Page 61 of Glitterati Omega

“All of it?”

Winston nodded. Rupert tilted his head. “The whole lot of it?” He lifted a hand. “Everything?”

Winston nodded again. “All fifteen trillion of it.”

Rupert frowned. “But then … I’d have nothing,” he said. He didn’t much like the thought of that.

“No,” Winston said, “you’d have a baby.”

Rupert huffed. “A baby and nothing to take care of it with. That seems rather foolish, don’t you think? Why, how would I pay for medical care?”

“There’s the public system,” Winston murmured.

“The public system,” Rupert spat. “I understand I was dramatic, but that doesn’t mean you need to try to kill me.”

Winston gave him a cool look. “Other people rely on it.”

“And other people die in it!”

The look on Winston’s face told him he wasn’t being very convincing. “Perhaps the public system might be improved by a donation,” the lawyer suggested.

“A donation,” Rupert echoed, feeling slightly more incensed. “And they’d squander it and—”

“And what is your private doctor doing with the money you give them?”

“Well—”

“Buying another yacht?”

Rupert clapped his mouth shut. Winston held his hands out. “And what about you? What are you doing with all that money?”

“Well, I’m—”

“Squandering it?”

“No!”

“Hoarding it, then,” Winston said.

Rupert felt his cheeks flush. “It’s not even liquid,” he grumbled. “A lot of it is bound up in property and stocks and …”

He paused, watching Winston’s face carefully. “You want me to give all that away too, hm?”

“Mm.”

Rupert scowled. “Well,” he muttered, “that’s anawfullot to ask of someone, I think, I don’t see—”

“You said you’d give anything.”

Rupert hunched his shoulders. “You’re wretched,” he grumbled.

“You’re the one who said it.”

Rupert looked at him for a good long while. Then he looked down at the ground. “Can … can I think about it?” he asked cautiously.

Winston shook his head. “Well!” Rupert cried. “It’s not a small ask, you have to admit that—”

Winston pinned him with a sharp look. “It seems you’re not as willing as you thought you were.”