I walked into my boyfriend’s mansion in a stained Target sweater, carrying a baby that wasn’t mine—and his mother called me “the girlfriend” like I was trash. She didn’t know I earn $17,500 a month, I’m four months from becoming Dr. Burton, and this whole night was my quiet test. Then she tried to “save” the baby and cut me out… right before he went down on one knee.

The moment I stepped through the Whitmore family’s front door holding baby Rosie, Patricia Whitmore looked at me like I was a stain on her marble floor. Her smile was the kind people wear at funerals—technically present, emotionally absent. Her eyes did a slow scan from my Target clearance sweater to my scuffed flats to the baby drooling on my shoulder.

I watched her calculate my entire net worth in three seconds flat.

Then she said five words that made my blood turn to ice: “So this is the girlfriend.” Not welcome to our home. Not lovely to finally meet you. Just that—like I was a disappointing appetizer at an overpriced restaurant, like I was something her son had dragged in from the street.

But here’s the thing Patricia Whitmore didn’t know.

Here’s what nobody at that dinner table knew. The broke single mom standing in her pristine foyer in yoga pants from 2015 made $17,500 a month. The woman Patricia had already dismissed as a gold digger was about to become a doctor, and this whole evening—every sneer, every whispered insult, every calculated cruelty Patricia was about to unleash—was a test.

A test Patricia was failing spectacularly.

Let me back up.

My name is Bethany. Bethany Burton. I’m 32 years old, and for the past eight months, I’ve been lying to the man I love—not about the big things, not about my feelings or my loyalty or the way my heart races when he walks into a room.

I’ve been lying about something most people would consider a good thing.

I’ve been hiding my success.

See, I’m not actually a struggling single mother who works part-time doing paperwork at a dental office. That’s just the character I’ve been playing. The truth is, I’m a senior dental prosthetist at Preston and Moore Dental Lab, one of the most respected labs in the city.

I’m the person who creates the crowns, veneers, bridges, and dentures that dentists put in their patients’ mouths—the precision work, the artistry, the stuff that takes years to master and most people never even think about.

When a dentist in this city needs something perfect, and I mean perfect down to the micrometer, they request me by name.

I’ve spent eight years building that reputation. Doctors literally argue over whose cases I’ll prioritize. I’m also four months away from finishing dental school, a part-time evening program I’ve been grinding through for two and a half years while working full-time.

The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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