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CHAPTER6
chai interventions
YAYA
People with power have this uncanny ability to make others feel small. Through no fault of their own. By merely existing. They emit waves of confidence that seem to debilitate everyone. Like a bomb cutting you at the knees with every pulse.
I saw it in Richard Sullivan. Dripping elegance. Blinding charisma.
Something so arresting.
Shiny.
Calling.
Dangerous.
Because the rich, this class, this highest of the one percent, what they have is poison.
It’s pretty so we want to be close to it even if it harms us.
It’s seductive, so we keep drinking even if we choke.
I have friends from that class now, thanks to my sister. And I’ve been able to separate their money, their power, their privilege, from who they are as people. An inventor. A businessman. A father. A husband.
But here, in this hospital room that looks like an HGTV house reveal, there’s no separating the power from the person. Especially when I stare into Lucy Sullivan’s pretty blue eyes and see the firmness behind her gentle, coached smile.
That stare is expectant. Eyebrows raised. Head cocked slightly to the side. She’s so… pretty, her skin primped and tucked.Ihave more wrinkles than she does. When she folds her arms over her chest, the silk of her robe ripples like a wave on a still lake.
This is a woman who ran her car into the side of a building. Something that should have made the local paper at least. Possibly the statewide news.
She should be in handcuffs.
A courtroom. A jury. A sentence.
Three months in prison.
Not three months in a fancy rehab with a five-star buffet and a room the size of my entire apartment.
This is the difference between us and the people with power.
Not that they don’t make the same mistakes.
But that the consequences of their mistakes and ours are different.
On this principle alone, I want to hate Lucy Sullivan.
I want to despise her and ridicule her and possibly report her to a gossip blog that would happily slurp up the news of a billionaire’s sister carelessly destroying public property.
But I can’t.
Because this is a job.
And impressing her, getting her to believe me, tofawnover me, is my first challenge as Richard Sullivan’s fake girlfriend.
I refuse to fail.
If I do, Henry pays the price.
