Survival of the Richest (The Trust Fund Duet 1)

That earns me a laugh. “So you’re going to the theater tomorrow.”

“And I still have no idea what I’m going to say to Mrs. Rosemont. Hey, the library is a gorgeous piece of history. Can we have your blessing to burn it down?”

“Burning it seems inefficient. Won’t there just be a wrecking ball or bulldozer or something?”

“In my head it’s going to be burned like the libraries at Alexandria. And then Christopher will fire me. And Sutton will spank me. And my mom probably won’t even do the experimental treatment even if I can get the hospital to let her in after this.”

“There will be other libraries,” she says gently.

I swallow down the acid that threatens to come up, ruining the pretty lace bedspread. “You’re right. The treatment is the most important thing.”

This reminder could not be more important. The treatment is more important than making Christopher Bardot jealous. More important than seeing if Sutton Mayfair can be the man who might actually replace him in my heart. More important than the library and painting and anything else in the world. That’s the kind of focus that gets things done.

It’s the kind of focus that’s kept me alive in the cold years since the will reading. Having some goal set for me, however impossible it seemed. Making a living for Mom while going to college. Finding some peace despite the mockery the media made of us.

The butterfly garden was a natural extension of everything that came before. Useful and elaborate and slightly over the top.

There will be other libraries. “Is this how men feel when they sell their morals?”

“It’s how I felt,” she says, and I know she’s thinking of her time at the Den.

“I’m sorry. I wish you’d have come to me then.” She’s able to laugh about it now, mostly because that’s how she found Gabriel Miller. It

was terrible at the time.

“And I wish you would fly to the Emerald right now instead of going there tomorrow. We can eat popcorn and watch Mean Girls and talk about how boys suck. And then you can tell me about Sutton spanking you, which I did not overlook by the way.”

“There was possibly a thing with a dusty old book.”

“Oh my God.”

“And a library counter.”

“So you guys are officially… you know. Doing it.”

“We’ve done some things,” I say, as breezy as if I’ve done every single thing on the sexual menu. Repeatedly. “Not all of them. He’s very skilled with his hands. And his mouth.”

Avery doesn’t precisely know that I’m a virgin.

She thinks I’ve had sex because she knows I go into bedrooms with frat boys and let them hang socks on the door, so it’s a reasonable assumption. But I’ve perfected the art of listening to their troubles and keeping all my clothes on. I’ve also perfected the art of a hard kick to the balls in case one of them gets particularly persuasive.

Like I told Sutton, I don’t think one particular act matters that much. I never thought I was saving it for marriage, but in my head, when I touch myself at night, it was always a dark head of hair and black eyes that looked down on me. Always the same.

No matter how much I hated him, Christopher was always the gold standard.

“He’s fun to play with while I’m in town,” I say, still casual, because I’d like to have casual virginity-removing sex with Sutton. Then I can stop the stupidity of imagining Christopher being my first. “Not anything serious.”

“Oh my God, Harper.” She sounds scandalized. “Two men?”

“No,” I correct sharply. “There’s only one man. Even that is temporary.”

Temporary, the word my mother used to describe my father’s wives. And her husbands.

Nothing lasts forever.

“Two men,” Avery says, insistent. “There’s always been something between you and Christopher. Mostly you two have never stayed in the same city long enough to do anything about it. And now he’s seeing you with his business partner…”

Seeing me with my dress up around my waist, my sex exposed in the hallway while his business partner licks my pussy. “Nothing is going to happen.”