Survival of the Richest

by Skye Warren

  A frown. “Safety concerns, at least that’s the claim. I figure if we address them, they’ll just come back with something else. The reasoning is just a technicality.”

  “Because I have to wonder, if you did make the table, then you must have made the walls. And who does that? Making walls with their bare hands?”

  “We had the construction crew on hold while we tried to push through the review, and now we’re going to have to tell them to wait longer. Indefinitely, maybe. Are you going to actually discuss this with me or just talk about the damned walls?”

  “The transportation of walls has become something of a personal interest.”

  He wants to say something about the construction crew that will no doubt be important, but he looks over at the wall and blinks. “You move walls the same way, whether you make them yourself or not. With a truck.”

  And that wraps up Sutton in a single sentence. With a truck. Something idealistic enough in him to want an office built by his own hand. And something practical enough not to wonder how it will be done. The grin on my face, I couldn’t stop it for anything. “You’re amazing.”

  He studies me. “Did you and Christopher keep drinking all night?”

  “Slept like a baby, even though his mattress is hard.”

  As soon as I say the words, Sutton’s blue eyes turn to frost. I wish I could take the words back, or explain that we didn’t do anything, that Christopher wasn’t in bed with me. Except that there’s voices coming from the reception area. And then Christopher stands between us.

  “Good morning,” he says, his gaze detached and his suit impeccable.

  He was gone when I woke up this morning, leaving me in his apartment. There was a cup of lukewarm coffee on the counter made with sugar and extra cream, exactly the way I drink it, which was the only sign that he knew I was even there. I ordered an Uber to L’Etoile, where it took a very long shower to feel human again.

  Somehow Christopher went from melancholy drunk to determined in the space of a few hours. It’s like there’s a magnet between him and this focused businessman. No matter how far away he slides, he can snap back in a second. He drops a finger on the permit and draws it toward him, reading without expression.

  Sutton strolls over to the far corner, where he runs a hand over a knot, his touch familiar and almost caressing on the wood. He would touch cherished skin that way. “We’ll need to appeal,” he says.

  “Yes,” Christopher says, pushing away the paper, letting it slide. “It won’t work, of course. And we don’t have much time if we want to stay on schedule.”

  “Seems unlikely,” Sutton says, but he adds, “There are a lot of men counting on that income. Would be good to come through for them.”

  “There’s a domino effect with getting construction and our contracts with retailers.”

  “And we would be in a stronger bargaining position when the construction crew inevitably tells me it’ll take longer. Hard to make the point we’re in a hurry if we’re slow as mud.”

  Christopher nods. “So we’re agreed.”

  I’m not sure what they’ve agreed to, except that having their construction permit denied is a bad thing for many reasons. I could have told them that. Then they look at me, and I realize that I’m going to play some part in getting this resolved. That’s only fair considering it’s the reason why I’m here, but I’m going to need more than clipped words.

  “Mrs. Rosemont was really mad, you guys.”

  Christopher gives me a half smile. “I’ll go to city hall. I have a few contacts there I’ve been working. A few angles that might help this go through.”

  “Bribes?” Sutton asks.

  “It looks like we’ll need them. Which means we don’t have money for those thousands of book restorations and moving the damned wall. Corruption doesn’t come cheap.”

  “Wait.” But I’ve already lost control of the situation. I lost it last night when the first punch was thrown. Or maybe I was foolish to think I could control men like this.

  This was also supposed to be the ticket to my mother getting the experimental treatment. That money will go to rich men instead, making them richer. Which strikes me as completely ordinary, all of a sudden. That’s how things have always worked in our lives.

  Christopher looks at me, seeing right through all my worry. His eyes soften a fraction. “You did the work we asked you to, better than I could have predicted. I’m the one who fucked things up. Your mother isn’t going to have to pay for that. We’ll pay for the butterfly garden.”

  He’s probably right, being a bastion of ethics and correctness. It still feels like a hollow victory. I don’t want to take money they need for construction. The only thing I ever wanted was to spend the money I already had. I never should have agreed to stay here.

  Christopher’s forehead furrows. He doesn’t say anything, though. Nothing to reassure me. And he certainly doesn’t offer to let me use the trust fund.

  “I’ll call Victor and the construction guys,” Sutton says. “Try to work out some kind of contract negotiations so they don’t walk away and start another job.”

  Christopher nods and leaves without a backward glance. I watch the back of his head as he goes, those broad shoulders, the determined way he leaves, like a man going to war.

  Sutton doesn’t look at me either as he sets up a meeting time on his phone.

  For two men who couldn’t pay enough attention to me last night, they sure are avoiding me in the morning. It doesn’t do nice things for a girl’s self-esteem.

  “Our fault,” Sutton says, sensing my guilt.

  They fought over me. Does that make it their fault? Or mine? We were so close to having the society’s approval. “The table is beautiful,” I tell him, touching the smooth edge of it with my forefinger.

  His blue gaze follows my touch. “Yes.”

  It’s not beautiful like Medusa with her blue-green lips and serpent hair. She tried so damn hard to be understood. Wanted that more than anything, but the men she spoke to kept turning to stone.

  The table is different. It doesn’t need to say anything. It just is. Like the earth and the sun and all the vibrant things in between.

  “I just keep thinking… why didn’t I see this when I came here the first time? How beautiful the table is and that you must have made it yourself.”

  “You didn’t know me then.”

  The founder of L’Etoile was a woman who called herself French royalty, but rumor is that she ran a brothel in Paris. Maybe both of those stories are true.

  It makes me wonder if every old building has some dark sexual secrets, irreverent to the beauty of the place. Maybe there was a deviant sex club that met in the library after hours. I could look through those shelves for months, for years, and not uncover every secret the building holds.

  I won’t be here long enough to find out.

  Christopher managed to push through the permits with bribes and threats and who knows what else. The books are going to be dragged to the landfill, the carved wall torn down like plaster.

  I’ll be on a plane out of Tanglewood before it happens, because I can’t stand to watch that kind of beauty destroyed. Not like I’m doing them any good here anyway. I may as well go back home, where I can at least make sure Mom is eating proper food instead of whatever berries-and-twigs diet her herbalist has come up with.

  Maybe it will be as useful as the experimental treatment I didn’t get her into.

  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—”

  “Of course not. Anyone can see that. Christopher wouldn’t be walking around trying to tear apart the world with his bare hands if you had. Only a certain amount of denial feels good. The rest just fucking hurts.”

  I lick my lips, and his gaze tracks my tongue. “Which one was the hallway?”

  Only then do I realize I’ve been walking toward him, walking closer without realizing it. Almost two feet away right now. He’s a burning sun, and I’ve been cold for so long.

  “It hurt,” he says, soft and almost dangerous, “reading the text.”

  He isn’t diminished by telling the truth. That’s a trick I’d like him to teach me. It doesn’t make him seem weak, that he’s been hurt. Not with his shoulders this broad and his hands this scarred.

  It makes me seem powerful, instead.

  Powerful enough that I can reach out and touch him—the backs of my fingers against the scruff of his cheek. Soft when I stroke down. Prickly when I push back up. There’s terrain to be explored, to be tested against the will of my body.

  My voice comes out a whisper. “I think you did come to say goodbye.”

  Not with words.

  His eyes tell me no, that he’s not giving up on this, but his body leans into me. That’s something you don’t think about, that the sun doesn’t just burn. It wants to warm you. I let my hand fall to the angle of his jaw, to the place where his shirt opens and reveals bronze skin.

  I close my eyes, letting myself feel the joy that threatened when I heard the knock. If I’m honest with myself, there had been joy when I sent the text—thinking he would come for me. Hoping he would. If I could believe in love and trust and sex, if I thought any of it could last, I would have done more than hope. I’ve seen where it leads, and I don’t want to do that to him.

  Maybe we can have one night.

  You don’t face a lifetime of humiliation and hurt after one night, do you?

  His eyelids are heavy now, because he knows what happens next. Some part of him came here to do this with me, because it might be the last chance. It could be the last time I see him, which makes my chest hollow out. That’s the empty space where promises could go.

  He hooks two fingers in the waistband of my shorts, bringing me flush against his body. My stomach sucks in and then out, in and out, in and out, sensitive skin brushing bare knuckles. “Are you nervous?” he asks, his voice calm and deep.

  It makes me laugh, how un-nervous he seems. I’m made up only of nerves, strung together with dreams and desire and a penchant for trouble. “We’re going to do it in a bed, after all.”

  A small laugh. “To spice things up,” he says, echoing me.

  The words seem less like a joke now. More prophetic. The library counter had been spontaneous and wild. This is different, almost unbearably intimate.

  This close I can see the pale striations set into his blue eyes. I could dabble in a thousand shades of blue and never capture them on canvas.

  With a sharp pang, I know that I’ll keep trying anyway.

  It will be my new life’s work, this sky.

  I don’t see him move. We’re too close for that; I feel him shift against me. Then his hand cups the back of my neck. His lips meet mine. I suck in a breath, drawing the scent of him into my body. He uses the moment to part my lips. There is no coaxing, no preamble. His lips bite over mine, telling me exactly how our bodies will move. His tongue presses inside, insistent. Gentle, his mouth tells me. I’m going to be gentle with you. His hand tips my head back, making it easier
for him to reach, keeping me from going anywhere. Gentle and implacable.

  It’s like we never stopped that night in the hallway. This is what could have happened after, his tongue still salted from my body. His hand cupping my breast, his thumb and forefinger finding my nipple. A squeeze, enough to make me gasp. And harder, to whimper.

  “I want you naked,” he murmurs against my lips.

  He’s already had me with my skirts around my waist, leaning back against wallpaper. And he’s had me bent over a library counter. It’s more revealing to let him draw the black tank top over my head. There’s nothing underneath. No bra. Only my skin, flushed with arousal. My nipples hard and ruched from the way he touches me. I jump when those calluses brush the smooth curve underneath. It doesn’t stop him. He does it again, to see the way I move.

  “I—I want—” I don’t know what I want, only that it hurts. Is this the good hurt he was talking about? It’s not exactly pain. It’s more like I’m going crazy.

  “I’ll give it to you.” He bends his head to my breast, using his palm at my lower back to pull me toward him. His lips on my breast make me jerk—not away. I move closer. And then his lips close on my nipple, wet and hot and somehow bright. A cry comes out of me, a high pitch, a keen that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It sounds like grief, but it feels like heaven. He runs his teeth against my sensitive skin, and I gasp.

  What a terrible deception. That he would give me what I wanted, but it only makes me want more. Is this how he feels about money, about power, always needing more?

  A knock at the door makes me jump out of his hold.

  He lets me. That’s the only way I could have gotten free of those hands that have held wood larger than my body. His eyes narrow on mine, not even glancing at the door. “Tell me you have room service coming.”

  I shake my head. “It could be Bea.”

  Except she would have called before coming down. Or invited me up, if she knew I was planning on leaving Tanglewood in utter despair, for her to comfort with wine and a fancy cheese plate. Hugo really does make the best cheese plates.