My Dying Boyfriend Was a Secret Billionaire Heir

Episode 1

Twelve black Cadillac Escalades line up nose to tail and shut down Pearl Miller's street. Her neighbor Jenny grabs her arm with the news: her boyfriend Adrian is a Sterling heir, and his family has sent people to bring him home. Pearl has been keeping him alive on her own dime — three maxed-out credit cards, medicine, groceries — and now he comes down the steps in a dark custom suit, sharp as a magazine cover, nothing like the man who lay on her couch complaining his head hurt. A reporter shoves a mic at him: who is this woman? Adrian's eyes pass over Pearl like she's a stranger. "Just a housekeeper taking care of me lately." The neighbors who watched her carry groceries home suck in a breath. Jenny hisses at her to make him take her to Manhattan. Adrian holds the car door for Kayla, then turns back: name something she wants, and he'll take care of it.

Episode 2

Pearl lifts the CVS bag and shakes it. Since he isn't dying after all, they should settle up for medicine and living expenses. She punches it into her phone calculator: fifty-nine thousand eight hundred dollars. The crowd snickers — with his money she could have asked for millions. His assistant pays sixty thousand two hundred, a little more than she asked. Kayla takes Adrian's arm and warns Pearl not to run her mouth to the media; a slander suit isn't something she can afford. Adrian presses his lips together and says he wants zero record of them ever knowing each other. The motorcade pulls out. Jenny is still hopping mad — what does sixty grand buy in New York? Pearl says falling for him was her choice, and so was taking care of him. She made a bet and lost. Back upstairs, every trace of Adrian and Kayla is gone, and Pearl drops onto the old couch.

Episode 3

Pumpkin, the stray Pearl picked up off the street, sits by her feet in the tiny apartment. It's down to the two of us. Without Adrian she barely spends anything, and sixty thousand could keep her scraping by in the city for a long time — but what she wants is to buy an apartment, a home of her own. Three days after taking the check, on food truck row near Columbia, her burger and taco truck does the best business, college kids in hoodies lined down the block. A man in a suit stands in line: tall, wide shoulders, straight nose, deep blue eyes. Two double cheeseburgers, one order of hot wings. A silver-gray Cayenne waits down the street with a driver in it. Pearl gives him her brightest smile and hands over the order.

Episode 4

The man pulls a plastic chair up to her truck and sits, his suit pants against the greasy table edge, and finishes every bite himself. By the time the rush ends, he sets down the last wing: good burger, and how is she with real meals? Pearl points at herself — before the truck, she went to culinary school. He pulls out a business card: Julian Hayes, CEO of the Hayes Group. Any interest in cooking for him? Private chef, fifteen thousand a month. Pearl gives him a sideways look and asks if he's shopping for a sugar baby. He says he knew right away she's not that type. Fifteen thousand — she can start tomorrow. Selling burgers, she'd need until the next century to buy a place in New York. The next day she drives out to Long Island. Julian opens the iron gate himself in gray workout clothes, just back from a run, and walks ahead of her up the long driveway. Watching him, she walks straight into his bag.

Episode 5

Julian laughs despite himself, lifts a hand toward her head, then holds back. Stop calling him Mr. Hayes, he says. Look at him — who is he? Pearl leans in close and admits she has no idea; she sells burgers. His jaw sets and his smile turns dangerous: "Pearl Miller, say you don't know me one more time." Another face flashes through her head — burned, covered in scars. Take the scars away. She runs. A hand closes on her wrist and yanks her back; her back hits the wall and he pins her wrists above her head. Go on, Pearl, keep running. She can't. He was Sam before Adrian — Sam Doyle, the transfer student with half his face burned, the boy nobody would share a desk with, the one they called Frankenstein. The teacher asked who would sit with him, and Pearl raised her hand.

Episode 6

Back then, the grandma who took Pearl in was still alive, raising her on returnable cans and bottles. After school Pearl dug through trash cans too, and kids called her trash girl. She twisted the hem of her shirt and walked to Sam's desk, afraid he'd mind how she smelled. Sam, can I sit here? He nodded hard. Sam turned out to be brilliant — perfect scores on every SAT practice test — and he tutored her in math. She brought him sandwiches her grandma made; when guys cornered him, she grabbed a baseball bat and went after them. When she had no lunch money, he split his allowance with her. Senior year he told her he loved her and said they should apply to Harvard or Yale together. Then, the night applications were due, waiting tables at a Manhattan hotel, she watched Sam's family dine with a beautiful heiress. Outside the restrooms the parents talked: over the summer the girl would go with Sam to Switzerland to have his face fixed, and they would get engaged when they came back.

Episode 7

Pearl looked down at her hands, still black under the nails from the trash cans that afternoon. She felt small that night. She changed her applications, texted Sam that she'd fallen for someone else, and blocked him everywhere. Nobody knew which state school she ended up at, and Sam never showed up again. Julian's voice shakes: if a reporter hadn't gotten a shot of her the day the Sterlings came, he still wouldn't know she was back in New York. That's someone else, she says. Was it? Adrian Sterling — a throwaway excuse she made up to end things, and he carried it for eight years. She pulls hard against his grip: none of your business, she broke up with him a long time ago. The front door opens and a girl comes out in custom Dior, every inch the queen bee of the Upper East Side. Julian, you finally found Pearl Miller. I knew her. Adrian Sterling — the girl who sat next to Sam at that hotel dinner eight years ago — rushes over and hugs Pearl like a lost sister. Then she puts her mouth to Pearl's ear and drops her voice low: Julian likes you, sure, but his family picked me as his fiancée. Look at yourself, a taco girl covered in grease. How could someone like you ever be worthy of him now?