Survival of the Richest (The Trust Fund Duet 1)

That makes me smile, bittersweet. There’s an old thread in my chest, worn and threadbare, one I could have sworn was broken years ago. Trust for the man named Christopher Bardot, that thread. It tugs in this moment, somehow still there. “Oh sure, you should have. Your goal was to make sure no part of that stupid crush survived, and it worked.”

“I do… care about you,” he says in the most awkward declaration ever.

And then I have to stand up, because I’m not the woman who’s going to take orders from this man. He would have to work a hell of a lot harder than that. It makes me angry to hear these things I would have swooned over four years ago. Where was he, then? It’s too late now. I’m older and wiser. And a hell of a lot more guarded. “As a sister?”

He shakes his head, eyes glittering. “Never.”

“As a friend?”

There’s an unsteady laugh. “You were more of a friend than I deserved.”

There’s too much of the old Christopher in those words. Too much of the boy who looked up at the Medusa painting with awe for me to breathe easy. It makes me want to push him away.

“If you wanted to have sex with me,” I say, running a finger down his white collar. “You only had to ask. When I was on the yacht. Or in front of that Medusa painting. I would have done it, Christopher. Don’t you know that? I would have done anything you asked.”

“Hell,” he says, tight and broken.

“I think you did know, but you walked away.”

He looks furious. And despairing. “It was never simple between us.”

“So don’t you dare show up now and tell me who I can touch. If I want to let him press me up against the wall, if he gets down on his knees and puts his mouth on me until everyone on this floor knows what we’re doing, that’s my business. You had your chance.”

My body heats at the words, at the remembered pleasure of Sutton’s mouth on my sex. Christopher looks down at me, as if he can feel the heat emanating from between my legs. His expression turns stark, as if he’s in pain. That’s only fair, because I’m in pain too.

“You deserve better than that,” Christopher says, but there’s no way to pretend he’s talking about Sutton. He’s talking about himself and we both know it.

“He gives me what I want, which is something you might try next time you like a girl.”

“It wasn’t that,” he says, harsh again.

“No?” I step forward and place a hand on his chest, feeling the way his heart beats strong and fast. He may want to be unaffected by me, but he isn’t. I tilt my face up toward him. “You didn’t imagine me naked in the cabin later?”

He sucks in a breath. “You were too young then.”

My words come out as a whisper. “What about now? Will you do what Sutton said—imagine me in this dress when you go home after this?”

“It’s not fucking decent,” he says, even though the silk covers every part of me. It’s a perfectly respectable dress, when it’s not hitched up around my waist.

“You can thank Sutton for this,” I say, because it’s true. He’s the only reason I lean forward and place my lips against Christopher’s, touching them in some terrible attempt to show him what he gave up, to prove to myself that I don’t care about either of them.

Christopher sucks in a breath. For a second I think he’s going to pull away. He stiffens and grasps my hair with his fist. Easy enough for him to stop the kiss. Instead he dips my head back and deepens it, exploring my mouth with his teeth, his tongue. Opening me wider until I whimper. Pulling me close until I can feel how hard he is beneath his slacks.

His other hand fists in the gauze of my dress, and I realize he’s holding me with both hands clenched—one in my hair and one in my clothes. I don’t know whether he’s doing it so he doesn’t have to touch me or because it’s a way to control me without bruising me. He uses both hands to tug me closer; I’m pressed so tightly I can’t imagine getting away.

Where Sutton had been raw sensuality and playfulness, Christopher is pure determination. He kisses me like he’s a conquering army, like I’m made of gold he has to grasp—or lose forever.

I push away from him with a pained cry, because I want to stay in his arms. I want to let Christopher take me to bed and show me how much he can conquer, his way made slick by my arousal for another man. “You should go.”

He pants, his pupils large and dark. “Let me stay. I want to taste you.”

The words are like a cold splash of water on top of my head. Taste me, like Sutton did in the hallway. Taste me after Sutton challenged him that way. Am I only a competition between two business partners, who probably compete over more than women?

This is exactly what I always wanted, having Christopher beg for a night with me. Exactly what I always dreamed, but I can’t trust it. Not when I wanted him to find out about this. Maybe not by walking into the hallway, but I knew he’d eventually find out I kissed Sutton.

Some female part of me knew exactly what I was doing, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself. Now it’s worked, and it’s a hollow victory. Like giving him a love potion and then preening when he falls for me. It isn’t real. None of this is real.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I manage to say. “Bright and early. We can work like people who need money and not from a trust fund. Like people who didn’t almost have sex the night before.”