Lancelot s Secret

My dad, Marcus Sterling, banished me to a remote Montana ranch after my ill-advised crypto-smoothie investment turned into an SEC headache.

I, Ava Sterling, prodigal daughter of a tech mogul, was serving time for a very expensive lapse in judgment.

All I wanted was a cell signal, a working phone, and to beg my dad for the G650 jet back home.

The ranch, with its endless shoveling and broken fences, felt like a temporary purgatory.

Then, on the eleventh morning, a sleek black Escalade crunched up the gravel driveway.

A woman stepped out, an older, tired reflection of me, introducing herself as Eleanor Vance, my birth mother.

The mother who, according to vague family stories, had vanished when I was a baby.

It was an utterly shocking reunion, one I never anticipated.

Eleanor quickly swept me into her opulent, yet startlingly cold, life in the city.

Her grand house was a blur of shimmering dresses and tailored suits, a world away from my farm attire.