The Billionaire's True Heiress From Fake Jewel to Real Crown novel Chapter 1700

The person who had truly raised her, unconditionally and with absolute devotion, was Mary.

If it hadn't been for Mary, Claire would have likely died from a severe fever as an infant.

She owed her life, and her loyalty, entirely to Mary.

She could cut off everyone else in her past without a second thought, but she would forever honor Mary, ensuring she lived out her days in absolute comfort.

The campus rumor mill spun wildly in every direction.

Claire, however, was completely oblivious to it all.

Ironically, Sloane Sterling—who now held a deep, begrudging respect for Claire—was the one shutting down the gossip.

Whenever someone tried to drag Claire's name through the mud in front of her, Sloane immediately shut them down.

The student body had widely assumed Sloane despised Claire. No one had any idea when the two had supposedly buried the hatchet.

In reality, there had never been a reconciliation.

Sloane had simply declared a one-sided rivalry and then unilaterally surrendered.

Her feelings toward Claire had violently swung from resentment to admiration.

Initially, she had loathed Claire for stealing her spotlight, viewing her as an arrogant freshman who lacked respect for her seniors.

She also felt a lingering guilt for trying to leech off Claire's viral fame.

That guilt had only amplified her defensive hostility.

Then, she made the catastrophic discovery that Claire was engaged to the very man she had been secretly obsessing over. That revelation had nearly shattered her reality.

But now? She genuinely admired Claire.

Looking back, her entire vendetta had been fueled by her own pathetic vanity. Claire had never actually done anything to her.

She had never even initiated a conflict.

Human nature was funny like that. People fiercely envied those who were only slightly better than them, but found it impossible to be jealous of someone existing in an entirely different stratosphere.

They simply weren't playing the same game.

This profound realization came directly from her grandfather and her brother.

And it was brutally, undeniably accurate.

Back at the hospital, Claire slept like the dead.

Before passing out, she had ordered her personal detail to wake her the second anything changed with Silas's vitals.

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