He Chose Her Son

Three days until the Whitfield Scholarship exam. Out of nowhere, a neighbor from our old street called to ask how much the villa had sold for. "The way that mother and son throw money around, it must have gone for a fortune." I had no idea what she was talking about. The villa was the wedding gift my mother gave me. I would never have sold it. Three years ago, my son had just won a place at the best public high school in the city. My husband said Noah was coddled and had no idea how ordinary people lived. To break him of it, we moved out of the villa and into a cramped, aging walk-up. Three years of high school. I lived that lean life beside him, buying marked-down produce. Noah traded his phone for a cheap flip phone, and he grew quieter every year. He stopped asking for spending money, and he never dared ask for a review course. He worked through his textbooks and borrowed practice books from the boy at the next desk. I asked my husband whether we were being too hard on him. "Anyone destined for greatness can survive a little hardship," Daniel said. Then my neighbor sent me the photographs. My son had gone without for three years, treating one exam as the only road out. The son of Daniel's childhood sweetheart was living in the villa my family gave me, attending an elite prep school, dressed head to toe in designer labels. He would not even have to sit the exam. A large enough donation was buying him a place at a school overseas. Furious, I pulled every transfer my husband had made. I was going to find out exactly who had been spending the money my son went without for three years. Chapter 1 In the bank's private-client lounge, I went through my husband's transactions one by one. Every new line made the pressure in my chest worse. Three years ago, Daniel Carter had donated an entire dormitory to Kingsley Prep so the son of Rachel Miller, the girl he had grown up with, could get in. The building had cost at least seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I remembered exactly what Daniel had told our son before the Northview entrance exam. "A man earns his own future, Noah. If you can't win a place at Northview Academy, you'll go to trade school. I'm not buying your way in anywhere." At the time, I had never hidden the fact that our family was wealthy. Noah had looked hurt. "Dad, if we can afford it, why can't I just study abroad?" Daniel had slammed his fork onto the table. When he grabbed Noah by the collar, the designer label inside his shirt showed. "That shirt costs more than some people earn in a month," Daniel snapped. "I ask one thing of you - work hard in school - and you can't even do that?" "But I already passed the language tests..." Noah muttered. "Enough. Most kids don't get a dozen different paths handed to them. You'll take the exam like everyone else, and you'll earn your place." My heart had ached for Noah, but I understood my husband. Daniel had grown up with nothing. He claimed to despise privilege more than anything. When he first learned that I was the Bennett heiress, he barely spoke to me for a month. He did not accept that I was different from the other trust-fund kids he hated until he watched me take an entry-level job at Bennett Holdings and work harder than everyone around me. So when Noah developed a taste for expensive clothes and limited-edition collectibles, I believed Daniel was trying to stop him from becoming entitled. That was the first day my husband ever shouted at me. "We're leaving the villa tonight. If we don't correct this while he's still in high school, who knows what kind of selfish man he'll become?" Fortunately, Noah rose to the challenge. After one intense month of preparation, he earned a place at Northview Academy, the most competitive public magnet school in the city. To make sure he stopped thinking of himself as a rich kid, Daniel told him Bennett Holdings had collapsed and that his own company was struggling too. According to Daniel, there was no money for tuition anywhere. Winning the Whitfield Scholarship - a full ride awarded on a single two-day examination at the end of senior year - was now Noah's only way into a university at all. Our son seemed to grow up overnight. He stopped asking for new sneakers. He never mentioned studying abroad again. He watched us move into a cramped, aging walk-up and sell everything valuable we appeared to own. He even let go of every collectible he loved. Night after night, I found him hunched over the narrow desk beside his twin bed, studying past midnight. Whenever I begged him to sleep, he hugged me and said, "I'll work harder, Mom. I'll get us out of this place and give you a good life again." Remembering it now made my heart twist. Anger surged through me. I called Daniel. The moment he answered, I said, "Why did you donate a dormitory to Kingsley Prep?" Chapter 2 Daniel was silent for a beat. "What do you mean, why? It was one building. The company funds charitable projects all the time. Why are you making a scene over this?" His tone sharpened. "You should be worrying about Noah's exam. I've already planned his celebration. If he does badly, how am I supposed to face everyone?" For the past three years, Daniel had grown more impatient with me by the day. I forced down my anger. The Whitfield exam was only three days away, and I refused to let our home explode before Noah finished it. But how dare Daniel lecture me about our son's future? During Noah's three years at Northview, his father had come home so rarely I could have counted the visits on one hand. I opened the report from Ray Delaney, the private investigator I had hired. Every night Daniel had not come home, he had been taking Rachel's son out to the best restaurants, resorts, and stores in the city. In Noah's freshman year, some Northview teachers skimmed the basics in class and saved the advanced material for paid evening sessions. After his first monthly assessment, Noah took his score report to Daniel. "Dad, can I enroll in the review program? I can work during the holidays and pay you back." Daniel barely glanced at the page. "Do students without private tutoring never get into college? Why should you be the exception?" That same year, Evan Carter had received more than seventy-five thousand dollars' worth of private instruction. In Noah's sophomore year, Northview offered a technical practicum. Noah wanted the 3-D printing workshop, but it charged an additional materials fee. I knew he had secretly taken a part-time job, so I offered to pay the fee quietly and let him enroll. Daniel refused. "Why can't he choose something traditional and free? You are the reason his expectations are so high." Now I knew Evan had spent that summer in an international technology program overseas, with every cutting-edge course included. It had cost hundreds of times more than Noah's materials fee. I asked Ray to organize every receipt, photograph, and message. Then I drove to Northview to meet Noah after school. He usually told me not to come because he did not want me making an extra trip. That day, however, I needed to see my son more than anything. At the school gates, I spotted Evan Carter. Rachel Miller stood beside him. That was how I discovered Daniel had assigned Noah to tutor Evan. For a moment, all I could hear was a high, electric ringing in my ears. Noah explained in a low voice, "Dad said a woman he knows is staying in our old house. He arranged for me to tutor her son so I could earn some spending money. I thought..." My hands shook so badly I had to close them around my purse. What was I supposed to say? That this woman and her son were the second family his father had been supporting behind our backs? When Noah first heard that the Bennett family had supposedly gone bankrupt, the shock gave him a fever for three days. His exam was days away. I could not tear his world apart now. "And today?" I asked as calmly as I could. "Mrs. Miller wants me to predict which topics might come up. Northview's practice sets are supposed to be the best in the district." When he finished, Noah looked at me as if he desperately wanted my approval. I hesitated. Rachel suddenly linked her arm through mine. "That isn't a problem, is it, Claire? Or was there something you wanted to tell him?" Her false sweetness made my stomach turn. Inside my purse were copies of Daniel's transfers. Grace Holloway, my attorney, had been blunt with me: if I wanted the prenup enforced and Daniel stripped of every claim against my family's assets, I needed more firsthand evidence, and I could not let him know I was looking. So I smiled. "Of course it isn't a problem. I'll come with Noah." Rachel had not expected that answer. She froze, and the corners of her mouth tightened. Chapter 3 Evan had a chauffeur waiting at the curb. Before Noah got into the SUV, he brushed off his pants, then sprayed disinfectant over his clothes as if he were carrying something filthy. I stared at him. Evan crooked one finger at my son. "Fine. You look clean enough today. Get in." He spoke to Noah the way someone might address a stray dog. Rachel gave us a sideways look. "Evan is very particular about germs. Public schools like Noah's aren't exactly clean. They let in anyone - janitors' kids, construction workers' kids. We can't be too careful." She smiled. "Usually we make him take off his shirt before he gets in. Since his mother is here today, we'll let it go." Take off his shirt? It was nearly summer. Noah wore nothing but a short-sleeved school polo. She meant that my son had been forced to ride half naked. The insult rose to my lips. Daniel had grown up in a rural town, and Rachel had grown up beside him. What gave her the right to look down on working families? When we reached the Eastwood villa, I followed Rachel inside. No wonder Diane Whitaker thought I had sold the property for a fortune. Rachel and Evan lived like royalty. The house and gardens had been renovated from end to end. Several limited-edition sports cars gleamed in the garage. Noah had always loved cars. Before he was old enough to drive, I had promised to buy him the one he wanted for his eighteenth birthday. Daniel's so-called character-building plan had erased that promise along with everything else. Rachel noticed me looking at the garage and laughed softly. "His father bought all of them. Evan loves cars, and he got his license the moment he turned eighteen. Noah seems interested too. Maybe..." "No," Evan cut in. "My dad bought those for me. Why should some broke tutor touch my cars? He isn't worthy of sitting in one." Rachel spread her hands in theatrical helplessness, but triumph shone in her eyes. Humiliation burned through me. Noah reached for my clenched fist and gently eased my fingers open. "Mom, he isn't wrong," he whispered without raising his eyes. "I'm here to make money. I can put up with it." Tears blurred my vision. Everything around us should have belonged to my son. I followed them inside and forced down my rage while Noah began the lesson in Evan's bedroom. The villa was more lavish than I remembered. Every trace of the life Noah and I had once lived there had been wiped away. Rachel ordered a housekeeper to bring fruit, then had a late dinner arranged in the dining room. Her pale, manicured hands kept moving in front of me. I lowered my eyes to my own rough, misshapen fingers. How could I have lived in comfort while Noah suffered? Daniel had limited the two of us to three hundred and fifty dollars a month. He said I needed to learn how an ordinary mother lived: cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry myself. If our son was going to endure hardship, I would endure it beside him. Even on that tiny allowance, I made sure Noah had fish or meat every week. When I could afford only cheaper ingredients, I taught myself to cook them well. The heiress who had once never lifted a finger in the kitchen could now put a full meal on the table in half an hour. Rachel, meanwhile, wore designer labels from head to toe. A diamond the size of a marble flashed on her finger. I wanted to ask her one question: What exactly are you to my husband? But I remembered Grace's warning. Don't let them see what you already know. Then a scream tore through the second floor. "Ah!" My blood went cold. It was Noah. Chapter 4 I ran upstairs. Blood poured from a cut in Noah's left hand. Evan watched him with a cold expression. "You're useless. I ask you to sharpen a few pencils and you can't even do that. If I get to the exam and don't have a pencil that feels right, you'll pay for it." There were dozens of No. 2 pencils on the desk. Noah had sharpened every one of them. My head felt ready to split open. Evan could buy a backpack worth thousands without blinking, yet he wouldn't spend a few dollars on mechanical answer-sheet pencils. This wasn't about saving money. He had been looking for ways to torment my son. I grabbed Noah's uninjured hand. "We're leaving. The tutoring ends now." He pulled back desperately. "Mom, if I don't finish the last two sessions, they won't pay me. And Mrs. Miller still has my photo ID." I stared at him, horrified. Rachel leaned against the doorframe, watching me with open challenge in her eyes. No wonder Noah obeyed Evan's every demand. Without that ID, the proctors wouldn't let him into the testing center at all. After three years of sacrifice, no one cared more about that exam than he did. I could not let him see how frightened I was, so I forced myself to follow his lead. By the next day, Rachel had decided I knew nothing. Her smugness became almost reckless. When the final tutoring session ended, she opened a family photo album right in front of me and began showing off. It held photographs from Evan's travels over the past three years. He had been everywhere - the coasts of the Mediterranean, the capitals of South America, even the smallest towns in Northern Europe. "His father adores him," Rachel said. "He charters a plane for every long trip. We spent millions during his senior year just touring universities, all so Evan could choose the one he liked best." She was so carried away that she nearly finished before covering her mouth in fake surprise. "Oh, I forgot. Noah said he hasn't traveled since starting high school. Claire, I wasn't trying to brag. Please don't take it personally." I said nothing. I simply waited for Noah to return from the bathroom. Evan scoffed. "Why are you apologizing, Mom? It isn't our fault Noah is too poor to travel." Then he added, "A bastard like him doesn't deserve Dad's money anyway." I went still. Rachel shushed him, but I had heard every word. A bastard? Was that what Daniel had told Evan? And why had he arranged for Noah to tutor this boy? Was he training my son to serve the child he truly cared about? I was still shaking with anger when Noah came back and packed his books. Before we left, I held out my hand to Rachel. "Give me Noah's ID. That was the last lesson." Evan kicked a chair over, snatched the card from the desk, and threw it into Noah's face. "Take it and get out, beggar. I hope you fail every section." He was still laughing when the corner of the card caught Noah just below the eye. An inch higher and it would have hit the eye itself. Then my son knelt to pick it up. The sight broke something inside me. On the morning of the Whitfield exam, I still had not recovered. Noah waved his clear stationery pouch and turned toward the testing center. In the crowd, I suddenly saw Rachel moving in the same direction. I lunged forward, caught her by the collar, and yanked her back. "Why are you here?" Rachel's eyes curved with satisfaction. "To wish my son's tutor good luck, of course." Before I could answer, she leaned close to my ear. "How well do you think Noah will do once he learns his father has another family?" My heart missed a beat. My entire body began to shake. I used every ounce of strength I had to slap her. "You think you have the power to ruin my son's future?" I demanded. "Do you really believe I can't destroy both of you?" Rachel glared at me through reddened eyes. Then I looked past her. Daniel was striding toward us, his face dark with anger. "What are you doing? Noah just walked into that testing center, and you're causing a scene outside. What kind of mother behaves like this?" I gave a bitter laugh and slapped him too. "What kind of father brings his mistress to wish his son luck on the most important day of his life?"