Salt Ruined His Perfect Billionaire Lie

The night we were supposed to welcome home my long-lost brother—the biological heir to the Prescott family, swallowed by the Atlantic thirty years ago—I tasted the lobster risotto he had prepared with his own two hands. Then, I slapped him across the face. Three times. The grand ballroom of the Prescott estate plunged into a deafening, horrified silence. The clinking of Baccarat crystal and the low hum of Boston’s elite were instantly extinguished. Charlie Walsh, the man claiming to be the missing heir, stood in the center of the Persian rug, clutching his reddened cheek. Tears pooled in his eyes, a portrait of devastating vulnerability. "I just wanted to make you something," he choked out, his voice trembling. "Why would you do this to me?" I didn't blink. I didn't shout. I simply stared at him, my gaze boring into his soul, before I picked up the third china plate of his homemade risotto and scraped it coldly into the nearest champagne bucket.