Fortunate Son by Jay Crownover

Goldilocks

Prologue

I WAS A girl born to be caught forever between two extremes. And between two brothers.

I grew up in a home that was opulent and over-the-top massive. Everything was accented in gold, and the artwork on the walls were originals from the masters. There were rugs and silverware that cost more than my mother made in a year as the head housekeeper of the sprawling estate. Before I could even talk, I was juxtaposed between outrageous wealth and abject poverty. I was never sure on which side of the coin I fell, because while I was privileged enough to attend the fancy private school where the homeowners sent their two sons, I was by far the poorest kid attending the academy. I received the best education money could buy, but it was no secret I was a kid bound for community college or trade school, not the Ivy League like the rest of my classmates.

I was also trapped in a bitter back and forth between good and evil throughout my entire existence. I grew up in the shadow of two boys who were as different as night and day. My mom cared for both of them like they were her own…and treated all three of us the same. That couldn’t be said for the rest of the adults who haunted the halls of the ostentatious mansion. Both boys were the same age, born mere weeks apart. One was the rightful heir to the family fortune, his mother the reigning society queen of the small, ritzy New England town where we lived. She called all the shots and was scary powerful in the right circles. Her child was the favored son. He could do no wrong in the eyes of the elite.

I knew better.

He might look like the prince of the castle, and the hero of every fairytale, but I knew he was the villain. He didn’t look it with his blond hair and bright blue eyes. He hid it well behind a perfect, pearly white smile and carefully crafted charm. He looked like a dreamboat, but underneath the polished façade, he was a living, breathing nightmare.

The other son was always an afterthought. No one wanted him. Not the mother who had him in order to blackmail his father and had quickly abandoned him after she got paid. Not the father who couldn’t be bothered to focus on either of his sons or care how hateful his wife was to his bastard child. He was gone for most of the boys’ childhoods, and when he was around, it was never pleasant. I learned at a very young age it didn’t matter how big your home was or how hefty your bank account was, you could never escape a fractured family by avoiding the problems that created the cracks in the first place.

The forgotten son didn’t fit in with the rich kids and social climbers any better than I did. He was an outcast. A blemish on the image of one of the most well-respected families in the nation. He was a burden and a problem that couldn’t simply be swept under the rug. I never understood why the father brought him home and promptly washed his hands of the boy, but as I got older and started to pick up on subtle clues, I wondered if he hated his wife. Forcing her to raise the dark-haired boy who looked exactly like him was his ultimate revenge on the bossy, demanding woman who took no joy in anything other than looking down on those she deemed beneath her.

The illegitimate son should’ve been bitter and angry that he’d been born into a family that only acknowledged him when they wanted to hurt each other. But unlike the golden child, he was easygoing and affable, not taking much of anything too seriously. He was a jokester and liked to play around. He was cute, and so much softer than his half brother. He looked for trouble and liked to cause a ruckus because he was bored in that fancy school and didn’t care about gaining anyone’s favor. He was the ultimate rebel and my very best friend in the whole wide world from the time I could walk until the moment I betrayed him.

He wasn’t the kind of guy who popped up in fairytales very often. He was too goofy, and his unpredictable temper could be scary. He generally saved his anger for only one person, his brother, but when it was unleashed, he was like a whole different person. For me, he was always the hero in every situation and story. There wasn’t a person with whom I wanted to spend all my time, or one I looked up to more than the second son. Next to my mother, he was my favorite part of my forever-conflicted life.

Much to the annoyance of the supposedly perfect son.

One treated me like a beloved little sister and watched out for me from the get-go.

The other treated me like a possession, like something that belonged to him and him alone.

I figured out the hard way that it was very possible to be caught between right and wrong. Anyone removed from obscene wealth would think those two things were absolute with no room for interpretation. When money was involved, right was more like a suggestion, and wrong was a judgment call. I lost count of how many times the second son was punished for outshining the first simply because it made the family look bad. It was predetermined who was supposed to shine and who was supposed to fade away, but the bastard child had nothing to lose, so he refused to play by the rules that were created against him. I grew immune to the legitimate son receiving praise for abhorrent behavior. He was a bully and a beast, and his mother encouraged the hell out of him, making everyone around him feel like they were less than.

Especially his half brother.

I was enamored with one boy and terrified of the other. I lived my life like a human ping pong ball bouncing back and forth between them. One was my savior, the other an enemy I couldn’t escape. One tried to protect me with everything he had, while the other used my one and only weakness—my mother—to manipulate me and make me behave exactly the way he wanted.

If my life were a fairytale, when the second son promised me a life beyond everything I knew, I would have believed him. I would have waited and trusted that there was going to be a happily ever after for at least one of us.

But my life was more like a horror story. The golden child always got his way, and not only did I throw away my life and any chance at happiness, I also betrayed the only boy who ever made me feel like I belonged.

In the end, I was more of a villain than the perfect, wicked boy I hated with every fiber of my being ever was.