Separating Riches Read Free Page A

didn’t work like I had planned. In fact, she wasn’t impressed by my money at all. She was impressed with my kindness to the house staff, something that wasn’t done entirely out of the goodness of my heart.
    “Wow. Just pack up Norma, our kittens and the house staff, and move to California for seven or eight weeks?”
    “Sure, why not? With Meg and Frankie doing all the leg work from here, we can work on the scholarship applicants from anywhere.”
    “I just hope Norma will go for it because I don’t want to leave her at home alone,” Chris stated.
    “Well if she insists on staying at home, we’ll ask Charlotte to stay and take care of her.”
    “Yes, I’d feel better about that. But I just had an idea that might entice her to come with us.”
    “What’s that?” I asked, smiling at Chris’s enthusiasm.
    “Hollywood. I would love to take Norma back to her old stomping grounds.”
    “That’s a great idea!” I exclaimed, thinking how fun it would be to see that feisty old lady back in tinsel town.
    “Okay people,” George bellowed to be heard above the chatter, waving a DVD in his hand. “It’s time to watch the bloopers!”
     
    *
     
    A dream can feel so real sometimes. You dream you’re falling, and wake up bracing for the impact, gasping for air. I would have preferred to dream about the intense sex Chris and I had just had, but unfortunately, as I drifted off to sleep, the last thing I thought about was being back in college.
     
    Friday night at the college hangout, and the place was packed with mostly juniors and seniors. As a freshman, I knew that I would be snubbed, but that had never stopped me before. It seems that everyone had their own little clique and they weren’t letting me in. I decided it was because they didn’t know who I was, or what I was capable of, so I was there to show them what a real college party could be like. I was going to demand their respect, even if I had to pay for it. A little something that I learned from my father.
    The hangout was actually a pizza parlor located just off campus, with all the typical trappings a teenager navigates to, including liquor. All you needed was a fake ID, and the owner would look the other way. There were pinball machines that lined the back wall, booths along the inner half wall, and tables filled the open space. There was a small pizza parlor tucked in one corner, with an ice cream stand next to it. A touchscreen jukebox, with its blaring music and glaring lightshow, stood in the darkest corner. There was a room with a pool table in it, but no one shot stick, they used the table to have sex on. All this place needed was a wall full of video game consoles and it would look just like my condo. Unlike ninety-nine percent of the students in here, I had a condo because I didn’t want to live in the dorm with all those nasty smells and stringent rules, so I guilted my father into buying me a condo close to campus.
    I stood in the doorway of the pizza joint, feeling superior in my new clothes – black leather pants, white silk shirt and a rust-colored leather jacket, with a couple of black pearl bracelets on each wrist, and large, black pearl earrings, all of which cost thousands, and all custom fit to accentuate my confidence. After all, I was Blackie Blackstone, only child of Robert Blackstone, the billionaire businessman.
    I walked over and unplugged the jukebox, and then walked into the middle of the room and waited for the grumblings to quiet down.
    “Dude, who is that hypebeast?”
    “Are you kidding? That alpha dog is rolling in cheddar. And she is smokin hot!”
    “Girls only. My condo, tonight. ABC party,” I announced, and walked out.
    “Dude, what is an ABC party?”
    “Hello? It’s an anything but clothes party. You are such a freshman sometimes.”
    By the time people began arriving at my place, I was sitting like a queen on her throne, in my three-thousand-dollar, barrel tall wing chair, at the far end of the oblong