Survival of the Richest (The Trust Fund Duet 1)

to work.

It’s a random construction worker who climbs into the yellow machinery as the crowd boos and shouts. A mover of levers and knobs. It’s Christopher who gestures with his hand. Begin, says that hand. From the moment he was bent over his textbook in that cabin, it’s been leading to this moment. This moment when he would destroy everything.

A crane extends higher and higher, beyond anything else in sight. Taller than any of the buildings around us, including the library. It brushes up against gray clouds.

My stomach pitches forward. The crowd falls silent as the crane pivots and pulls the ball away from the library. Cleopatra’s eyes watch it swing toward her, steady, steady, steady.

The crash might as well be a physical blow. It crushes my lungs and slams into my gut. I’m left reeling, unable to breathe or think or feel anything but pain. Concrete and metal buckle around the ball, which suspends for a moment inside. As it moves away, it leaves a crater so much bigger than its size. Broken wood and brick. Shards of glass.

Cleopatra is gone. Only the shell of her is left—only the outer edges of her sleek black hair, the bottom of her chin. A work that took a whole night to create, gone in a second. It took longer than one night to paint like that. It took my whole life to dream of something more than business and money and power.

It’s only by slow degrees that I realize hands hold my arms. They’re keeping me back, behind the barricade, which means I must have tried to run forward. I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t conscious thought. Survival. That’s what it felt like.

The crane pulls back and swings again. Only a little more destruction this time.

It will take much longer to reach the inner sanctum with the wood counter and the carved wall and the bookshelves. I’m not sure I can watch that long.

The wrecking ball breaks me a little bit every time it swings.

A car pulls up at the perimeter, noticeable only because it’s sleek and black and long. A limo, like the kind Daddy used. For a wild second, made uncertain from lack of sleep, I expect to see him step out. He would stop this. Except I’m not sure the real Daddy would have. He probably would have invested with Christopher. Only in my daydreams would he help save it.

It’s not Daddy who steps out of the limo, of course. Sunlight limns golden hair. Wrinkles shadow a white dress shirt. The crowd parts for Sutton Mayfair as easily as breathing. He has a way of commanding the world without having to say a word.

Even the man in the crane hits the lever to stop the wrecking ball from a third run.

Somehow Christopher is beside me when Sutton approaches.

He holds up a piece of folded paper. “An injunction.”

“Let’s see it,” Christopher says, his words crisp. He doesn’t sound particularly surprised, nor does he sound particularly angry. This could be a discussion over the weather. He reads the length of the paper with an impassive expression.

“Turns out the Tanglewood Historical Society had teeth, after all.”

Christopher folds the paper. “This won’t hold up on appeal.”

“Maybe not,” Sutton says, accepting the possibility. “But we’re done here for today.”

Tears prick my eyes. “You’re too late.”

Sutton looks at the library where there’s no hint a painting had ever stood. Through the heavy dust and wreckage you can see the beautiful carved wall, still standing. “We can repair what’s happened here. There wasn’t any load on those glass turnstiles. Nothing permanent.”

It feels like something permanent has cracked inside me, but I force myself to focus on what he’s saying. We can fix the front of the library. It’s saved, at least for now.

“You did this?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

Sutton shakes his head, slow. “It was Mrs. Rosemont who filed with the court. I gave information in testimony, but it was her connections that made this happen.”

“But why… why would you help stop this? Why did you resign?”

Those blue eyes could reach across the entire city, that’s how far he lets me look. This man I doubted. This man I desired. He lets me see the deepest parts of him. “For you,” he says, simply.

My throat clenches hard. “I wouldn’t have asked you to do this. I couldn’t—”

“You didn’t have to ask. I couldn’t be a part of this once I saw how much it meant to you.”

“But your investment.”

He gives me a small smile. “This one wasn’t business. It’s personal.”