Page 27 of Caught Between Two Billionaires
“Why didn’t you put some of the trust fund into it? Like as an investment?”
His eyes flash. “That would be unethical.”
“Like letting a sick woman suffer because you’re a pompous asshole?” He could learn a thing or two about concern for your fellow human beings. He doesn’t care about my mother. And he definitely doesn’t care about me. Unethical. Ha!
“She’s not suffering. Her pain is manageable and her prognosis favorable.”
Surprise locks my muscles tight. There’s a healthy dose of suspicion along with it. “Favorable. That’s what her doctor told me last week. Now I want to know how the hell you know anything about her condition.”
“It’s part of my role as executor to make sure you’re safe.”
That makes me laugh. Safe, because he wants nothing more than to ride in on his damned white horse. He wants to spy on us and then call it protection. “If my mother isn’t allowed a single cent from the trust fund, then she’s not part of your stupid role. You don’t get to have it both ways.”
I turn my back on him to face Sutton, who I’m finding infinitely more reasonable to deal with. The fire burnishes his golden hair, making it seem as if he’s glowing. While Christopher is vibrating with tension and I’m flushed with frustration, he looks merely thoughtful. Those brilliant blue eyes sift through the things we’re saying… and the things we’re not saying.
“I hate to break it to you,” I tell him, “but I’m not exactly rooting for your success here. So I’m probably not the best person to help with your diplomacy problem.”
Sutton seems at ease in the tux and the Queen Anne chair and the stuffy old country club. It’s the kind of assurance that comes from being fully comfortable with who you are. He’s ambitious, but in a different way from Christopher, without the desperate, dangerous edge. His is a pure manifestation of hard work and hard play.
He’s probably good with rope. The words come back to me at this completely inappropriate moment, making my cheeks heat. I have no interest in being tied up, but there’s something about a man so intensely physical that draws me like a magnet.
Sutton leans forward and clasps his hands together, elbows on his knees. His eyes are sharp and as wide-open as a summer sky. “We put everything into this project because we can make even more back. This will change the city. You smooth this over for us, and we’ll buy a whole damn hospital wing.”
“How is that any different than Christopher giving his personal credit card?”
“Because this isn’t personal. It’s business.”
The room feels alive with sexual tension and dark undercurrents. This is intensely personal, but he’s also right in a way. It’s also business—and if I earn that money through my own work, then it’s fair game. As fair as any painting I’ve sold. “Seriously, though. You weren’t even going to call the historical society?”
“And do what?” Christopher asks. “Throw a tea party?”
“As you can see, we need your help,” Sutton says, his expression sardonic.
In that moment I know I’ll be spending some time in Tanglewood. Not only because it will help my mother. Despite what I said before, I do actually care about the company’s success. Christopher and I have too much history for me to be apathetic, no matter how much I want to be.
He could have learned every number in the textbooks at Emerson, but they didn’t prepare him to face off with the righteous Mrs. Rosemonts of the world.
And it turns out that Sutton is good with rope, at least in an abstract sense. With every word he pulls the knots a little tighter. He tugs me a little closer. I’m not sure how I let him ensnare me this way, but already it’s hard to see my way free.
“When are you coming home?” Mom says after picking up the phone.
I cringe a little at the word home, but I’m careful not to let my feelings enter my voice. She has more things to worry about than whether her daughter, fresh out of college, wants to live in the spare bedroom. So much has changed in the four years since the will reading, but in other ways everything is the same. “It’ll take longer than I thought.”
She sighs. “Christopher isn’t going to bend, baby.”
“He might,” I say, because there’s no point in explaining the whole thing about the library. It will only stress her out. “Actually he’s being more reasonable. I think if I stay a couple more weeks, we might have it worked out.”
“I don’t need the experimental treatment,” she says for the millionth time. “I don’t want that. I only agreed because you were so adamant. My herbalist has a whole plan laid out for me, to make sure I stay in remission.”
