Survival of the Richest (The Trust Fund Duet 1)

“Because you’re high on adrenaline right now. And paint fumes.”

“You’re doing the whole white-knight thing again, aren’t you? Only this time you’re saving me from you. Boys who think they know better than me are very annoying.”

“I don’t think if I had kissed you when you opened the hotel room door, you would have been nearly as receptive. Tell me that isn’t true, and I’ll kiss you until we both run out of breath.”

I consider lying, because I want to know what happens when we’re both out of breath. But I’m a terrible liar, which is how I got caught for doing the painting in the gym even though I hadn’t signed my name. Besides, he’s right about one thing—I wouldn’t have let him kiss me if I hadn’t been delirious from lack of sleep. Does that make the kiss more real or less?

In the end he leaves me on the sidewalk in New York City, a heavy-lidded bellhop standing with the door open, steam rising from grates in the flush of an industrial dawn.

The studio loses their minds, chastising me over e-mail and talking about procedures way more than any place with the words “creative genius” in their Facebook bio should. Thankfully I sleep through most of that, and by the time I wake up at three p.m., Professor Mills has smoothed things over.

I’m wearing a forest velvet Givenchy dress with a wrapped bodice. The head curator seems a little drunk by the time Mom and I show up. “I should have had more faith in you,” the curator tells me, eyes bright with excitement and secret champagne. “The phone has been off the hook. Everyone wants a ticket, but we’re sold out.”

I give her a hug mostly because it looks like she needs one. “Thank you so much for giving me the chance to be here. I’m sorry if I stressed you out, but I just wanted to do a good job.”

She bursts into tears and ends up crying into my velvet-clad shoulder about how shitty the New York art scene is and how this might actually save her. Mostly I get through that encounter by telling myself that it’s not really happening, that I fell asleep slumped against Medusa last night and now I’m still sleeping under Christopher’s watch.

Professional art movers have already brought over the other pieces, which are being carefully hung beneath heavy spotlights. Caterers are setting up a table of hors d’oeuvre with cheese and olives and sesame-seed-covered pita chips to dip into truffle hummus.

Daddy shows up a half hour before the doors will open and squeezes me tight. “I’m so proud of you, Harper. And so glad I got to see this.”

The words strike me as odd, and I squeeze him back. “I’m sorry you had to cancel Japan… but also not sorry. It’s no 4.0, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“I don’t care about your GPA.”

That makes me roll my eyes. “Sure you don’t.”

He cups my face in his hands. “I’m serious. The world is a crazy place, but you already know that. That’s why you painted that gymnasium in the first place. I just want you to be safe and secure, and if that means making grades and doing what society expects, that’s the only reason I’ve ever wanted that for you.”

My heart squeezes tight, because I know that’s true. Maybe he wanted to understand me better. Maybe I would have liked to understand him better, but I always knew he wanted what was best for me. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“Now give me a tour of this show before the whole world wants a piece of you.”

So I show him around the paintings of Medusa’s life and death. Only when we get to the final piece do I find Mom standing there, staring at it as if transfixed.

“Hell,” Daddy breathes.

Mom turns back with a slight smile. Her dress is glimmering and couture, showing off a figure some twenty-year-olds would kill for. She’s always been a beautiful woman, but never a happy one. “Look at what our girl did.”

Daddy clears his throat. “She’s… incomparable.”

Only I don’t think he’s talking about me.

And for a moment, with both my parents in the same place, not fighting, not throwing anything, with Christopher in the same city and planning to come to my show, everything is perfect. After my childhood I should have known that perfection is only ever an illusion. A shine you put on things that are too broken to ever be fixed.

The room is packed by the time the curator drags me to the makeshift platform to give a little speech. I give a small wave to my professor, who looks so different in a black lace dress instead of the brown tweed suits she wears to class. Christopher leans against the back wall, looking impeccable in a suit but somehow distant from everyone.

Someone who should belong but doesn’t.

I’m not twenty-one yet, but Mom gave me a glass of champagne. It left my throat dry and scratchy, or at least that’s how it feels as I look out at mostly strangers. They’ve been exclaiming and complimenting my work since they showed up.

My central piece is still up for auction.

Those display walls are glorified plywood; they don’t even reach the ceiling. The curator was more than willing to take a chunk out of the maze for the publicity. The audience seem to like the whole surprise element of the main portrait, because the auction has already risen to crazy proportions even without Daddy bidding. I’m not sure if it’s really the painting they love or the story around it, but either way that’s a lot of money for charity.

I grasp the microphone, pretending my hands aren’t slick with sweat. Pretending my voice doesn’t quaver. “The story goes that Athena cursed Medusa with hair made of snakes and a face so horrible it would turn men to stone. We are told that she did this as a just punishment, because she was so offended that Medusa was raped in her temple. Except how would that be just, to blame Medusa for something that she didn’t want and didn’t cause?”

The crowd looks back at me, a little aghast, a lot uncomfortable that I would talk about this while they’re wearing diamonds that cost the same as a whole car.