Chapter 63 The Truth Beneath the Mask
Veronica's POV:
I was marveled when Max took me inside a small motel.
It wasn't fancy... nothing like the luxury hotels I was used to... nothing like the Ashford beach house with its floor-to-ceiling windows and designer furniture.
But it was clean. Simple. A basic room with a bed, a worn couch, a small TV, and curtains that had probably been there since the place opened.
"Don't tell me you come to places like this to get a break from being rich," I said mockingly, slumping onto the couch.
The cushions were soft but slightly lumpy... the kind of comfort that came from years of use rather than expensive materials.
Max sat on the bed across from me, his leather jacket creaking slightly as he settled in. "Something like that."
"I just want you to experience this, Veronica," he said quietly. "What did I do? That happiness can come in small things, by helping others unconditionally. No strings attached. No expectations. Just... doing good because you can."
I took a deep breath, letting his words settle over me.
"Fine," I said finally. "I can accept this righteous version of you, Max. But seriously... you're a secret genius too? Does Theo even know this?"
"He has no clue about all this," Max said. "I even secretly went to MIT... but he has no idea..."
"What? MIT?! Seriously?!" I leaned forward, genuinely confused. "Why hide it? Especially from your own brother?"
"I never show this side to others, Veronica." His blue eyes held mine, looking intense and honest. "If I do, then..."
"Then what?"
"It will affect Theo only," he said simply. "I love him so much, and I don't mind acting dumb for his sake."
I thought about what the maid had said this morning... about competition... their father pitting them against each other... the old wounds that might never fully heal.
"It's about the competition, isn't it?" I asked him gently. "You don't want to compete with and beat your brother?"
Max's head snapped up, his eyes sharpening. "Hey, wait... how do you even know about that?"
Damn.
I'd just dropped the secret the maid had told me in confidence. My face must have shown my guilt because Max studied me for a long moment before shaking his head slightly.
"Someone told you," he said. It wasn't a question. "One of the staff, probably. They've been around long enough to see everything."
He sighed, running a hand through his still-messy dark hair. Then he started talking.
"I was the one who did better than Theo in academics," he said. "And in sports. In everything, really, when we were kids. Until I was about thirteen, people were amazed at how I was beautiful and smart. The golden child. The one who could do it all."
He laughed, but there was no humor in it.
"But my baby brother..." Max's expression softened with something like pain. "Theo was deeply affected by my father's taunting. Every time I won something, got a better grade, scored higher on a test... our father would use it as a weapon against Theo. 'Why can't you be more like your brother? Max got straight A's, why are you struggling with geometry? Max made the varsity team as a first-year student, what's your excuse?'"
I felt my chest tighten, imagining a young Theo... probably already anxious, already desperate to prove himself... being constantly compared to his older brother.
"Theo started piling on these extracurriculars," Max continued, his hands clenching and unclenching. "Chess competitions, mathematics Olympiads, spelling bees... anything and everything to try to improve himself. He wanted to measure up.
And he was only eleven years old, Veronica. Eleven. He should have been playing video games and hanging out with friends, not studying until two in the morning, because our father made him feel like he wasn't good enough."
Max stood up, pacing now, his dark-arched brows, looking very fierce...
"I knew that if I kept winning, if I kept being the perfect son, Theo would never find peace. That pressure would just keep building and building until..." He stopped, his jaw tight. "Until he ended up like my mother."
"Your mother!" I whispered.
Max turned to look at me, and his eyes were bright with unshed tears and barely contained rage. "I understood one thing back then—that if I kept performing well, it fueled my father's ego. And as long as his ego was fed, my mom would never get justice. Because damn it, Veronica, she killed herself because of his pressure."
"She was brilliant," Max said. "Absolutely brilliant. My father destroyed her with pressure..."
He sank back down onto the bed, his shoulders slumping.
"You know... I still remember the way she looked at us that last morning—like she was saying goodbye and got in the car."
Tears were streaming down my face now. I didn't even try to stop them.
"So I made a choice," Max said. "I slowly stopped doing the things that made our father proud. And started partying... Got tattoos... Cultivated this bad boy image to show that I was here to impress no one but myself. And our father could suck it if he wanted, but I would never bend myself to his will again. I would never destroy my brother's life just to work in the way he needed me to be."
"Theo needed to be the smart one, the successful one, the one with all the potential. And the only way I could give him that was to step back. To let him shine... And he is doing very well now."
"So you became the disappointment," I said softly. "On purpose."
"I became free," Max corrected. "I stopped playing our father's games. Because if I had stayed in the race... if we'd both been competing at that level..." He shook his head. "One of us would have broken. And I'd already seen what that looked like."
I stood and crossed to the bed, sitting down beside him. Without thinking about it, I took his hand in mine.
"The volunteering," I said. "The helping people. Keeping your technical skills sharp but private. It's all connected, isn't it? You're still the person you always were, just... on your own terms. You gave up on name and fame..."
"Exactly," Max said, squeezing my hand. "I help at the old-age home because they don't care about my last name or my reputation or who my father is. They just care that I show up and I give a damn. I fix their security systems because I can, and because it matters to them, not because anyone's keeping score."
"And MIT?" I asked.
"Went in under my mother's maiden name," he admitted. "Elizabeth Chen. I was just Max Chen, some kid who happened to be really good at computer science. No one knew who I was, no pressure to live up to the Ashford name. It was the freest I'd ever felt."
We sat in silence for a moment, just holding hands in this small motel room that probably cost less per night than the wine served at the Ashford dinner table.