Loved A Billionaire In Disguise

The year we hit absolute rock bottom was the year I got pregnant by accident. To pay for the abortion, Holden took out a payday loan with a predatory interest rate. While I was bleeding and recovering on our thrifted mattress, the most nutritious thing I ate was a two-dollar frozen chicken thigh from the discount grocery down the street. My heart ached for him. I hated watching Holden break his back doing construction during the day, only to throw on a neon DoorDash jacket to deliver food all night. To ease his burden, I only took three days off after the procedure before picking up a side gig. A friend got me a job as a cocktail waitress at a highly exclusive VIP lounge downtown. "It’s a coveted spot. High base pay, crazy tips. I only pushed your resume through because I know how bad you’re struggling right now," she had told me. "Don't worry. You just smile, pour the drinks, and stay out of the way. It’s totally strictly professional." That was how I found myself staring into the dimly lit, velvet-lined VIP booth, watching Holden sitting dead center, surrounded by beautiful women. He had ordered seven or eight bottles of champagne that cost twenty-five grand a pop. The watch he casually unclasped and handed to one of the bottle girls as a joke was rumored to be worth a quarter of a million dollars. When the clock struck 3:00 AM, he casually wiped a smudge of red lipstick off his cheek, picked up his scuffed yellow delivery helmet from the leather sofa, and announced he was heading home. "Come on, Holden, are you really still playing out this tragic DoorDash-driver-meets-warehouse-girl romance?" one of his friends drawled. "Didn't your old man just threaten to cut you off if you don't settle down with the fiancée? End it already. If she ever finds out who you really are, she’s going to latch on and drain you dry." Holden let out a low, breathless laugh. "Please. She doesn't have the brains to pull that off." I stood perfectly still in the darkest corner of the room, my head bowed in total submission to the shadows. The abortion had cost three hundred dollars. The food he bought me to recover cost maybe fifteen. Three hundred and fifteen dollars. Less than the price of the complementary fruit platter sitting untouched on his table. I was so incredibly cheap. 01 Holden beat me home. When my phone vibrated in my pocket, I had just changed out of my uniform and collected my nightly cash envelope. A hundred and twenty bucks. I worked myself to the bone at the fulfillment center all month, and my take-home pay barely scraped six hundred. "If we're short-staffed again, you want me to call you?" my friend asked. I hesitated for a fraction of a second, then shook my head. My Nana raised me to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground. The money here was easy, but it made my stomach twist with a deep, nameless anxiety. "Suit yourself," she shrugged, not pushing the issue. "Text me when you get back." I nodded and stepped out into the biting chill of the city. The night buses ran on an agonizingly slow schedule. After standing on my feet all night in heels, the freezing wind felt like glass against my skin. My head pounded. My stomach cramped, a dull ache radiating from my empty womb. Holden had called me eight times. On the ninth ring, I finally answered. "Where are you? Why weren't you picking up?" His voice was taut, laced with an urgency that sounded so terrifyingly real. "You didn't even leave a note. Do you have any idea how out of my mind with worry I've been?" I didn't make a sound. Sensing my silence, Holden realized he was coming on too strong. I could hear him take a deep, measured breath, forcing his voice to soften into that gentle cadence I loved so much. "Where are you, baby? Let me come pick you up. Please?" The bus hissed to a stop in front of me. I climbed on and tapped my card. "No need. I'm almost home," I said quietly, and hung up. The roads were dead. The ride was fast. When I stepped off the bus at my stop, the first thing I saw was Holden. He was standing under the flickering amber glow of the streetlamp, wearing that grime-stained delivery jacket. The light hit the sharp, aristocratic lines of his jaw perfectly. Looking at him now, he didn't look like a delivery driver at all. He looked like an actor playing one in a Super Bowl commercial. Before tonight, I just assumed my love for him gave him that glow. He looked devastating in a faded t-shirt. He looked gorgeous in beat-up Converse. Even when the helmet flattened his hair into a mess, he was beautiful. I loved every single part of him. When Holden saw me, he didn't say a word. He just reached out, took my heavy canvas tote off my shoulder, and brushed his knuckles against my cheek. Then he took my freezing hands and buried them inside his jacket, pressing them against his warm chest. "You must be starving. I got you a bodega sandwich. Asked the guy to add an extra fried egg." When we were at our most desperate, an extra egg was a luxury. It was my exclusive privilege—fried hard on the edges, just the way I liked it. Holden never took a single bite. He always saved the whole thing for me. Those little sacrifices used to be my most treasured possessions. I had given Holden my entire soul. I thought that as long as we had each other, the poverty and the exhaustion couldn't touch me. But as it turned out, in Holden’s eyes, me, my devotion, even our unborn child... Added all together, it was only worth a fruit platter. 02 The second we walked through the door, Holden practically tripped over himself to heat up the food and set it in front of me. I tasted absolutely nothing. I just sat there, hollow and numb, mechanically lifting the fork to my mouth, over and over. "June," he murmured, crouching beside my chair. "I know you've been so depressed these last few days. But you know our situation. We just couldn't keep the baby right now." "I don't care how hard I have to work, but I could never live with myself if I made you and a child suffer through this kind of poverty." "Please don't be sad, baby. I swear to you, we'll have kids one day. When I finally make something of myself, I am going to give you and our baby the most beautiful life in the world." My hand stalled. And then, the dam broke. The tears fell so fast I couldn't breathe. Holden panicked. He scrambled up, pulling me into his chest, wiping my face frantically, murmuring against my hair. "June, baby, please don't cry." "I'm so sorry. I'm a failure. I'm so, so sorry." His voice actually cracked. He sounded so utterly heartbroken. But behind my closed eyes, all I could see were flashes of him lounging in that velvet booth, letting those girls drape themselves over him, laughing at their jokes. I saw the mocking twist of his lips as he told his friends I was too stupid to figure him out. "Holden..." I gripped the fabric of his cheap jacket, my knuckles turning white. I wanted to scream. "Are you hiding something from me? Why are you doing this? Is this just a game to you? Or did you really think I was some gold-digger who only wanted your money, so you had to put on this elaborate show?" But the words died in my throat. My brain was a chaotic reel of the last three years—every struggle we shared, every tear we shed over unpaid bills. Were all those tender, intimate, desperate moments a complete fabrication? When I finally cried myself out, I lay quiet against his chest and whispered, "Holden, do you love me?" "You silly girl," he kissed the top of my head. "How could I not love you?" I had asked him that question a hundred times before. Not out of insecurity, but just because I loved hearing him say it. But tonight was the first time I couldn't bring myself to look him in the eyes. "No. You don't." "Holden, you never loved me at all." 03 The alarm went off early the next morning. Usually, I’d be up by now, plating his breakfast and waking him with a kiss. Today, I stayed facing the wall, perfectly still. Holden didn't complain. He slipped out of bed quietly, washed up, and came back to the edge of the mattress. He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to my temple. "I'm heading to work, June. Stay in bed today, okay? Let your body rest." "I made an extra sixty bucks on deliveries last night. I transferred fifty to your account. Buy yourself something nice." "If you go out, just text me, alright? Don't scare me like last night." I kept my eyes shut. I didn't say a word. He didn't seem to mind. He stroked my hair gently, then stood up and left. The moment the front door clicked shut, my eyes snapped open. I got dressed in ten minutes, hurried downstairs, and watched him ride his battered scooter out of the apartment complex. I hailed a cab and pointed. "Follow him." The driver looked at me in the rearview mirror. "Catching a cheater, honey?" My lips curved into a ghost of a smile. "Something like that." The scooter eventually merged into traffic heading toward one of the most exclusive zip codes in the state. The cab couldn't get past the private security gates. I was patient. I told the driver to park down the block and keep the meter running. Half an hour later, a sleek, midnight-black car rolled out of the gates. The tinted window in the back was rolled halfway down. I had a clear view of Holden’s profile. The driver let out a low whistle. "A Rolls-Royce Phantom. Your guy’s got some serious backing." "Is it expensive?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "Expensive? The base model runs about half a million. Custom like that? Probably closer to a million." I learned a lot about the world that day, trailing behind Holden. He rode in a car that cost a lifetime of my wages, driven by a man in a tailored suit. He went for a fitting at a bespoke tailor on an avenue where the rent was higher than my town’s annual budget. He walked into a high-end jeweler whose name I couldn't even pronounce. I asked my worldly cab driver how much that might cost. "Hard to say. A hundred grand on the low end. Millions on the high end. That brand doesn't even let you in the door unless your net worth has commas in it." It wasn't until dusk that the Rolls finally pulled into the most heavily guarded, elite enclave of estates in the city. "What's the plan, sweetheart? We keep waiting?" I shook my head, handed the driver a wad of cash that drained my account, and thanked him. "Security here is military-grade," the driver warned. "You won't get within a mile of the door unless a resident clears you." I nodded. I knew that. A girl like me didn't belong in a place like this. But maybe God felt bad for how blindingly stupid I had been, because He decided to hand me the final nail for the coffin. Standing at the guardhouse, signing a guest ledger, was Becca. We grew up in neighboring counties back in the mountains. We weren't incredibly close, but we looked out for each other when we could. The reason she got me the club job was because I had sat in the hospital and signed her release papers when she had her appendix out last year, bringing her soup for a week. "Becca," I called out. She turned, startled. She looked at my worn jacket, then at the gates, and offered a tight, complicated smile. "You really shouldn't be here, June." "I have a friend inside," I said, my voice steady. "I just need to see him. I swear to you, I won't cause a scene." She studied my face for a long moment, then gave a curt nod. The estate grounds were so massive we had to take a golf cart to the main house. I didn't know which mansion Holden was in, but fate has a sick sense of humor. I spotted him on the manicured lawn of the very house Becca was visiting. The backyard was bathed in the warm glow of string lights. Caterers moved silently through a crowd of people dripping in old money. And there, standing in the center of it all, was Holden. He was dressed flawlessly, smiling a charming, polished smile as he leaned down to listen to a stunning woman in a designer silk dress. "His name is Holden Croft. Heir to Croft Industries," Becca murmured, following my gaze. "You know the Croft name, right?" I shook my head. "Real estate. Corporate buyouts. That massive luxury mall downtown? They own the dirt it sits on." "You know him?" I asked. She shook her head, then nodded slowly. She pulled a vape from her purse, took a drag, and looked at me with something resembling pity. "There's this... trend. A game the trust-fund boys in this city started playing a couple of years ago." "They find a girl. Someone pretty, but broke. Desperate. And they play poor." "It started as a bet. Just to see who could pull off the act the longest without the girl figuring it out." "But then they realized how easy it was. How painfully naive girls from the wrong side of the tracks can be. How deeply they want to be loved." "So they raised the stakes. The new bet was: who could get one of these girls pregnant, force her into an abortion, and still have her blindly devoted to him?" Becca exhaled a cloud of white vapor. "Rumor in the lounge is that Holden Croft just cashed out a two-million-dollar pot for winning that bet." She turned her eyes fully on me. "The girl who got pregnant, went through the abortion, and won him millions..." "God, June. It was you."