The Evolution of Man (The Trust Fund Duet 2)

“No, Avery. I’m saying you are. You’re determined to find something wrong, and I think it’s because you’re scared. Of what, I have no idea. He’s a dangerous bastard, sure, but you knew that when he bid on your virginity, and you still fell in love with him.”

Her eyes go bright with tears. “I do love him.”

“I know,” I say softly because I know she would do anything for the man standing outside. And he would do anything for her, including drive her to the hospital at five a.m. in the morning after leaving only a few hours before that. “What are you afraid of, Avery?”

“My dissertation is finished.”

“Oh. That’s good, right?”

“It’s been finished. I told everyone I was taking the semester away from school to work on it, but it was done before I left. It was one thing to do the long-distance, constant-travel thing while I was in school, but Gabriel has a condo in Hong Kong and a building in Dubai, in addition to his mansion in Tanglewood. There are a million places he needs to be, but none of them are in a sleepy, snooty college town.”

“Why would you be in a college town—Oh. You want to teach?”

“I don’t have official offers right now, of course, but my advisor at Smith College is already begging me to stay. And I advised on this grant about Feminism and Families in the Trojan War at Berkley, and I would love to work with them.”

“Oh, Avery. Do you think Gabriel wouldn’t follow you there?”

“He would.”

“Then what’s the problem.”

“That’s just it. He would follow me someplace that isn’t good for him, that wouldn’t make him happy. And how do I know that? Because he isn’t happy now, and he isn’t telling me. What kind of future is that? Him getting quieter and quieter while I traipse around academia, doing whatever I want?”

“Honestly I love that you can call writing ten thousand pages on mythological ovaries traipsing, but I think you really need to talk to Gabriel. What if it’s actually his greatest dream to live in a snooty college town, wearing a black turtleneck and sipping espresso with his pinky finger up?” At her dubious look, I say, “Okay, probably not. But I still think you should talk to him.”

“I’ll think about it,” she says, but that probably means she’s going to stare at him and sigh over him and then sacrifice what she loves so she can be with him. It’s almost enough to make me mad, but the truth is, I don’t know the answer. What if two people love each other but they want different things? What if love is nothing but an endless wheel of compromise?

What if they mix and mix and mix until both of them are shadows of their former selves?

I grab the chart at the foot of the hospital bed and flip to an empty page, scribbling down some notes. “Can you go home and get this stuff from the house? I need a change of clothes.”

There’s more than clothes on the list. A portable speaker. The latest copy of Mom’s meditation magazine. All of it might actually get used in the next few hours, but that isn’t the only reason I’m sending her. I need the steady beep-beep-beep as much as I despise it. I’m going insane in this room, a fast and efficient one-way trip to despair, and I don’t need company for the ride. At least not in the form of a sweet, steady friend.

I wait until she’s gone before I pull out my cell phone.

Christopher does not answer his phone.

“It’s me,” I say to a thousand volts of mindless electricity. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here. How does it feel like my heart is being burned right here in my chest, on fire, but I’m not doing anything but sitting here? I need you to… God, Christopher. I just need you. Where are you? Why won’t you come?”

There’s a commotion in the hallway, and I close my eyes to shut it out. It doesn’t go away, though; it gets louder. Voices filter through the fog in my head like rays of too-bright sun.

“The ER is downstairs!”

“She’s not here to see a doctor,” says a haggard voice in a smooth accent I recognize. “She’s here to visit someone. Room three hundred forty-two.”

That’s where I’m sitting, except why would Hugo have come with Bea? Oh God. I rush into the hallway in time to see my good friend retch into a waste bin. “I’m fine,” she mumbles, clearly miserable. And very pregnant. “Ignore me. I’m fine.”

“Oh my God.” I lean down to stroke her red hair. “I hate you right now. I can’t believe you left the hotel for this. You shouldn’t have, but I love you.”

She laughs weakly. “I thought I could make it.”

Beatrix Cartwright has been severely agoraphobic since the death of her parents over a decade ago, not even leaving the penthouse hotel where she practically raised herself ever since. She’s been making strides lately—short visits to the Den, to the museum, to a park. Those required a great deal of planning, not a phone call in the middle of the night.

Her usually pale skin has turned a deathly white with a faint greenish tinge. Her eyes are wide in her face when she looks up at me. I suspect her current state has way more to do with being out of her home so unexpectedly, but it can’t be good for her. “I’m so sorry,” she says.

I think she’s apologizing for my mother’s condition, but I’m not ready to deal with that, so I pretend it’s still about throwing up. “Nonsense. Hugo is the one who should be sorry. I can’t believe he let you leave in this condition.”

Hugo Bellmont is perpetually cool and effortlessly suave pretty much every time I’ve met him, but he looks frayed at the edges for maybe the first time ever. His hair is all out of place, his shirt wrinkled. Lines of stress bracket his mouth. “She insisted,” he says, and in the hoarseness of his voice I hear every argument he must have made to her.