Page 66 of Glitterati Omega

Twelve

R

upert was not sure he was ever goingto get used to the wet. He felt like it had been raining for days, if not a week straight. He sloshed through another puddle, then scurried to the bus shelter.

Winston was mad, he thought. He’d spent about three weeks in Houston now, and at first, public transport had been a novelty. Now it was a nuisance. When he’d complained, though, Winston had merely told him to “do something about it.”

Rupert might have, if he’d had any idea about what one might do about public transportation. If he’d been that kind of mind, he would have gone into civil engineering or something. As it was, all he could do was pitch money at people to try and fix things.

Which, well, that was what Winston wanted him to do. Apparently. He’d offered a couple of schemes, both of which Winston had turned down for not being rigorous enough. Rupert wasn’t entirely sure what the alpha thought he should do with the money. Any time he asked, Winston simply reflected the question at him.

Truth was, he’d never thought much about it. It had always been normal to him to have so much; investments grew, year after year. Sometimes, a property was sold. He didn’t understand most of it; he’d never had to. It felt overwhelming to look at the accounts, especially since maths had never come easily to him. He was making an effort, but nobody seemed willing to explain—not the tax accountant, not the tax lawyer, not the financial advisors or managers. They all just waved their hands and told him they’d look after it, not to worry his head about it.

Thing was, he was worried about it now, because he and Winston were on their second consultation for in vitro. Dr. Arendse had been against the entire plan, but she’d reluctantly written a referral to a couple of specialists around theus—first a doctor in New York and now one in California. The one in New York had wanted nothing to do with him—too risky—but the doctor in California seemed open to other methodologies that sounded less …

Well, they sounded morepleasant, at any rate. Rupert hadn’t had a cycle since the wintertime (summer? July; everything was upside-down in Houston), so that was also now an issue.

Winston was looking over his tax papers and accounts, and they were talking about selling …a lot, which made Rupert very nervous. There was the main house in Cape Town, with a couple of other properties, then a house in Pretoria and a couple of properties around Durban and Johannesburg. There was the property here in Houston, which had been his mother’s, as well as a house inla, and one in London, England, as well as the little Italian villa. There were the sixteen wineries, which Winston had advised to spin off as their own company. Rupert was allowed to hold some kind of stock in them, which would form the active part of his “job” income, but they’d be worker cooperatives. Or … something. Rupert was hazy on the details.

They hadn’t yet talked about the offshore accounts or the savings or other venture capital and such, and talking about almost anything related to the estate made Rupert’s head spin. There was simplyso muchof it.

Maybe Winston was right. There was too much, far too much for one person, or even one family, to have. It seemed even more ridiculous when he took public transport, watching the people who had to scrounge for fare, the homeless in the bus stations with tattered clothes and ragged sleeping bags, holding out cups for change. Rupert had always been told such people were dangerous, violent,insane, but they didn’t seem like much of a threat when they said, “God bless” to everyone who walked by, whether they stopped or not, whether they handed out coins or not.

Some of those begging—many of them—he knew were sick, sick like him, and the only difference was that he could afford his medication and hide away in a bedroom when he lost touch with reality, and they couldn’t.

The more he thought about it, the more it seemedwrong.What madehimmore deserving than these people? It was hard to imagine himself falling so far from grace, but he’d been sent to themental health wardfor about a week after his suicide attempt. He’d been whisked off to some fancy rehabilitation center after those seven days, where he got to sit in the lap of luxury, while the other inpatients remained where they were.

Why did he get to leave and they didn’t? Money was the only answer he had, and he could say hedeservedit, that he had some kind of God-given right, but …

He wasn’t sure he did. He certainly didn’t feel like he was a better person. He didn’t necessarily feel like he ought to be put out on the street and left to beg, but then again, did anyone deserve that?

He turned it over again in his mind on the way up to Morgan’s office. Morgan had received the referral from the doctor in California; Winston was very much against traveling for medical treatment, if they could help it—he cited environmental concerns, cost concerns, and even stress factors.

Rupert was inclined to agree with him about stress, at the very least; if this was going to work, he needed to have minimal stress in his life. He pondered other omegas, those who had to work to make ends meet, who didn’t have the luxury ofreducing stressbecause they didn’t have any money.

It was hard for him to imagine what that must have been like, not to have the option to just quit. To have to keep working, because even if working was stressful and terrible for one’s health, not having food or shelter was worse.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Cullinan,” said Mandy, Morgan’s cheerful receptionist. “Will Mr. Ndoni be joining you this afternoon?”

Rupert shook his head. “No, he was planning to, but he was called into the office. Some issue with a last-minute closing.”

“Ah,” Mandy said. “Well, have a seat; Dr. Warwick will be with you shortly.”

Rupert sat nervously in the quiet waiting room, glancing around. He picked up a magazine and idly leafed through it, pausing at a feature with Elise’s latest collection. He lifted a brow, then checked the date of the glossy—over a year old.

He wondered why they bothered printing anything any longer.

A burly nurse in scrubs opened the door to the patient rooms. “Rupert.”

He was the only one in the waiting room, so of course it had to be him. He followed the nurse down the hall. He bypassed the scale when the nurse stopped there, which got him a quirked brow, but no further comment.

His blood pressure was taken, and then he sat in the exam room, waiting in silence some more.

Morgan was fifteen minutes late, which sounded about right. “Where on earth wereyou?” Rupert asked when they breezed into the room.

“Hospital,” Morgan said. “One of the patients decided to go into labor last night. So you’re lucky I’m here.”

Rupert pursed his lips. Morgan picked up his chart. “You’re really lucky I’m seeing you at all, because I shouldn’t be treating you. I should be turning you over to my partner, Dr. Jaipur.”