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“For homeless youths”

“Great I’ll bring my checkbook”

CHAPTER FOUR

CHARITY EVENTS WERE the scourge of Ferro’s existence A shiny, gorgeous hotel ballrooly people who possessed an unnatural amount of self-importance People who manipulated and used the less fortunate for their own pleasure during the day, but showed up to things like this to show their altruism to the press

He could well re who he ith Hating that he had to smile and fawn and do whatever it was he’d been paid to do No matter whether he wanted it No The tabloids, the author of his bio, they really had no idea of the depths he’d been to

He looked at Julia, as holding on to his ar but easy, and he wondered if he had become no better

No This benefitted Julia, too It was an exchange

Like sex for money?

Hell, no This wasn’t the same

Why was he even thinking about it? He rarely did But it happened more since Julia and he had struck their unholy alliance No one knew the truth They believed, of course, that he’d slept his way to the top He’d been spotted with soer years But they didn’t know the truth

The ru of truth to them But he would walk the same path a thousand ti his right to be in his position with his continued success

Regret was for the weak And he wasn’t wasting any ti it off The way he’d shut off the feelings of bone deep hunger and cold he’d experienced as a child on the street The way he’d shut down the shautter where he’d been and brought into a glittering, hideous world that had asked for his soul in exchange for food and a ware for eventual success

The way he shut desire do, to avoid ever thinking about that time in his life

Tonight, for this, he would shut off what little conscience he had left, and go forward Because it was the best thing to do Because the end always justified the er the boy he’d once been He was the man with the power And that meant he would win in the end

As they h the roo them Everyone was interested

“Try to relax,” he said to Julia