Survival of the Richest (The Trust Fund Duet 1)

A knock comes at the door while I’m packing. So they got my awkward little resignation text, the kind you send when you were never really working for someone in the first place. It’s tempting to pretend I’m not in the room, but I’m a grown-up, damn it.

Besides, a perverse part of me wants to say goodbye. Even without knowing whether it’s Sutton or Christopher—I want to see whoever’s on the other side of the door one last time.

I open the door, and Sutton stands there looking like sunshine, vibrant and so bright it’s hard to face hi

m. A half inch of scruff from a long day of work, some of it spent in the sun. Hercules in the flesh, powerful and unreachable and just a little bit mortal.

“Did you come to say goodbye?”

He prowls into the room. That’s his answer, but I already know he didn’t come to say goodbye. This isn’t the kind of man to break my heart and make it easy to leave. Is that what I find so appealing about him? Or maybe it’s the way his muscled body looks in a suit. Hard to say. There’s a lot to love about Sutton Mayfair, for some other woman. Some woman who doesn’t have a plane to catch tomorrow, even if it makes my stomach drop to think about.

His blue gaze lands on my suitcase and then moves away. An obstacle, to a man who must take pleasure in tearing them down. It’s strange that I’m hoping he succeeds even while I steel myself to fight him. That’s the kind of perversity that comes from having parents that loved and hated each other. From being the rope they tugged back and forth for almost two decades, leaving me frayed at both edges.

I might hate the way Christopher pushes me away, but at least I’m used to it.

“How’s your mother?” Sutton asks, throwing me off guard.

That’s probably on purpose. Some kind of battle strategy. Make her think you care about her. Then do something terrible. “I talked to her this morning. She tried to make a kale smoothie but forgot to put the lid on the blender, so it sprayed everywhere.”

His gaze meets mine, so direct and clear it steals my breath. “I thought that might be why you’re leaving. If she weren’t feeling well.”

“She’s doing great,” I say lightly. “Kale is a cancer killer.”

He watches me without a change in expression.

“That’s what her herbalist says.” And suddenly it’s too personal to talk about, vegetables and remission and the sinking fear that I’m going to lose her, too. That’s when I’ll be all alone. When you’re forever held taut from both ends, the most scary thing is to be let go.

Steady blue eyes seem to know that. “There’s unfinished business between us, Harper. It’s not over because you sent a text message.”

He doesn’t ask me to stay. Maybe he knows that would make me run faster.

“I’m sorry if you thought…” I have to clear my throat, pretending to be stern and unfeeling. I’m playing a part right now. The part of Christopher. “If you thought there was something between us. It was just a little fun. A little…kissing.”

My denim shorts might as well be made of flimsy lace, my black tank top completely see-through. That’s how it feels when he looks down my body at the places he touched. At the places he kissed—especially between my legs.

His gaze lingers there, and I turn liquid. It’s a travesty to call what he did to me kissing. He turned me inside out. Made me feel golden and silky and hot. There’s alchemy in his fingers and his tongue. He turned me into a river of precious metal.

That was before I sent him a text that said, Thanks for the memories, but I think it’s best for all of us if we part now. PS. I’m keeping the library book.

He settles on the edge of the high, lace-trimmed bed. It should be incongruous, a rough man against something so delicate. It should be ridiculous, instead of like he belongs there. “Do you know, I thought you were in love with Christopher? When I first met you?”

My throat is suddenly dry. We can invest money and destroy buildings. We can change the landscape of a city, but God, not talk about our feelings. That isn’t how it’s done.

Sutton doesn’t care how things are done.

“You could have asked,” I manage to say, my voice only a little shaky. “I would have set you straight. There’s nothing between us.”

He laughs, the white of his teeth bright in the quiet shadows. Only a small lamp on the nightstand lights the room, and it can’t compete with Sutton. “There’s something between you. But it’s the same way you couldn’t see the table and the walls. You didn’t know me then.”

And he knows me now.

I’m afraid to ask. It’s really better if I don’t know the answer, if I only wonder and worry forever, but whenever there’s trouble, I have a way of falling into it. “So what’s between us?”

“Oh, lots of things. Probably love is one of them. Hate, too. Those things go together more than they should. But damn, there’s a boatload of chemistry between you two.”

There’s chemistry here, crackling in the air between Sutton and me.

“We’ve never—”