The Broke, Mute Boy I Saved Was a Bored Billionaire Chapter 01

The Broke, Mute Boy I Saved Was a Bored Billionaire Chapter 01

The day I found out I had cancer, I let myself have one reckless indulgence.

I started supporting a broke college student who couldn’t speak.

Bastien Rothwell had a cool, distant kind of beauty and a taste for danger. To keep him happy, I pushed my failing body far beyond its limits.

Bungee jumping. Racing. Scuba diving. Skydiving.

Everything my doctors had warned me not to do, I did with him.

My savings disappeared fast. While I waited to die, I secretly went to Arborcrest Cancer Institute to sign the beneficiary papers, planning to leave everything I had to his critically ill mother.

Instead, I found a photograph of him on Dr. Odessa Rothwell’s desk.

He wore a luxury watch and smiled like he had never worried about money a day in his life.

Dr. Rothwell followed my gaze and smiled. “That’s my son. He’s one of Vanderlin University’s top students.”

“He’s always chasing his next thrill.”

“Lately, he’s been playing some ridiculous Masquerade Challenge, pretending to be broke and unable to speak.”

“He said the woman he chose was older, painfully unfashionable, and getting boring. Apparently, he’s already looking for someone new.”

I laughed until tears spilled down my cheeks.

Then I tore the beneficiary forms in half.

“I’ll enroll in your experimental cancer trial,” I said. “But I have one condition.”

“I want the Rothwells to legally adopt me.”

***

The second I saw Bastien’s photograph, the room seemed to tilt beneath me.

He lounged against the rail of a yacht, a gleaming watch around his wrist. A beautiful young woman leaned into his side, wearing a matching watch.

It was the same face I knew.

But this was not the Bastien I knew at all.

That morning, he had woken beside me with his hair tousled, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he signed that he wanted his good-morning kiss.

Pain drilled through my temples until my vision went dark around the edges.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Bastien appeared on the screen.

Bastien: [Tress, I made thirty bucks handing out flyers this morning. I bought you a bracelet.]

I opened the photo, and my breath caught.

I knew that bracelet.

The night before, I had accidentally found a velvet jewelry box inside his backpack. It held a delicate designer bracelet with a polished quatrefoil charm.

The one on my screen looked almost identical, except the metal was already flaking and the stones had been set crooked.

A ten-dollar knockoff at best.

So Bastien had bought the genuine bracelet for $7,500, then picked up a cheap imitation.

The fake was for me.

Who had received the real one?

The woman on the yacht?

Last month, I had paused for a few seconds in front of that bracelet at a jewelry-store window. Bastien had immediately signed: [When I can afford it, I’ll buy it for you.]

Now he had.

I thought about all the gifts I had treasured in the cabinet of our cramped apartment.

Earrings that had already started turning green. A cashmere scarf unraveling at the edges. A tote stamped with a crooked designer monogram.

Bastien seemed to love giving me cheap copies of expensive things.

I used to think he simply didn’t recognize the brands.

Now I knew better.

Maybe every time he bought another woman the real thing, he picked up a ten-dollar knockoff for his older, dowdy girlfriend.

What a clever little joke.

My phone buzzed again.

Bastien: [Why aren’t you answering? Don’t you like it?]

I slowly typed a reply.

[I love it. Thank you.]

A moment later, Bastien sent me an ad for Blackpine Summit.

Bastien: [Let’s go skiing this weekend. They’re running a promotion.]

Bastien: [A few of my friends want to come too. You don’t mind covering them, do you?]

I checked the so-called promotional rate.

Eighty-nine dollars per person, rentals not included.

About what I earned after one long night making delivery-app orders.

I stared at the screen and suddenly laughed.

The longer I laughed, the hotter my eyes burned.

Apparently, when something became absurd enough, all you could do was laugh.

Across the desk, Dr. Rothwell gave me a puzzled look. “Ms. Halden, is something wrong?”

I put away my phone.

“Nothing. I just saw something funny.”

I met her eyes.

“Let’s talk about the trial.”