Survival of the Richest (The Trust Fund Duet 1)

She’s angry, this one. Determined. Resolute.

They paint her knowing, usually. As if the world is full of puppets she makes dance. I think she knew what she was doing but couldn’t have known the outcome. It’s an act of sacrifice to throw everything you have toward a cause. Part of you has to be sure you’ll lose to even try.

Like the way I know this painting will be demolished at six a.m. There’s going to be a wrecking ball right through Cleopatra’s face. With every stroke of these cheap brushes and clumpy paint, I know it’s the best work I’ve ever done. Art with more than prettiness or pride. Something more important than power.

There’s survival, something every woman has had to look in the face.

And sometimes, sometimes we walk into a fight we know we’re going to lose.

There’s a crowd by the time the construction crew shows up. I expect to see Sutton with them, because he’s the one who’s always managed them. It’s Christopher who appears in a suit and sunglasses, looking like he’s already made his mark on the world instead of only beginning. He does not look at all surprised by the crowd that’s assembled around us.

At first it was only Penny who came and Damon who followed her. There were men who came to consult with Damon, and I wondered whether that was a regular thing. Whether people showed up at the Den at all hours to whisper some serious thing and receive a response. Probably. Eventually word got out, and people started coming to watch.

The protest takes on a life of its own.

It has a hashtag before I even think to post on Instagram: #freethelibrary. Local businesses pick up on it, some of them more serious than others.

Because books are worth saving! posts a local coffee shop.

Mention #freethelibrary to get 30% off, posts a vintage clothing store.

Along with a random ad for shoes.

Blinding light glints off dark sunglasses. He might as well be a stranger, this man in a suit. He looks that cold standing in front of me. Nothing like the man who shivered in my arms.

He looks around before speaking, not in any rush to tell me he’s going to destroy this painting. And the library. “Was this a long game?” he asks finally. “You wanted everyone to hate me after the will reading. I think now it’s done.”

“I didn’t twist your arm into buying a historic building, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s not.”

My mouth is dry from exhaustion and dehydration and paint fumes. He kissed me once, when I was high on the stuff. It won’t happen again. “This wasn’t about revenge. No. I would have done this for the library. For me.” For Sutton.

“Are you going to chain yourself to the front doors?”

That makes me laugh a little. “I don’t have a death wish. Not anymore.”

He absorbs that for a moment. “Sutton isn’t here.”

“I can see that.” His hair would glint like spun gold in this light. His blue eyes would dance with a thousand things to say. His absence is as loud as a shotgun. “He’s at the office?”

“Not likely. He quit after you left.”

It’s like falling two hundred feet and landing backward in the water. Like having the breath knocked out of me. “What?”

“He didn’t send me his itinerary, but I figured he would be in LA by now.”

“No,” I whisper, because that means I’m too late.

“He can’t exactly pull his money out. Can’t close the barn doors after the horses have been let out, was the way he put it. But he can resign his position. That was him choosing you over money, in case the grand gesture wasn’t clear.”

There’s no air at all in my lungs. No air in the warm morning mist. I’m left to sink and sink, unable to breathe. Unable to think. Sutton did that for me. He left everything—for me.

The grand gesture I always wanted from Christopher… Another man gave it to me. It makes me wonder how much of the world I’ve been ignoring in my tunnel vision. How much of life I’ve been hiding from in pursuit of a man who doesn’t want me as much as I wanted him.

Suddenly I can’t stand to wait a second longer. Whatever threads of love I felt for Christopher Bardot, they fall to the concrete outside the broken library. Gone.

It doesn’t feel like a loss. It feels like being free.