Underestimated Heiress

CHAPTER 1 - It was all fake

One afternoon, in one of the biggest private schools in Melbourne, the students were dispersed after their sports class. Jess was looking for her bottle which she misplaced during her lunch break. She was about to enter the students break room when she overheard her boyfriend Nate.

"You know sweety, I did this for you", Nate said to Richa.

Richa always liked to compete with Jess in academics or any school organized events. She would of course lose most of the time. Whenever Richa lost, her friend, Maddy would always find an excuse to spread rumors in school to cover up her loss, like Richa was sick or someone passed away in her family so she was very sad.

When Jess heard the familiar sweet voice, she recognised it was Nate. "But who was Nate talking to? Why did he sound so affectionate?", she thought.

She peeked in the room and saw Richa, Maddy and Nate sitting on one of the round tables. Jess froze when she saw Nate holding Richa's hands and looking into her eyes with love and passion.

Jess was a goal oriented, hardworking girl. She was focused on getting the scholarship for college. Jess didn't put much thought in her outfits, always chose to wear loose, comfortable clothes and she avoided makeup, to save time on setting her hair, she would always put on a bun. She didn't care how she looked. She was tall, fair and a beautiful girl with long curly hair, her eyes were big and dark brown and her nose looked perfect on her face.

Due to her simple appearance she would always go unnoticed in the school. Unknowingly, this helped keep her away from any distractions, jealousy and schemes of other high school girls. Her friendly nature made her approachable and adorable.

Jess was smart, most of her classmates would ask her their queries and she would help them. One day, Nate, one of her classmates approached her with a query and she helped him just like she helped others. Nate was a son of a famous business tycoon, and heir to the empire. Most of the time in school he would play around and not worry about anything. His dad was one of the trustees due to which he would easily get away after misbehaving.

It was when VCE exams were approaching and the teachers showed the progress sheet to the students and also shared a copy with their guardian, so that all the students and their guardian were aware of their portfolio. This was done in grade 10, giving enough time so that students could cover up on their weak aspects. During this time, Nate approached Jess, requesting her help to improve his portfolio. It was obvious that Jess had an interesting and eye-catching portfolio, it showed how hard she had worked to achieve the best in academics, sports and extracurricular.

When Nate approached Jess for help, she thought of new possibilities she can get when helping Nate, like she can meet influential people through him and learn from their experience. She would also come across her shortcomings.

Considering everything, Jess agreed to help Nate on a condition that he would help her increase her network.

Due to this Nate and Jess started meeting for a few hours everyday. Even when helping Nate, Jess had a plan and she was focused and in return whenever Nate's father was invited to business conferences, Nate would request to go along with Jess. This helped Jess to increase her network and also add a few important points to her portfolio. Things were working great but suddenly Nate started showing interest in Jess and in one of these conferences he introduced Jess as her girlfriend. Jess was confused and she didn't know how to react, she was not looking for a relationship.

When Nate formally asked Jess out on a date, she agreed to give it a try. Initially she was a bit hesitant, she didn't have any feelings for Nate. When they started dating, she felt Nate's personality was very different to what she knew. She liked this new Nate and started falling for him.