Rise Of The Belittled Billionaire.

Chapter 2

“No.”

“Jade —”

“I said no.” Her voice went harder. "And honestly, Ethan, I'm going to say something to you that someone should have said a long time ago. You need to understand your place. You have no money. You have no position. You have no business, no connections, no value to anything that Director Sutton is building. You work a floor-level job at Sutton Group a job you only have because of her, by the way  and you stand around that building like you belong there when everyone who works there knows exactly what you are.”

He didn't speak.

“You are a liability,”  Jade continued, her voice almost cheerful now, like she had been waiting a long time to say this. 

“You are dead weight. And the fact that you keep calling this number tonight, pulling Director Sutton away from something that actually matters, the fact that you think your problems are important enough to interrupt the room she is standing in right now that tells me everything about how little you understand about the life she has built, and I still don't knew what she saw in you.”

“Tell her to come,” Ethan said quietly. 

“Tell her that her mother-in-law asked to see her. That she specifically asked. Tell her that. And tell her I said she needs to come right now or —”

“Or what?” Jade cut him off, and there was genuine amusement in her voice now. 

“Or what, Ethan? You'll do what, exactly? You'll be angry? You'll throw a little fit in that hospital corridor? Please.” She exhaled. “You have nothing. You have no leverage over Director Sutton, no claim to anything she owns, no ability to make anything happen or stop anything from happening. You are not a man who gets to deliver ultimatums. You are not a man who gets to demand anything.”

Something cracked behind his eyes.

“Is that what you think?” he said.

“It's not what I think. It's what everyone knows.” She didn't even sound mean anymore. She sounded like she was simply stating facts. “So here is my advice to you free of charge — go sit down next to your mother, say whatever goodbyes you need to say, and stop calling this number. Director Sutton will send flowers when it's over. That's more than most people get, and if we are being truthful she doesn't even deserve flowers form Mia.”

The line went dead.

At that moment Ethan stood in that corridor and didn't move. The phone was still against his ear. The dial tone hummed for a few seconds and then even that went silent, and all that was left was the low buzz of the hospital lights above him and the faint sound of a monitor beeping somewhere down the hall.

Immediately his grip on the phone tightened slowly, the way a vice tightens  steady and without stopping  until the veins on the back of his hand pushed up against his skin and the plastic casing of the phone let out a faint creak under his fingers.

A horse.

She went to celebrate a horse giving birth.

At that moment he lowered his phone and stared at the floor for a long moment. Then he walked back into room 214 and closed the door quietly behind him.

His mother looked smaller than she had this morning.

That was the first thing he noticed every time he walked in. How much smaller she looked against those white pillows, against that stiff hospital bed that was nothing like the one she had at home. Helen Cole had once been a woman who filled every room she walked into not because she was loud, not because she demanded it, but because she carried herself like someone who had survived things that would have broken most people, and she had never once let it show.

Now she looked like the bed was slowly swallowing her.

Ethan sat down in the chair beside her and reached for her hand.

Her eyes opened at the touch. Slowly, like it took effort. She looked at him and managed something close to a smile.

“Ethan.” Her voice was thin. “Is Mia coming?”

He kept his face very still.

“She's on her way,” he said. “Just a little traffic. You know how it gets at this hour.”

His mother exhaled and let her eyes close again. 

“Don't rush her,” she murmured. “She must have been working so hard, that girl. I don't want to be a trouble to her, if she can't make it then it's okay.”

Ethan didn't say anything. He just held her hand, knowing if he tell his mother Mia wasn't coming, but instead she want to celebrate a horse giving birth, it's going to break her.

“Ethan.” Her eyes opened again, and this time they were clearer — more present, more focused. She turned her head toward him slowly. “I have to tell you something.”

“Mom, you should rest —”

“Listen to me.” Her fingers tightened around his, and for a moment, that old strength was there. 

“I don't have time to rest. Please.”

He went quiet.

She reached underneath her pillow with her free hand, slowly, her face tightening with the effort, and pulled out a folded envelope. She pressed it into his hand and held it there.

“This is the complete formula,” she said. 

“A skin compound formula that I have been working on for the last three years. What's inside that envelope if it is ever developed properly, if it is ever taken into the cosmetics industry and made into something real —” She paused to breathe. 

“Ethan, a cream built on this formula, used consistently, would make a woman of fifty look like she is thirty. Not a little younger. Genuinely younger. The kind of clear, smooth, tight skin that money cannot buy and surgery cannot replicate.”

He looked down at the envelope.

“There is nothing on the market like it,” she said. 

“Nothing even close. Whoever holds this formula and brings it to production first will be untouchable in the cosmetics industry. Not just in this state. Anywhere.”

Ethan looked up at her.

“Mom —”

“Give it to Mia, and tell her this is my gift for her, and she should keep it safe,” she said firmly. “And help her to use it right. And Ethan —” Her grip on his hand shifted, and her eyes held his with something so direct it was hard to look at. 

“Don't go back to the Capital.”

He stiffened.

“No matter what happens after tonight. No matter who comes looking, no matter what you hear, no matter what they offer you or threaten you with.” Her voice dropped but her eyes didn't. 

“Do not go back to Crestfield. Promise me.”