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My Rich Parents Pretended to Be Poor for 20 Years—Just to Make Me Lose to Their Goddaughter
Novelix
Completed
"For twenty years, I believed my family was poor and my mother was sacrificing everything to raise me. I worked myself to exhaustion, gave up my dreams, and endured humiliation just to survive. Then I discovered the truth: my parents were filthy rich. They'd pretended to be poor for twenty years, sabotaging my future at every turn—all to make sure their goddaughter, Ellie, could have everything I deserved. When they destroyed my last chance at success, I finally walked away. Months later, they found me living a life they couldn't bear to see. Now they want their daughter back. But I'm no longer theirs to claim."
Chapters (3)
Chapter 1
My college roommate, Ellie Warren, had a fairy godmother.
While my family was scraping by and I was working day and night just to keep myself fed, her aunt was taking her around the world.
While I was so overworked that I suffered a stomach bleed and nearly died because my parents couldn't afford the hospital bills, her aunt was taking her to concerts.
While I was enduring a professor's harassment and pressure just to graduate, Ellie's aunt donated an entire building to the university to make certain Ellie never had to experience even the slightest inconvenience.
Everyone in our dorm — including me — envied Ellie for having an aunt like that.
They weren't related by blood, and yet the woman adored her.
Until Ellie posted a video from her birthday party.
She stood in the center of the room in a pink gown, surrounded by guests.
And behind her, the woman Ellie called her fairy godmother was watching her with a look so full of love there was no mistaking it.
My roommates saw the video and immediately started gushing:
"God, she spoils Ellie rotten."
"Look at the way Ellie's aunt looks at her — like a queen looking at her little princess. I'm so jealous."
But I had gone rigid.
I stared in disbelief at the woman Ellie called her aunt. Her fairy godmother.
It was my mother. Rebecca Barrett.
...
It wasn't until hotel security stopped me at the entrance that I realized I'd made my way to the hotel where Ellie was holding her party.
I looked up at that gleaming palace of a building, then went around to the back, hoping to find another way in.
I had to see for myself whether Ellie's aunt really was my mother.
And while I was looking for an entrance near the rear door, I heard a familiar voice.
"How long are you planning to keep this from Bella?"
My father's voice.
I looked up at a balcony a short distance away.
In every memory I had of him, my father wore the same grease-stained old clothes, sat silently on our battered sofa, and smoked.
And now he was in an immaculately tailored dark suit.
My mother stood beside him in a deep green gown with a sable wrap around her shoulders.
I stood there, unable to believe it.
I gripped my phone, about to run up there and demand to know why they'd lied to me.
Then my mother's next words sent a chill through me, rooting me to the spot.
"If we tell Bella the truth, what happens to Ellie?
Her father died in that earthquake saving my life. I'm all she has.
She's been fragile since she was a child. She's never known a single hard day.
How is she supposed to cope with someone appearing out of nowhere to take away our love?"
"And that fortune teller said Bella was born under a bad sign. If things go well for her, it brings misfortune down on Ellie."
"So all these years we've pretended to be poor and kept Bella down. We even drugged her before the SAT."
"But Bella is our daughter too. What we're doing to her isn't fair."
"Enough."
My mother cut him off.
"I know exactly what I'm doing. Keeping things as they are is better for everyone."
I stood below that balcony listening, shaking all over and unable to stop.
In high school, I'd been one of the students most likely to earn a perfect score on the SAT.
A university trustee had made me an offer.
If I got a perfect score, I'd receive a seventy-thousand-dollar scholarship, plus full tuition and living expenses for all four years of college.
I studied myself half to death for that scholarship.
Up at five every morning, asleep at two.
My eyes were permanently bloodshot from exhaustion.
And on the day of the SAT, I overslept.
I missed the exam.
The perfect score was gone.
The scholarship was gone.
The deal was off.
I nearly fell apart in the weeks after.
I thought I wasn't good enough.
I blamed my own body for failing me.
I thought I'd let the school down.
Worse, I thought I'd let my mother down.
So I worked myself raw trying to earn enough for tuition and living costs.
I fainted on the job three times and didn't care.
And now I'd learned that the mother I loved more than anyone had orchestrated all of it.
All of it for Ellie.
Chapter 2
Over nothing but one absurd prophecy.
I stared up at my mother on that balcony.
"If Bella finds out the truth, aren't you afraid she'll hate us?" my father's voice drifted down.
My mother laughed softly.
The next second, my phone buzzed.
She'd sent me money through Venmo.
$7.36.
With a note attached.
Sweetheart, Mom just saw some students drinking Frappuccinos. Go get yourself one.
I know I can't give you a better life, but my daughter deserves the things other kids have.
I stared at the words.
My fingers slowly tightened around the phone.
On the balcony, my mother said, pleased with herself:
"She'll never find out. I send her these little random amounts, so she'll think that's all the money I have."
"She doesn't want me working myself to death, so she takes odd jobs to cover her own rent and food.
If she's using everything she has just to survive, she won't have the energy to go looking for the truth."
I stood there scrolling back through every transfer she'd ever sent me.
Every time I'd seen those amounts, down to the cent, I'd felt her love.
And guilt.
That was exactly why I'd worked myself to the bone and cut my own expenses to nothing.
It never once occurred to me that those numbers had been carefully calculated.
Just enough to make me feel loved.
And just enough to keep me trapped in guilt.
So I'd spend my whole life struggling in the mud.
Rage and despair and confusion came at me in waves, like they meant to tear me apart.
And still I didn't want to believe it.
I didn't want to believe my mother could be that cruel to me.
I took a deep breath and moved somewhere she couldn't hear me.
Then I took out my phone and called her.
Her gentle voice came through almost immediately.
"What is it, baby?"
I was silent for a long moment before I managed it, my voice hoarse:
"Mom, my professor has been harassing me. He keeps making me come to his office alone, and he's using my graduation as leverage."
My voice started to shake.
"The way he looks at me makes my skin crawl. He sends me those kinds of photos every day. He keeps implying that if I don't go along with it, he won't let me graduate."
"Mom, can you help me?"
Dead silence on the other end.
I told myself that if she used this chance to tell me the truth—
or even just stood up for me, once—
if she did that, I could pretend I hadn't seen or heard a thing tonight.
In the end, she failed me.
"Bella, he's your professor. We don't have money and we don't have connections. It's been so hard for me to put you through school. Can't you just put up with it?"
"But Mom, he's putting his hands on me. He touched my thigh. He tried to drug me. If I hadn't—"
I closed my eyes.
All the fear, panic, humiliation, and disgust I'd buried for an entire semester came rushing back, leaving me unable to breathe.
"Then wear more clothes." My mother cut me off impatiently.
Silence.
Maybe she realized how hard that had sounded.
A moment later she coughed twice and her voice went thin.
"I'm sorry, Bella. Your mother is useless. If you're truly unhappy, then drop out. I'll support you."
"I raised you because I wanted you to be happy."
And then she started coughing violently.
As I listened to her cough, something suddenly clicked.
Chapter 3
It had always been like this.
The state math olympiad training in middle school.
The Harvard summer program in high school.
Every time she heard I'd earned one of those opportunities, she'd be happy for me on the surface.
Whenever we were alone, she'd deliberately take extra painkillers right in front of me.
She made sure I saw her exhaust herself trying to scrape together the program fees, only to be humiliated and turned away at every turn.
And eventually the guilt would drown me.
So I'd give those opportunities up myself.
That was how she kept me tethered to her.
She had never once done that to Ellie.
When Ellie first moved into the dorms, my mother called her every single night.
She worried Ellie didn't have enough spending money, so she kept wiring her more.
She worried Ellie would be slighted at school, so she donated seven hundred thousand dollars to the university.
Before every major competition, she spared no expense securing Ellie a spot, just to pad her résumé.
I was her biological daughter.
Why would she do this to me?
I opened my mouth to demand an answer.
And only then noticed the call had ended long ago.
From the balcony, my mother's voice came again.
"Tell Professor Jennings to push harder. He needs to make a wreck of Bella's life so she can't graduate on schedule."
"By then, she shouldn't even have had the energy to hold down a job."
Carter Jennings.
The thesis advisor who had been harassing me for a solid year.
No wonder nothing came of it no matter how many complaints I filed with student affairs.
Even a formal complaint to the administration changed nothing.
Because my own mother had arranged all of it.
And I'd endured it like an idiot, not daring to breathe a word of it to anyone.
I collapsed onto the ground, tears and snot running down my face.
I sat there until every light in that hotel went out and the building closed for the night.
Only then did I get to my feet. I'd cried enough.
And I finally knew what I was going to do.
In my academic advisor Raffaele Carbone's office, I set the application form down in front of him.
"I want to enter the National Collegiate Physics Competition."
He stopped short.
Then he smiled and took the form.
"Bella. You finally changed your mind."
The competition was co-hosted by ten of the top universities in the country.
Placing in the competition would mean substantial prize money and a chance to study at Stanford as an exchange student.
I'd always hesitated before, because I could never stop worrying about my mother.
This time, I wasn't giving it up for anyone.
I threw myself into preparation, studying around the clock.
And right then, my mother, who hadn't contacted me in ages, suddenly called.
"Bella, how are things at school?"
"I heard you're representing the university at a competition. Is that true?"
I murmured, “Yeah.”
Her voice filled with excitement immediately, and she sounded genuinely happy for me.
"My daughter is amazing! Just do your best, don't put too much pressure on yourself. Getting into a competition at that level already proves how talented you are."
"Do you have enough money? Let me send you some. Make sure you dress properly on the day. You can't embarrass the university."
And then she covered her mouth and started coughing hard enough to bring up a lung.
The next second I heard a neighbor's voice on her end:
"Bella, your mother's cough has been getting worse. She's coughing up blood now. You should come home and take her to a doctor."
My mother snapped at her instantly:
"Don't talk nonsense. I'm perfectly fine."
Then she came back to the phone, gentle again:
"Bella, don't listen to her. I'm fine. You just focus on your competition."
"Don't worry about me."
But the coughing continued.
Cough after cough, more deliberate and more violent each time.
Listening to it, I knew exactly what she was doing.
She was applying pressure, waiting for me to cave.
Waiting for me to give up the competition and rush home to take her to the hospital.
"Mom, I'm not giving this up."
The line went silent instantly.
It was a long while before her gentle voice came back.
"Bella, I know you'll win."
For the next several days I poured everything into studying.
On the day of the mock exam, my faculty advisor hurried over with last year's competition questions.
"Bella! Do you know what you scored?"
"Eighty-nine. That's ten points higher than the winning score last year."
"At this rate, you've got a real shot at winning."
I stared at that red number on the page, my heart going fast.
And finally, competition day arrived.
I got to the campus plaza early to board the shuttle to the venue.
But Ellie was standing in front of it.
She looked at me with a small, knowing smile.
A powerful sense of dread rose in me.
The next second, my advisor stepped off the bus and looked at me with a complicated expression.
