Chapter 5 - The Choice of the HeirI looked down at the four hundred million dollars in legal documents, then at the man kneeling before me.
"That decision doesn't belong to me, Vincent," I said softly. "It belongs to Noah."
I pulled out my phone and tapped a short message to my son: Sweetheart, come down to the lounge for a moment.
Three minutes later, the lounge doors opened. Noah walked in, holding his notebook, looking curious.
When he saw the tall man with silver-gray eyes standing beside my chair, Noah stopped. He looked at Vincent's face, then at mine, the razor-sharp mind he possessed analyzing the situation in three seconds flat.
"Mom," Noah asked softly, stepping closer. "Who is this?"
I stood up, holding my son's hand, looking into his hazel-gray eyes with complete, unbroken love.
"Noah," I said gently, "this is Vincent Moretti. He is a business executive from Chicago... and he is your biological father."
Noah didn't scream. He didn't drop his notebook.
He stood tall, six-foot-one, his broad shoulders square, looking down at the multi-billionaire who ruled Chicago.
"My father died the day I was born," Noah spoke, his voice smooth, steady, and carrying an absolute, sovereign power that vibrated through the quiet lounge. "My mother raised me. She paid my tuition. She stayed awake with me when I had fevers. She taught me how to be a man."
Vincent wept silently, holding out his hands in a desperate, pleading gesture. "Noah... please. I didn't know about you. Your mother was lied to... I was lied to. I have four hundred million dollars waiting for you in a trust."
Noah looked at the legal documents sitting on the glass table.
Then he looked at his mother—at the simple wool coat I wore, at the hands that had worked twenty years to give him a clean life.
"I don't need your four hundred million dollars, Mr. Moretti," Noah said quietly, every word dropped like a slab of cold granite. "I earned a full academic scholarship to Harvard. I have my own grants. But..."
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Noah paused, looking at the raw, agonizing grief burning in Vincent's eyes.
"...if you want to sit in the back row at my graduation," Noah added softly, "you can buy a ticket like everyone else."
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