Chapter 8 - The Lost Brother
Fifteen years ago, before The Luminary, before the corporate empire, before the suits and the billions, James Whitmore had been an abandoned, runaway teenager named Jimmy who wandered into a small roadside diner freezing in the middle of November.
Grace’s mother, Eleanor, had found him sleeping behind the dumpster. Instead of calling the police, Eleanor had brought him inside, given him a job washing dishes, fed him her signature Christmas dinners, and taken him into her modest home like a son. For three years, Jimmy had lived in their attic, acting as an older brother to young Grace, learning every culinary secret Eleanor possessed over her modest stove.
And then, one night when Grace was seventeen, Jimmy had vanished without a trace, taking nothing but a backpack, leaving behind a heartbroken family that never learned what happened to him.
“Jimmy...” Grace sobbed out, fresh tears flowing freely down her face as she looked at the billionaire standing before her. “You... you vanished. We searched for you for months. My mother cried for a year thinking you were dead on the side of a highway!”
James closed his eyes, a tear finally escaping his lashes and tracing a dark path down his cheek.
“I didn't run away because I wanted to, Grace,” James whispered, his voice choked with fifteen years of buried pain. “I had to.”
“Why?” Grace demanded, gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles turned white. “Why would you leave us like that? Why would you pretend you didn't know me when I got hired here six months ago? I’ve been sweeping your floors, cleaning your toilets, starving on minimum wage while you sat in your top-floor office!”
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James looked down at his own trembling hands—hands that had once washed grease traps for five dollars an hour.
“Because if I acknowledged you...” James whispered, stepping closer to the booth, his eyes filled with raw agony, “...they would have destroyed you.”
