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“Edith!” she cried.
“Check your bank account.”
Glowering, Beth looked up her bank details on her phone. Since all her bills were on autopay, she expected to see she had forty-one dollars left. She’d counted on getting back to work at the shop immediately. She’d been a little worried about next month’s rent.
No longer. Her eyes boggled.
Beth had fifty million dollars.
Just sitting there. In her checking account. She had to keep counting the zeroes to be sure she wasn’t counting them wrong.
“Why would he do this?” she whispered, feeling dizzy.
Her sister looked at her. “Can’t you think of a reason?”
Beth felt topsy-turvy inside. “I’ll give the money to you—”
“No.” Edith’s voice was firm. “He was very clear to me on this point. This money is for you and you alone. But don’t worry—” She grinned suddenly, and said in a cheerful voice, “My research has now been completely and utterly funded for the next ten years.”
“That’s wonderful,” Beth said slowly.
But she suddenly faced a life she couldn’t recognize. She thought of all the cameras and people outside her dilapidated studio apartment and shivered.
She’d always wanted to be special. But this was too much. And right as she was sitting there in shock, holding her phone, she got a text.
It was from Wyatt, the boyfriend who’d broken up with her because she “wasn’t special.”
His new message said:
I’ve made a horrible mistake. Meet for coffee?
“Wyatt wants to give our relationship another chance,” she said in a strangled voice.
“Of course he does, Beth.” Her sister’s voice was soft. “Do you know, I’ve always been a little envious of you?”
Beth looked up in shock. “You—envious of m
e?”
“I’ve often wished I could live like you do. With such joy in every day. You bring happiness to so many. I don’t think you even realize it.”
She stared at Edith. All this time she’d been envying Edith, and her sister envied her?
Beth suddenly grinned. “Sure,” she said. “And all you do is cure cancer.”
“There is that,” Edith agreed, returning her smile. Then she sighed. “The truth is, I don’t know if I’ll ever have that breakthrough. It’s always just over the horizon. I might be wasting my life for nothing. And then I look at you. You don’t waste a day. You don’t waste a moment. Until I met Michel, I never knew how good it was.”
“Sex?”
“Love.” Her sister looked at her though her thick glasses. “You love him, don’t you? This king of yours?”
Love him?
Beth’s heart lifted to her throat.
She couldn’t love him. He was a billionaire king. She was just a shop girl from West Texas.
She admired him, of course. She desired him. Okay, so obviously she was wildly infatuated, but who wouldn’t be?
