The Heir's Lie

I can see other people's net worth.

The day my boyfriend learned he was the long-lost son of the richest man in this city on the East Coast, he came home and lied to my face.

"The DNA test didn't match," Caleb Foster said with a sigh.

Above his head, his net worth climbed past $14 million.

I did not expose him. I only smiled and said, "Don't worry. As long as you can take hardship, there'll always be more of it."

————

The day the DNA report came back, the National Weather Service had issued an excessive heat warning.

Caleb insisted I stay in our apartment because he was afraid I would get sick waiting outside the clinic. I bought ingredients we normally considered luxuries and made a real lunch instead of discount takeout.

If Caleb truly was the missing heir to a wealthy family, we would celebrate.

If he was not, I would feed him well and let him grieve.

When the lock turned, I was at the stove. "Well?"

He let the silence stretch before answering. "The DNA report didn't match. It was all a mistake."

I turned with a plate in my hands and froze.

Yesterday, the number above Caleb's head had been $1,025.78. Now the digits were spinning so fast I could barely read them. They stopped well past $14 million.

There was only one reasonable explanation. The DNA had matched. He had been officially welcomed back into the family, and he did not want me to know.

I set the plate down. "I'm sorry."

His shoulders loosened, as if my sympathy had released a knot in his spine.

"It's okay," I added. "As long as you can take hardship, there'll always be more of it."

His expression twitched.

We ate in near silence. Halfway through the meal, he put down his fork and asked, "Jenna, has your mother tried to set you up with anyone else?"

I looked at him across the table.

Before that afternoon, Caleb had hated those introductions.

My mother had never thought he was good enough for me. She did not forbid the relationship. She simply sent me profiles: a lecturer, a small-business owner, a government employee, a merchant-marine officer.

Whenever I opened one, Caleb would pull me against him and find a flaw.

"That guy's hairline is already retreating."

"That one's never home."

"And that face? Not for my Jenna."

Then he would say the same thing every time. "Wait for me. I'll give you a good life."

Now luck had dropped a fortune into his lap, and his first instinct was to hide it from the woman who stood by him when he had nothing.

I was angry.

But I also understood one hard truth: the fortune belonged to him. He did not owe me a share.

He did, however, owe me honesty.

A week earlier, Caleb had been stopped on his way to a delivery shift by three men in dark suits.

They stared at his face, then at one another.

"He looks exactly like Richard Beaumont."

"How old are you? Do you know your biological parents?"

Caleb had been orphaned as a child and knew almost nothing about where he came from. That made the men even more excited. They rushed him to a private DNA testing lab and explained that Richard Beaumont, the Beaumont patriarch, had lost a young son decades ago.

Mr. Beaumont owned Beaumont Group, a sprawling conglomerate with investments in real estate, energy, logistics, and technology. Several labs at our university carried plaques with his name.

That night, after the blood draw, Caleb had held me so tightly I could barely breathe.

"We're finally going to get a break," he whispered. "Once they confirm it, I'll buy everything on your wish list. I'll get you a gold necklace too. A real one."

Even his fantasy of wealth had been modest.

I believed he meant it then.

He had once worked two jobs so I could cut back on tutoring and focus on school. After handing out flyers all Saturday, he would walk six extra blocks to bring me iced lemonade.

During sophomore year, I had caught the flu the week before finals. Caleb missed a delivery shift to sit outside the campus clinic with my backpack between his shoes. He could not afford the visit, but he had still bought me crackers, cold medicine, and a ridiculous balloon shaped like a smiling sun.

When I complained that the balloon cost too much, he said he had negotiated the price down by promising the gift-shop clerk eternal gratitude.

That was the version of him I had loved: proud, broke, occasionally foolish, but willing to spend time and effort on me when both were scarce.

The memory was why his lie hurt more than the money. If he had come home and said, "The test matched, but I need time to understand what this means," I would have given him time. If he had said, "I don't think we fit anymore," I would have packed with a broken heart and left.

Instead, he wanted to edit me out while preserving himself as the loyal man circumstances had forced to let go.

I had thought surviving poverty together meant we could survive anything.

I had been wrong.

Now Caleb avoided my eyes. "I've been thinking that you shouldn't have to put your life on hold for me. Your mother mentioned that professor before. He has a steady income."

"Do you want to break up?" I asked.

His head snapped up. "How could you think that? I'm trying to be fair to you."

"Fair."

"Exactly. You're young. You shouldn't waste your best years waiting for me to become somebody."

His voice softened when he said it, but the plan was written all over him.

He wanted me to leave because I was tired of being poor. Then he could accept with wounded dignity. Later, after becoming a newly discovered heir with cars, money, and a socially acceptable fiancée, he could meet me again and watch me regret my decision.

He wanted freedom without guilt.

I refused to give it to him.

"I don't mind waiting," I said.

For one second, panic flashed across his face.

Then he smiled too quickly. "If that's what you want, I won't bring it up again."

He lasted four days.