When Charlotte’s mother dies, her sister Barbara wastes no time trying to cut her out of the inheritance. Armed with an old document, Barbara smugly tries to throw a spanner in the works. But when the truth comes out, it’s Barbara who faces the ultimate betrayal, and by the time she realizes her mistake, it’s far too late.
I always thought family was unbreakable.
That no matter what, blood was blood, and at the end of the day, we would always have each other’s backs. That’s how family works, right?
A woman sitting on a bed | Source: Midjourney
But after my mother passed away, my sister Barbara came waltzing in and made me question everything I thought I knew.
And by the time the truth finally came out?
Barbara was the one begging for forgiveness.
My mother raised two daughters: myself, Charlotte, and my older sister, Barbara.
Two smiling women | Source: Midjourney
Naturally, Barbara was always the golden child. She was the one who got all the attention.
Barbara craved a roast chicken? My mother had one cooking away the moment her words left her lips. Barbara needed dry cleaning fetched? My mother would jump into her car and fetch it.
Barbara was also beautiful. Stunningly beautiful and never failed to make heads turn. She was blonde with piercing blue eyes, just like my mother.
Roast chicken and veggies on a tray | Source: Midjourney
Meanwhile, I was the odd one out. I had dark hair, dark eyes, and to be honest, I never really looked like either of them.
But I never questioned it. Why would I? I loved my mother.
No, I adored my mother with everything I had. She was my entire world.
A smiling woman | Source: Midjourney
So when she got sick, I was the one who put my life on hold to take care of her. I didn’t complain once. Not when bruises bloomed on my arms as she held onto me tightly when I took her to the bathroom. Not when she got frustrated and threw her food across the room. Not even when she would break down and cry for hours.
Barbara, on the other hand?
She was too busy chasing her dreams of becoming an actress.
“I can’t take care of Mom, Charlotte. I have auditions. I have producers to meet. I have to stay relevant and seen at events. You understand, right? Right, Lottie?”
An ill woman laying in bed | Source: Midjourney
And I did.
Because that’s what I always did. I was always understanding, while Barbara lived her life however she pleased. I tried not to focus on her and how I could have done with the help.
Instead, I let Barbara come in and out of the house, wearing her new clothes and showing off photos of her with actors and actresses that she had met.
A woman standing by a mirror | Source: Midjourney
“This is a glamorous life, Mom,” she said one day when Mom was too weak to get out of bed to eat her soup. “And you should really clean up your look, Lottie. You need to get noticed. Your posture is horrible because you sit hunched in front of that computer.”
“It’s my job, Barbara,” I said simply.
Life continued in that way for months. And finally, Mom passed away. But that was when Barbara came back.
A bowl of soup | Source: Midjourney
And she wasn’t grieving. Not at all. She was hungry, starving even.
For our mother’s money.
After the funeral, we met with Alistair, my mother’s lawyer. Barbara walked in like she owned the place, dressed in black but wearing diamond earrings I had never seen before.
I should have known something was off when she sat down with a smug smile.
A woman standing in a doorway | Source: Midjourney
The lawyer pulled out the official will, but before he could even read it, my sister pulled her first stunt. Barbara reached into her designer bag and pulled out a yellowed, folded piece of paper.
“Before you read that,” she said sweetly, “I have something interesting to share.”
She slid the paper across the table to me.
“Look what I found in Mom’s drawer when I was searching for her jewelry.”
A piece of paper on a table | Source: Midjourney
I unfolded it, and as soon as I read the words at the top, my stomach dropped.
ADOPTION DECREE.
Barbara leaned back with a smirk.
“Well, well, well,” she drawled. “Looks like I finally know why you always looked so different from us.”
My hands shook as I re-read the document.
A woman reading a piece of paper | Source: Midjourney
Once. Twice. Three times.
“You… you’re lying,” I gasped. “You made this up! You got one of your strange friends to make this!”
She let out a fake gasp, her long nails tapping against the desk.
“Oh, Charlotte,” she said. “Don’t be so dramatic. My friends have things to do with their lives. And anyway, it’s all right there. You’re adopted. Girl, you’re not even Mom’s real daughter. I always knew that your brown eyes and brown hair had no place in our family.”
A woman’s hand on a desk | Source: Midjourney
I felt sick. I felt the bile rise in my throat.
Had my mother hidden this from me my entire life? But why would she do that? Why not tell me the truth?
Would it have changed anything?
Not for me. I would have been more grateful for her.
Barbara crossed her arms.
An upset woman | Source: Midjourney
“So, despite Mom’s will saying that we split everything, you know, she kept saying that, I’ll be making sure that you get nothing. You don’t belong in this family, so why should you get anything?”
“Ladies, calm down. Let’s take a moment to think about this,” the lawyer said.
But I was too stunned to speak. Barbara’s words had cut me. Deep.
A smug woman | Source: Midjourney
And that’s when I saw it. There was one detail she had overlooked in her ploy. The name on the adoption paperwork had been erased. Someone had deliberately tried to remove it.
And that?
That made me suspicious.
“Please, Alistair,” she said. “You can do whatever comes next, but in terms of the estate, I want it all. I can wait until you sort out the paperwork.”
A lawyer sitting at his desk | Source: Midjourney
The lawyer sighed and nodded.
“But I think the two of you need to have a heart-to-heart before we meet again.”
Barbara scoffed.
“That’s not necessary.”
Barbara was so confident that she had won. But I wasn’t about to let her take everything without proof. I didn’t want to be horrible about it, but I had missed two promotions in the months that I had been looking after our mother.
A smug woman sitting in an office | Source: Midjourney
I needed to know that I had the safety net of her money. I just needed to have something to my name…
I decided to demand a DNA test.
“What’s the point, Charlotte?” she scoffed. “You know what it’ll say, Lottie. That you’re not family. I wonder where Mom found you. Do you think your birth mother misses you?”
I didn’t think anything other than the fact that our mother would be turning over in her grave at Barbara’s behavior.
A woman standing in a kitchen | Source: Midjourney
“Just do it,” I demanded. “Think of it this way. If I am really adopted and there’s proof, you’ll have more claim to everything.”
That did it. She moved her head slowly from side to side. Suddenly, she got off the couch, martini in hand, and looked at me.
“Fine. Let’s do it.”
But the results?
A frowning woman | Source: Midjourney
Oh my goodness. They shocked everyone. Because Barbara?
She was the one who wasn’t biologically related to our mother.
After the results came in, I went to my Aunt Helen, my mother’s younger sister. She had been tight-lipped about everything, but after I told her about the DNA results, she finally told me the truth.
“Your mother never wanted you both to know, Lottie,” Aunt Helen said, tears in her eyes. “Because she knew how much it would hurt you both.”
A sad older woman | Source: Midjourney
“Know what?” I asked, heart pounding, but I figured that it was about Barbara’s birth.
“Barbara wasn’t Mom’s biological daughter, Lottie.”
“So, you knew?”
Aunt Helen nodded.
“Your mother found Barbara at a train station when she was two years old. She was abandoned. My sister took her in, raised her as her own. And she never, ever wanted Barbara to feel anything less than loved. It helped that she had the same blonde hair and blue eyes.”
A little girl sitting on a bench | Source: Midjourney
“Okay,” I said slowly, trying to fit all the puzzle pieces together. “But how did Barbara have an adoption decree? If she was found at a train station, I mean?”
Aunt Helen sighed and glanced out the window as if she was gathering her thoughts.
“Because your mother made it official, darling. She went through the court system and legally adopted Barbara a year later. She wanted to make sure that no one could ever take her away.”
A mother and daughter duo in a court room | Source: Midjourney
My stomach twisted. I didn’t know how to feel. Or what to feel.
“So, Mom just didn’t tell her?”
Aunt Helen shook her head.
“She never told either of you, Lottie,” Aunt Helen said softly. “Because in her eyes, it didn’t matter. Barbara was her daughter, just like you were. Blood or not, she loved you both the same, and nothing was going to change that.”
An older woman sitting on a couch | Source: Midjourney
But Barbara had never seen it that way.
She had spent her entire life being treated like the golden child, like she was the one who belonged.
And yet, in the end?
Barbara was the adopted one. I was our mother’s real daughter…
A woman sitting on a couch | Source: Midjourney
The biological daughter.
When I told my sister the truth, she laughed at first. We were standing in the kitchen and I couldn’t wait to get it out. She needed to know the truth, too.
“You’re lying now, Charlotte,” she said. “You probably got someone to doctor the results, didn’t you? Or you hacked into the system! You’re the computer whiz…”
But when I showed her the DNA test and told her everything Aunt Helen had said?
Her face went pale.
An upset woman | Source: Midjourney
“No. No, this can’t be right. Mom loved me. She… she wouldn’t just take in some abandoned kid!”
But she did. She had.
“Barbara,” I said. “She loved you. And you being adopted doesn’t change that. Our mother was wonderful. She probably saw you and couldn’t wait to love you.”
Barbara looked at me. She was… I don’t know. I couldn’t read her face. I couldn’t understand what she was thinking. I had no idea.
A woman leaning against a kitchen counter | Source: Midjourney
She was blank.
As for my mom, she had given Barbara everything. She had seen a little child and wanted to take her home and love her, to make that child her own.
And instead of spreading that love and joy… what did Barbara do in return?
She had tried to steal my inheritance.
A child sitting on a bench | Source: Midjourney
She had tried to erase me from my own mother’s life.
And now?
She was the one who lost everything.
We went to see the lawyer again. Together, but in different cars. Barbara couldn’t even look at me.
Alistair had confirmed that my mother’s will was valid. Despite Barbara’s cruel attempt to cut me out, I still got half of everything.
A lawyer sitting at his desk | Source: Midjourney
“But… wait!” Barbara said, her fingernails digging into her thigh. “I don’t want to share…”
“Barbara,” Alistair said. “It’s clear. Your mother wanted the two of you to share everything. A straight 50-50. Now, if you want to play this biological daughter game, I don’t know what to tell you… Charlotte could take everything.”
My sister thought she could rewrite history, but legally? She couldn’t touch a thing.
The will was still clear. We were supposed to split everything.
A document on a desk | Source: Midjourney
But after her stunt? After trying to erase me from my own mother’s legacy? Barbara lost more than just her pride.
“Let’s go to court,” she said.
“I really don’t recommend that,” Alistair said.
“So, what?” Barbara blurted. “You just want us to split the money and then pretend that we’re family again? I don’t want anything to do with Charlotte. I want my money and my house. And then I want to be done with this!”
An upset woman | Source: Midjourney
“Barbara, come on…” I said.
“Just be quiet!” she bellowed, throwing one of Alistair’s pens onto the floor. “I don’t want you around. You’ll just be here to remind me that I’m not biologically our mother’s daughter. So, no. We’re doing this. And when I win, you’re going to get the hell out of my house.”
That was it. That did it. I didn’t want to be nice. I didn’t want to share. I didn’t want Barbara around any more than she wanted me around.
A pen on a carpet | Source: Midjourney
So?
I hired Alistair on the spot. For me this time, not on behalf of my mother’s deceased estate.
“Let’s do it,” I said. “Let’s go to court.”
“But I want Alistair!” Barbara said, standing up.
“Too late, sis,” I said.
Months later, Barbara fought it in court, desperate to take everything for herself. But she failed.
A woman standing with her arms folded | Source: Midjourney
In the end, the judge ruled against her.
And I got it all.
She tried to destroy me, and in doing so, she destroyed herself and her future.
And do you know what?
I think she deserved every single bit of it.
A woman sitting on a couch | Source: Midjourney
What would you have done?
You Won’t Believe Your Eyes: Unseen Princess Diana Photos Finally Revealed!
Princess Diana earned the title “The People’s Princess” because she was loved by many, not just because it sounded nice. She was important to the British people because of her charity work and kindness. She once said she wanted to be the Queen in people’s hearts, not just on paper.
Her death in a tragic accident in Paris was one of the saddest events in recent British history. Even though she’s gone, people still remember her, especially through her sons William and Harry.
We’ve seen many beautiful photos of Diana over the years, but some of them haven’t been talked about as much.
Princess Diana’s life had many challenges, and she passed away when she was still young. After she married into the royal family, she faced a lot of difficulties, and people followed her everywhere.
Diana had two sons, Harry and William, who she raised on her own.
Even with all the struggles, Diana was a loving mother. She always put Harry and William first, wanting them to have as normal a childhood as possible.
Diana often took her boys to fun places like amusement parks. She knew they were royal, but she also wanted them to have regular kid experiences. Sometimes, she would even take them out of the palace to eat fast food.
Her chef, Darren McGrady, once said Diana came into the kitchen one day and said, “Cancel lunch for the boys, I’m taking them out, we’re going to McDonald’s.” He was surprised, but Diana said it was because the boys wanted the toys that came with the meal.
William and Harry loved spending time with their mom. She raised them to be like any other kids, and in many ways, they were!
Diana always wanted to be the best mom she could be, even though she knew brothers sometimes fight.
She wanted her sons to always be close friends.
A historian named Robert Lacey talked about Harry and William’s childhood in his book. He said Diana wanted her boys to promise to always be best friends.
Lacey mentioned a psychic named Simone Simmons in the book. Diana apparently told Simmons’ sons to promise to always be best friends. Both boys promised and hugged their mom.
It was a really sweet moment. Then, they went to play soccer together.
From the beginning, Diana put her children first, even though she was royal. She wanted to keep them close and protect them from anything that might separate them, even from the rest of the Royal Family.
A statue of Diana was revealed by William and Harry. Even though they promised to always be close, their relationship has gotten worse lately. It started when Harry decided to leave the Royal Family in 2020.
A year ago, William and Harry got together on what would have been Diana’s 60th birthday to show off a new statue of her. The statue, made of bronze, showed Diana with three kids and was put in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, where she used to live.
They said in a statement that they remember her love, strength, and the good things she did in the world. They wish she was still here, and they hope the statue will always remind people of her.
This year marked 25 years since Diana died. William and Harry both remembered her, but they did it separately.
A source close to the royal family told People Magazine that William spent the day quietly with his wife, Kate Middleton, at Windsor.
Ahead of the anniversary on August 31, Harry spoke about his mother, saying he hoped to make her proud.
Princess Diana – Charles’s affair with Camilla
“I want it to be a day filled with memories of her incredible work and love for how she did it,” Harry said on the anniversary. “I want it to be a day to share the spirit of my mum with my family, with my children, who I wish could have met her. Every day, I hope to do her proud.”
Besides leading an extremely public life, Diana had personal issues like any other person. For the Princess, one of the biggest problems involved her husband, then-Prince Charles.
Just years after his wedding to Diana, Charles engaged in an affair with Camilla, who would later become his wife.
According to Prince Charles’ authorized biography, as quoted by Town Country, their affair started in 1986. Charles was still married to Princess Diana then, and she found out about it.
In 1989, Diana confronted Camilla over the affair, telling her to back off.
Diana once spoke to Camilla, telling her she knew about her and Charles. She said Camilla had everything she could want, including two beautiful kids, but Diana still wanted her husband back. Diana felt sad and knew what was happening, not wanting to be treated like she didn’t know.
At Diana’s funeral, the Queen did something unusual. Normally, she doesn’t have to bow to anyone. But at Diana’s funeral, she broke that rule and bowed to Diana’s coffin as it passed by her.
Things didn’t stay normal for Charles and Diana for long. In 1992, they said they were separating, but they still did their royal duties. Four years later, they got divorced. Diana got to keep her home and title as Princess of Wales, but she gave up the title of Royal Highness and any claim to the throne.
Diana’s death in 1997 was a big shock to everyone. Her funeral was in Westminster Abbey, and then she was buried at Althorp Park, her family’s home. More than 2000 people came to her funeral. After the ceremony, her coffin was taken through London, where people could say goodbye.
Diana was always followed by photographers. She was one of the most photographed people in the world. Newspapers paid lots of money for her photos, even if they were blurry.
Her sons, William and Harry, saw how the press treated her. Harry said he wanted to leave the Royal Family when he was young because of how they treated his mom before she died.
Over the years, many photos of Diana were taken. Some were just for selling, but some showed her warmth and her life. There are lots of unseen photos of Diana out there. People are now sharing them to show a different side of her.
Diana became a style icon at the height of her fame, and she took that with her to the slopes while skiing.
In 1990, Diana and the children – alongside her sister’s children – went to Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands. Virgin’s Richard Branson owned the island.
Diana sure knew how to have fun. Look at this beautiful picture of when she and Harry visited the amusement park Thorpe Park in 1992.
Diana was often referred to as “The People’s Princess.” She participated in many humanitarian efforts, setting an excellent standard for how a kind and compassionate person should behave. Here, Princess Diana is seen visiting an Orthopedic workshop in Luanda, Angola, sitting with victims of land mines.
We can go on and on about these beautiful pictures of Diana. This one was taken in 1971 when she was on a summer holiday in Itchenor, West Sussex.
This one was taken outside Diana’s flat in Coleherne Court, London, before her engagement to Charles.
In this picture, Harry is poking his tongue out at people near Buckingham Palace. Diana looks a bit surprised.
The brand Barbour is still popular with royals, but Princess Diana wore it the best.
Diana really liked Barbour. During a visit to the Outer Hebrides in Scotland in 1985, she wore a Barbour-style waxed cotton jacket, and it suited her perfectly.
In this picture, Harry is sticking out his tongue to people near Buckingham Palace. Diana looks a bit surprised.
The clothing brand Barbour is still loved by royals, but Princess Diana may have worn it the best.
Diana really liked Barbour. During a visit to the Outer Hebrides in Scotland in 1985, she wore a Barbour-style waxed cotton jacket, and it suited her perfectly.
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