ALEC & SUSAN

The RulesI Live By

ALEC

Growing up in New York City, it was just my sister and me. As the only son of one of Manhattan’s wealthiest families, I was born into a life most people spent their lives chasing. From the outside, it looked flawless.

We lived in a penthouse high above the city, where floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the endless sea of lights stretching across Manhattan. My closet was filled with designer labels. Summers disappeared into private villas overlooking turquoise water, and winters were spent in luxury ski resorts halfway across the world. Anything I wanted appeared before I ever had the chance to ask for it.

What they couldn’t see was the invisible weightI carried, hidden beneath a life that looked flawless from the outside.

Our home was beautiful, but it never felt warm. Every room echoed with expectations instead of laughter. Every expensive gift came with unspoken obligations. My future had already been mapped out long before I was old enough to understand what it meant.

Nothing about my life truly belonged to me.

Every decision reflected on my family’s reputation. Every smile had to look effortless. Conversation was measured, every public appearance carefully rehearsed. My last name wasn’t just a name—it was a legacy, and I was expected to carry it without question.

Sometimes it felt as though invisible eyes followed me everywhere I went, waiting for me to slip. One mistake, one wrong word, one imperfect moment was enough to become tomorrow’s gossip among the city’s elite.

There was never room to simply be myself.

Naturally, my parents enrolled me in one of New York City’s most prestigious private schools as a kid. To them, it wasn’t just an education—it was another carefully placed stepping stone toward the future they had already chosen for me. They believed they were preparing me to inherit the family empire.

As I got older, it became the place I dreaded most.

Every morning, I’d walk through towering iron gates and into marble hallways filled with polished smiles and perfectly tailored uniforms. On the surface, everything looked immaculate—a place where the city’s brightest and wealthiest students were being shaped into tomorrow’s leaders.

But beneath the polished veneer, it was a different world.

Every conversation was a competition disguised as small talk. Friendships formed and dissolved based on family names, business connections, and social status. Rumors traveled through the halls faster than the morning bell, whispered just loud enough to be heard and just quiet enough to deny.

No one cared who you were.

They cared who your parents were.

Students measured each other by the cars waiting at pickup, the size of their vacation homes in the Hamptons, and which charity galas their families had attended the weekend before. Status wasn’t just important—it was everything.

I hated every second of it.

The endless cliques. The fake smiles. The effortless arrogance that came with growing up believing the world already belonged to you.

Lunch conversations drifted from private, luxury watches to exclusive country clubs, as if those things actually defined a person’s worth. I sat through them in silence, pretending to listen while wishing I could be anywhere else. I was exhausted by the constant performance.

I didn’t want people to know my family’s name before they knew mine. I didn’t want friendships built on money, influence, or the expectation that I could open doors for someone someday.

I wanted someone to see me.

Not the heir.

Not the last name.

Just me.

For nearly two years, I begged my parents to let me transfer to a public school. Every conversation ended the same way—with polite smiles, dismissive laughs, or outright refusal.

To them, the idea was absurd.

Public schools weren’t for people like us, my mom told me when I was ten.

But I refused to let it go.

Every “no” only made me more determined. I argued with my parents at the dinner table, negotiated during long car rides, and brought it up so often that it became impossible for them to ignore. Weeks turned into months, and months into nearly two years. Little by little, their resistance began to crack.

Eventually, they gave in.

I was fourteen the day I walked through the front doors of my new school.

I still remember the feeling. It felt strangely liberating.

The hallways weren’t lined with marble, and no one wore tailored blazers embroidered with family crests. Lockers slammed shut. Laughter echoed through the corridors. Someone jogged past with a backpack hanging off one shoulder while another student frantically searched for a missing homework assignment.

It wasn’t perfect.

It was real.

For the first time in my life, no one cared where I lived, what kind of car dropped me off, or how much money my parents had. To everyone else, I was just another nervous kid trying not to get lost before first period.

It was the most ordinary I’d ever felt.

And somehow...

It was the best feeling in the world.

That morning, while I stood staring at a crumpled class schedule, completely convinced I was heading in the wrong direction, someone stopped beside me.

“You look lost.”

I looked up.

That was the first time I met John.

What started as a quick question about where Room 214 was somehow turned into a conversation that carried us through first period, lunch, and long after the final bell rang. We talked about everything and nothing—movies, video games, terrible cafeteria food, and which teachers looked the strictest.

It was easy.

There was no pretending.

No weighing every word before I spoke.

No wondering whether someone wanted to be around me because of my family’s money or influence.

John didn’t know who my parents were.

More importantly.

He didn’t seem to care.

For the first time in years, I could just be myself.

No expectations.

No pressure.

No family legacy hanging over my head.

Just me.

From that day on, John became my best bud, we were inseparable.

For more than a year, I kept my other life buried beneath the surface.

At school, I was just myself.

Not the heir to a billion-dollar empire. Not the son of one of New York’s most influential families. Just another teenager who complained about homework, laughed at stupid jokes. And I preferred it that way.

No one knew that every afternoon a black SUV waited a few blocks from school to take me home. No one knew about the penthouse overlooking Manhattan Central Park, the endless business dinners, or the future my parents had already mapped out for me.

For the first time in my life, people spoke to me because they wanted to—not because they wanted something from my family.

The friendships I made felt real.

That alone was worth keeping my secret.

But secrets have a way of growing heavier the longer you carry them.

Eventually, I decided John deserved to know.

One Friday at lunch, we were sitting on our usual table. I’d spent the last ten minutes trying to work up the courage to say it. After spilling everthing about myself and family I waited. For one agonizing second, I wondered if I’d ruined the best friendship I’d ever had.

Instead, he shrugged. “So. You’re still buying pizza, right?”

I blinked. Then I burst out laughing.

The kind of laugh that catches you off guard and leaves your stomach aching.

John joined in, grinning like he’d just told the greatest joke in history.

And just like that.

Nothing had changed.

To John, I was still the same i***t who got lost on his first day of school.

As for girls.

Well, that was an entirely different story.

By the time high school rolled around, I’d already developed a weakness for pretty smiles and bright eyes. Somewhere between middle school and freshman year, I’d earned a reputation.

John liked to say I couldn’t walk ten feet down the hallway without getting distracted by a beautiful face.

Embarrassingly enough.

He wasn’t entirely wrong.

Dating came as easily to me as breathing.

Meeting someone new carried its own kind of thrill—the stolen glances across a crowded room, the playful conversations that lingered longer than they should, the excitement of wondering where the night might lead. I never had to chase attention. If anything, it usually found me first.

But attention wasn’t the same thing as love.

And love was the one thing I refused to let into my life.

I had rules.

Simple.

Clean.

Safe.

Relationships were meant to be temporary—a few unforgettable passionate moments shared, lingering kisses beneath city lights, and then a quiet goodbye before either of us mistook chemistry for commitment.

It wasn’t cruel.

It was honest.

I never made promises I couldn’t keep, and I never pretended to be searching for forever.

Casual was easier.

No heartbreak.

No expectations.

No one had the power to leave a mark.

Week after week, there always seemed to be someone new by my side. Before long, people stopped asking who I was dating and started wondering how long she’d last.

By the time I graduated from high school, I was known as the guy who never stayed with the same girl for very long.

I didn’t bother correcting anyone.

The reputation wasn’t entirely wrong.

University only gave me a bigger stage.

The campus was alive with new faces, new beginnings, and endless possibilities. While most students spent their first year trying to figure out who they wanted to become, I drifted through lectures by day and dates by night, never staying in one place—or with one person—for too long.

Relationships slipped into my life just as easily as they slipped back out again.

A smile.

A few unforgettable nights.

A mutual understanding that this was never meant to become something more.

It suited me perfectly.

Love complicated things. It demanded vulnerability. Love had the power to rearrange your entire world.

The one part of my future that had never been left to chance was my career.

While my classmates debated majors, switched courses, and dreamed about what came after graduation, my destination had already been chosen years before I ever stepped onto campus.

Business Management and Administration.

Not because it was my passion.

Because it was expected.

One day, the family empire would become my responsibility, and every lecture, every assignment, every internship was another step toward inheriting a life that had been waiting for me since the day I was born.

I was twenty-two when I graduated.

Most people celebrated with parties, vacations, and the comforting belief that the hardest part of life was finally behind them.

Mine lasted exactly one weekend.

Monday morning, my father called me into his office.

I expected congratulations.

Maybe a position at headquarters. A corner office. An impressive title that would satisfy the board and reassure investors that the heir to the family business had officially arrived.

Instead, he slid a single set of keys across his polished mahogany desk.

I looked down at them before meeting his eyes.

“What’s this?”

“A restaurant.” he responded. “A brand-new one.”

I was shocked. Why was he giving me a new restaurant, rather than giving me one that was already established? I thought to myself.

“If you want to earn your place,” he said, his voice as steady as ever, “prove you can build something.”

That was it.

No shortcuts.

No executive office.

Just an empty restaurant with my name attached to its success—or its failure.

For the first time, I wasn’t being asked to inherit something.

I was being challenged to create it.

So I threw myself into the work.

The first one through the doors every morning.

The last one to leave every night.

I learned every corner of the business because I refused to ask anyone to do a job I didn’t understand myself. I worked beside the chefs during the dinner rush, helped servers clear tables when we were short-staffed, unloaded deliveries before sunrise, balanced payroll after midnight, and spent countless hours studying inventory reports until the numbers blurred together.

There were days everything went wrong.

Orders disappeared.

Equipment broke down at the worst possible moment.

Customers complained.

Employees quit without warning.

Some nights on the drive home I was convinced I’d failed.

The next morning, I showed up and did it all again.

Slowly, almost without realizing it, things began to change.

The staff became a team.

Regular customers started asking for tables by name.

Word spread.

Reservations became harder to get.

Within two years, the restaurant had become one of the city’s busiest new dining spots, surpassing every forecast my father and his executives had made.

For the first time in my life, I hadn’t succeeded because of my last name.

I’d earned it.

A year later, my father called me into his office again.

This time, there were no speeches.

He simply smiled—a rare enough sight to make me wonder if I’d imagined it—and handed me another set of keys.

“Congratulations,” he said. “You’ve earned Chez Nick.”

Chez Nick wasn’t just another restaurant.

It was the crown jewel of our hospitality division, one of the most respected and successful restaurants our family owned. Running it wasn’t a reward handed to me out of obligation.

It was a responsibility.

One I intended to protect.

While accepting my father’s gift, I had one request of my own.

“Dad, I would prefer if the staff don’t know who I am.

He looked at me puzzled. But nodded.

These days, my sister oversees the hotel division of the family business. Luxury suites, guest experiences, international expansions—that world has always suited her.

Me?

I’ve always belonged where the doors never stop swinging and the air carries the scent of garlic, butter, and fresh bread.

I love the rhythm of a busy dining room.

The controlled chaos of a Saturday night rush.

And somewhere between the noise of the kitchen and the warmth of the dining room.

I’d finally found a place that felt like it truly belonged to me.

My name is Alec Beck.

I’m twenty-five years old, and despite what most people would expect, I don’t live in a luxury penthouse overlooking Central Park or some sprawling mansion hidden behind iron gates.

I share a modest apartment in the Bronx with my best friend, John.

It isn’t much. But after a long day, it’s the one place that feels honest.

It’s home.

John and I rarely see each other these days.

Our schedules couldn’t be more opposite. While I’m closing the restaurant late into the night, he’s already asleep, preparing for another early morning. By the time he gets home from, I’m usually at work.

Most weeks, we pass each other like ships in the night.

On the rare occasion our days off line up, we make the most of it. We order far too much takeout, argue over whichever team is losing that week, yell at the television like the players can somehow hear us, and eat until neither of us can move from the couch.

It’s never anything special.

And somehow.

It’s perfect.

Unlike my family, I don’t have a chauffeur waiting outside my building every morning.

I take the subway.

Most people would see it as a downgrade.

I see it as freedom.

There’s something oddly comforting about disappearing into the current of New York’s morning rush. Surrounded by hundreds of strangers, I’m invisible. Just another commuter clutching a coffee, trying not to miss his stop.

No one looks twice.

Down there, beneath the streets of Manhattan, I’m not the heir to a hospitality empire.

I’m just Alec.

That’s exactly how I want it.

The same is true at work.

To my employees, I’m simply Alec Beck—the manager who expects everyone, including himself, to show up on time, work hard, and treat people with respect.

Nothing more.

Respect that comes from a last name isn’t respect at all.

It’s obligation.

I’d rather earn the trust of my staff one shift at a time than have it handed to me before I’ve done anything to deserve it.

If they respected me, I wanted it to be because I stayed late when the kitchen was overwhelmed, because I wasn’t afraid to bus tables during a dinner rush, because I listened when they spoke, and because I never asked anyone to do a job I wouldn’t do myself.

Leadership wasn’t something you demanded.

It was something you earned.

So during the week, I gave the restaurant everything I had.

Every reservation.

Every customer complaint.

Every staffing issue.

Every late delivery, broken appliance, impossible dinner rush, and last-minute crisis landed on my shoulders.

Some nights were absolute chaos.

Others flowed so smoothly they felt almost effortless.

I loved them all.

Because somewhere between the clatter of dishes, the hum of conversation, and the controlled madness of a packed dining room.

I knew exactly where I belonged.

For all the discipline I brought to running a business, my personal life operated by an entirely different set of rules.

Simple rules.

Necessary rules.

The kind that kept life uncomplicated.

Dating had never been difficult. It was easy.

I simply preferred knowing exactly where the boundaries were.

Rule number one had always been the most important.

Never fall in love.

Every rule that followed existed to protect that one.

Rule number two.

Never mix business with pleasure.

A relationship with an employee wasn’t romantic—it was a liability. One misunderstanding, was messy, and suddenly the workplace became a battlefield. My family spent years building the restaurants I managed; I wasn’t about to jeopardize them over temporary attraction.

Some lines weren’t worth crossing.

Rule number three.

Never bring a woman home.

My apartment was the only place in my life that truly belonged to me. It was where I escaped the noise of the restaurants, the expectations of my family, and the constant demands of running a business. I refused to let casual relationships cross that threshold.

It wasn’t personal.

It was a boundary.

Rule number four.

Never spend the night.

Goodbyes were always easier before sunrise.

There were no awkward mornings. No expectations over breakfast. No chance for something casual to quietly become something more.

Distance had a way of keeping emotions in check.

And then there was another rule—one almost no one knew about.

Never tell them who I really was.

As far as anyone I dated knew, I managed a successful restaurant.

That was enough.

The moment my family name entered the conversation, everything changed. Curiosity replaced sincerity. Interest became fascination. Suddenly, people weren’t looking at me anymore—they were looking at the wealth, the influence, and the life they imagined came with my last name.

I’d experienced it enough times to recognize the difference.

So I kept that part of myself hidden.

There was one final rule.

The strangest one, according to every woman I’d ever dated.

No going down on any woman.

Some laughed, convinced I was joking.

Others tried to change my mind.

None of them succeeded.

Everyone has reasons for the rules they live by.

Mine had been built over years of experience, disappointment, and watching how quickly people could complicate a simple life.

Until now.

I’d never had a reason to break a single one.

My rules gave me distance.

They gave me certainty.

Most of all.

They gave me control.

And control was one thing I’d never been willing to surrender.

On the weekends, however, are a different story. John and I usually head to our favorite neighborhood pub to unwind after another long week. The atmosphere is always the same—music drifting through the room, friendly conversations, and a few games of darts or pool to pass the time. It was always about getting the next hook-up.

We were simply there to relax, have a few beers, and enjoy whatever the night happened to bring. One Saturday evening, two young women caught our attention. They were clearly from out of town, laughing freely as they challenged each other to games of darts before moving over to the pool table.

John and I struck up a conversation, and before long we were hitting it off. At 4am when the pub closed, John and I were sliding into the back of a cab. John with the blonde and me with the brunette, as we headed toward their hotel which took only 40 minutes. As we made our way to their room we were all over each other.

Three hours later, John and I emerge. We said our goodbyes, leaving behind two women with smiles that made it clear the night had gone exactly as planned. As we stepped out into the cool morning air, the city already beginning to stir around us.

John and I caught another cab back to our apartment, both of us leaning into the silence as the streets slowly came alive. Neither of us felt the need to say much. We were tired, a little disheveled, and wearing the same satisfied expression—the kind that comes after a night exactly like the one we’d gone out hoping to find.