Chapter 4 - The Eviction of the Pretenders
Jasper stumbled out of the Robertson Global building,
his legs feeling like jelly.
His phone was blowing up with alerts.
His bank accounts had been frozen pending a fraud investigation—something my father had initiated after finding discrepancies in Jasper’s business taxes.
He reached the cafe where Gillian and Priscilla were waiting.
"Did you get it?"
Gillian shrieked,
clapping her hands.
"When can we see the villa?"
Jasper looked at her,
his eyes hollow.
"We’re ruined,"
he croaked.
"Hailey...
Hailey is a Robertson."
"The Robertson."
The confusion on their faces quickly turned to horror as Jasper explained what had happened.
They rushed back to the apartment,
hoping it was all some kind of sick joke.
They found their designer suitcases sitting on the sidewalk.
The building’s security guard,
who had always been polite to Jasper,
now stood in the doorway with his arms crossed.
"You’re not on the lease,
Mr. Miller,"
the guard said firmly.
"Mrs. Robertson has requested that you stay off the property."
Gillian began to scream,
demanding to be let in to get her "expensive" tea set.
Priscilla sat on a suitcase and began to cry,
realizing that her Soho penthouse had vanished into thin air.
Jasper stood in the middle of the sidewalk,
the same sidewalk where he had handed Hailey bus fare just a day before.
Passersby looked at the three of them with pity and amusement.
They were the picture of a fallen dynasty,
except they had never actually had a dynasty to begin with.
Everything they had enjoyed—the luxury,
the status,
the comfort—had been a gift from a woman they had treated with contempt.
Jasper tried to call Hailey,
but his number was blocked.
He tried to call his "investors,"
but they had already issued a public statement distancing themselves from him.
By nightfall,
the three of them were sitting in a cheap motel on the edge of town,
eating fast food with the last bit of cash Jasper had in his wallet.
Gillian was still complaining,
this time about the scratchy towels and the smell of cigarettes.
"This is all your fault,
Jasper!"
she hissed.
"You should have known she was rich!"
Jasper didn't answer.
He stared at the flickering television,
thinking about the tiny son he had barely looked at.
He thought about Hailey’s pale face outside the hospital.
He realized then that he hadn't just lost a fortune.
He had lost the only person who had ever truly loved him for who he was,
before the money and the suits.
May you like
He had had everything,
and he had thrown it away for the sake of looking like a king in front of two people who only loved his wallet.
