Survival of the Richest (The Trust Fund Duet 1)

Sutton’s blue eyes flash. “You’re going with him.”

Part of me wants to reassure him—I’m not going to sleep with Christopher. I’m only going to make sure he drinks a glass of water and falls asleep in a bed. But I don’t owe that promise to Sutton. And I can’t be one hundred percent sure I’ll keep it.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I say instead, four words that mean four thousand things. They mean there’s something between us, Sutton and me. Something deep and sensual and ancient. They mean I’m loyal to him, as much as I can be, but the debt I owe Christopher is even older than that.

Sutton’s grip tightens on the leather enough that it creaks under his hold. He’s a mythical beast, barely held by social constraints. “Let me take you to L’Etoile. Or back to my place. Hell, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

Except being with Christopher is where I need to go tonight.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I say again, softer now. This time the words mean something different. I’m sorry. That’s what they say.

Sutton accepts my apology in cold silence. He steps out of the limo to help me stand, offering his hand when my ankle wobbles on the pavement. Even in anger he won’t let me fall.

I’ve contemplated where Christopher Bardot lives more times than I care to admit. The depths of hell, I would have said once. Looking at the sterile high-rise condominium with its glass surfaces and its black leather, I think I had it right.

In the fridge I find old take-out containers and a bottle of champagne, unopened, that someone must have given him. It takes some searching to find a drawer with some medicine. I pour him a glass of tap water and hand him two Advils. “Take this.”

He swallows it without looking at it close or thinking too hard about it. This Christopher is a stranger, one who does what I ask and apologizes for being a bastard. “Thanks.”

And says thank you, apparently.

I study his dark eyes, wondering if he fell over the side of the balcony when I wasn’t looking and hit his head. “Are you sure you’re okay? Sutton didn’t knock something loose in the fight?”

He laughs, a little distant. “Deserved it, if he did.”

A curved leather couch takes up most of the living space. Christopher stumbles over to it and lies down, and I realize then that I probably won’t have much luck moving him. So I follow him over and sit down by his head, moving a lock of dark hair out of his eyes.

“You scared me,” I say, soft and serious.

He looks up at me. “Same.”

That shakes a silent laugh out of me. “Okay, but I wasn’t the one acting crazy.”

“No, you were the one holding his hand. The whole damn play, that’s all I could see. There could have been an explosion on that stage, and I wouldn’t have noticed.”

My cheeks feel hot. “That’s a shame, because it was an amazing play. About love and betrayal and redemption. About doing what’s right, and all the ways we pay for it.”

“That’s what I saw, too.”

He’s talking about Sutton holding my hand. Is that the love or the betrayal? Maybe it’s the redemption, being saved from the terrible pattern we were in.

“I didn’t come to your condo to have sex with you.”

He smiles a little, his eyes closed. “Didn’t think so. You restrained yourself plenty of other times when I didn’t smell like liquor and hadn’t just ruined your nice business deal.”

“You couldn’t hear that from the back.”

“No, but I saw the way Sutton looked. What did you have to promise them?”

“Some book restorations. Saving the carving behind the library. It doesn’t matter now. She looked pretty pissed about the fight.”

“We’ll push the deal through.”

“How?” I ask, almost soundless.

He hears me anyway. “I don’t know.”

“If you’re fighting the rich old ladies of the historical society, who’s going to buy the designer purses and overpriced shoes when your mall opens?”