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She covered her mouth with a hand, and she closed her eyes. “That’s terrible.”
“After she died, my father hired a team of investigators and they found me. I was angry with him for abandoning my mother and ignoring me. Before I knew it, we were on his jet to London. I was enrolled in a private school to finish high school and then to Cambridge with a substantial trust fund.” For a long time, he felt like he’d betrayed his mother. It was like he’d profited from her death somehow. In hindsight, he learned that the money he inherited from his mother and the Sutton trust fund gave him the financial support to rebuild communities. None of that would have been possible without the financial support he received.
“Did you get along with your stepfamily?”
“I was never accepted into their family. I avoided them as much as possible. During the summer breaks, I joined my father at whatever construction site he was working on. I learned as much as I could about construction by working with the crew. When I was back at school, I studied architecture.”
“What about Malcolm?”
“Malcolm never set foot on a construction site. He’s a few years older than me and a finance management prodigy. He hated me and did everything he could to make my life miserable and take whatever I had, including my girlfriend.”
“Whitney?”
“Yeah, Whitney Lockwood,” he said with a brisk nod. “We met during my third year at Cambridge. Everyone knew I was serious about her, including Malcolm. He had already graduated from Cambridge but met Whitney a few times when I brought her to family events. She formed a friendship with my stepmother, and I hoped that would help smooth things out with my family, but I was wrong. I left that summer to work with my father in Italy. While I was gone, Malcolm and his mother spun lies about me, telling Whitney I was running around with other girls. She believed him, and I never had a chance to explain.”
“Was any of it true?”
“No, but it didn’t matter. The press found the site I was working on in Positano. If it was a hot day and I had my shirt off, the photos showed up the next day. If I went to dinner with some of the crew, the paparazzi were everywhere. And because of my father’s reputation, the girls showed up. The ‘like father, like son’ rumors started. When I came back to London, Malcolm and Whitney were engaged. I lost it. I went to lots of clubs and behaved like my father. I did manage to get my degree, but the partying continued.” He paused, recalling those wasteful days. “I’m not that person anymore.”
“What made you change?”
“Professionally, I got tired of living in my father’s shadow. Personally, I realized my friends only cared about partying and money. As I got older, I wanted to take my skills and broaden my scope beyond building the world’s tallest hotel. I wanted to take on projects that would make a difference for people in need.”
Cassandra’s eyes searched his with intense interest, but she remained quiet.
Her silence made him self-conscious. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to overwhelm you with so many details. I don’t talk about this too much with anyone.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because your opinion matters to me. We don’t know each other well, but I want to. If I could do it over, I would have told you everything that morning.”
