threat.
But I don’t want to kill her.
Possessing her, making her love me seems like a much better plan for this particular Juror.
3/ Rags and Ritches-
Falling For The Playboy Billionaire
Henderson Bain a playboy billionaire cares about nothing else aside from his daughter, Itzel who is a spoilt brat all thanks to her father.
Lena Cohen is hunted by her past but despite that, she is an amazing mother to Trent, a sweet well well-behaved boy but life wasn't rosy for them.
Henderson Bain is having a hard time searching for a nanny for Itzel until shows up though qualified, Henderson refuses to offer her the job because of their first encounter but seeing how Lena and Itzel get along, he decides to employ her.
Lena and Henderson were two worlds apart but one thing they never saw coming was them falling for each other.
Will they finally let go of their past, and give love a chance? Or try to suppress their feelings for each other? And what if their past comes knocking at their doors once again?
Pregnant by My Husband's Rival Alpha
Those words should have destroyed me, but the truth was worse: I'd been used as a broodmare by the man who swore to love me, set up in a hotel room with a stranger because My husband Alexander Cross couldn't father children himself, and now I carried the secret babies of Damon Lester—the most powerful and dangerous Alpha in San Loris—while my own family replaced me with the daughter they'd always wanted. But when that same stranger's doctor appeared at my door, when twenty million dollars exchanged hands over a fake perfume bearing my secret identity, and when Damon's gray eyes locked onto mine with recognition I couldn't afford, I realized my carefully hidden life as the legendary perfumer Vera was colliding with a pregnancy that could cost me everything.
Could I protect my babies from the husband plotting my death, hide my true identity from the Alpha who's been hunting me for years, and reclaim the freedom I'd buried along with my dreams—even if it means standing alone against the wolves who see me as nothing more than a womb to be used and discarded?
Rise of the Banished She-Wolf
That roar stole my eighteenth birthday and shattered my world. My first shift should have been glory—blood turned blessing into shame. By dawn they'd branded me "cursed": cast out by my pack, abandoned by family, stripped of my nature. My father didn't defend me—he sent me to a forsaken island where wolfless outcasts were forged into weapons, forced to kill each other until only one could leave.
On that island I learned the darkest edges of humanity and how to bury terror in bone. Countless times I wanted to surrender—dive into the waves and never surface—but the accusing faces that haunted my dreams pushed me back toward something colder than survival: revenge. I escaped, and for three years I hid among humans, collecting secrets, learning to move like a shadow, sharpening patience into precision—becoming a blade.
Then, under a full moon, I touched a bleeding stranger—and my wolf returned with a violence that made me whole. Who was he? Why could he wake what I'd thought dead?
One thing I know: now is the time.
I have waited three years for this. I will make everyone who destroyed me pay—and take back everything that was stolen from me.
After One Night with the Alpha
I thought I was waiting for love. Instead, I got fucked by a beast.
My world was supposed to bloom at the Moonshade Bay Full Moon Festival—champagne buzzing in my veins, a hotel room booked for Jason and me to finally cross that line after two years. I’d slipped into lacy lingerie, left the door unlocked, and lay on the bed, heart pounding with nervous excitement.
But the man who climbed into my bed wasn’t Jason.
In the pitch-black room, drowned in a heady, spicy scent that made my head spin, I felt hands—urgent, scorching—searing my skin. His thick, pulsing cock pressed against my dripping cunt, and before I could gasp, he thrust hard, tearing through my innocence with ruthless force. Pain burned, my walls clenching as I clawed at his iron shoulders, stifling sobs. Wet, slick sounds echoed with every brutal stroke, his body unrelenting until he shuddered, spilling hot and deep inside me.
"That was amazing, Jason," I managed to say.
"Who the fuck is Jason?"
My blood turned to ice. Light slashed across his face—Brad Rayne, Alpha of Moonshade Pack, a werewolf, not my boyfriend. Horror choked me as I realized what I’d done.
I ran away for my life!
But weeks later, I woke up pregnant with his heir!
They say my heterochromatic eyes mark me as a rare true mate. But I’m no wolf. I’m just Elle, a nobody from the human district, now trapped in Brad's world.
Brad’s cold gaze pins me: “You carry my blood. You’re mine.”
There is no other choice for me but to chose this cage. My body also betrays me, craving the beast who ruined me.
WARNING: Mature Readers Only
