Page 60 of Trust Fund Baby

“Yeah, no thanks.”

He muttered something under his breath, probably a prayer for patience.

I wanted to talk to Winn about how he always caved to the family. But whenever I brought it up, he’d shut me down immediately. All I wanted was for him to be happy, the same way he wanted me to be happy.

I glanced back at Winn, catching the way his eyes softened when he looked at the wood he was working on—as if crafting something real and lasting was the antidote to all the mess outside these walls.

“Thanks for letting me annoy you so much recently,” I said quietly.

He shrugged, already reaching for another piece of wood. “We’re family. And on top of that, you’re my little sister. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Except that was a foreign concept for the rest of the Kings, and despite telling myself I was over it after all these years, it still stung.

21

Roxie

The gallery was unusually silent. I should have relished the peace, but instead it made my skin itch.

The minimalist landscapes I sold yesterday to a collector who had hesitated for weeks were spotlighted by the overhead lights. Although I was due a large paycheck, I felt detached and unreal, like I had been since the gallery event a couple of weeks earlier. I found it hard to stop thinking about the man with dark hair and green eyes. Despite my attempts to resist, he overwhelmed my thoughts, lingering in my mind all day. It felt as though I was revisiting all my childhood memories with Sebastian, knowing he was probably out of my life permanently.

The good, the bad, the ugly.

I was grieving somebody, even though they were still very much alive. I was mourning a fabricated version of a person, and the second chance we could have had was an idealized image that never existed. It’d been totally draining me for weeks.

Just as I mustered the nerve to do something useful, the unwelcome sound of Martin’s footsteps on the concrete floor made me freeze.

“Roxanne,” he said in that clipped, precise tone he reserved for when he wanted to remind me of the hierarchy here. I had to bite down on my tongue to keep from reminding him that only my parents still called me Roxanne.

And Sebastian, a voice in my head reminded me.

“I’ll need you to forward the buyer’s paperwork from the sale yesterday to me,” Martin went on.

I turned, schooling my face into polite professionalism. There was once a time that I had been so excited to work here. Having just left college, I was eager to get involved in the art world, get established, and network for my career. But I had almost nothing to show for it, nearly five years later.

“Of course. I’ll send you the details so accounting can process my commission.”

Martin’s lips curved—not into a smile, but something colder. My breath caught at the sight, knowing whatever came next was not about to be good. “I’ll be taking this one on my account.”

The air became noticeably cooler.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, thinking I’d misheard him.

“The collector’s a long-standing client of mine,” he said smoothly, like this was simply a matter of policy. “It’s better for the gallery if the relationship is tied to me.”

It was a pathetic excuse, and judging by the smug look on his face, he knew it, but there was nothing I could do about it. Martin ran this gallery, and there was no one else to take up a complaint about him with. I was unfortunately just out of luck.

My fingers curled against my palm. “With respect, Martin, you haven’t spoken to him once this entire process. He came into the store, and I was the one emailing, arranging the private viewings, and helping him map out how these pieces could fit into his collection to close the sale—”

He lifted a hand, cutting me off. “It’s not personal, Roxanne. Just business. You’re on salary. Your quarterly review is coming up. Best not make this difficult.”

That word—difficult—slid under my skin like a splinter. The last time I’d been called that was by my grandfather, when he asked me why I had to be so difficult and choose NYU and the future I wanted for myself over the future he’d laid out for me at Harvard. He didn’t understand why I loved photography or the thrill I got from capturing the perfect shot. To him, it wasn’t prestigious enough. It wasn’t worthy of the King name.

Now I had another man calling me difficult, all because I was standing up for myself.

My jaw clenched. I thought of the endless late nights I’d stayed to rearrange displays, the times I’d worked unpaid hours to keep a buyer happy, the way I’d swallowed snide comments from pretentious clients because I knew the sale mattered. That sale was the difference between my ability to help pay my half of the rent and bills or not.

And now? On top of the raw, unhealed mess in my chest where Sebastian had been just weeks ago, this was what I got.