Page 6 of Pride and Privilege

He hadn’t felt guilty. Hugo was already heir to everything else—the Earldom, Conyers, all the other properties and land.No, if anything, Roscoe had felt a little smug, knowing his own inheritance had been earned, not just gained through an accident of birth. He hadearnedhis position here. He had worked for it. Had willingly shackled himself to the harness…

What was that horse called inAnimal Farm? The one that worked itself to death…?

With those thoughts in his brain at night, was it any wonder he spent his days looking for a glint of something brighter? A streak of copper. A glimpse of Poppy Fields. After a particularly tedious video call, he’d look out through the window by his door and see if she went by. She never did. If he rushed out to a meeting, he’d slow his stride as he passed Liz’s office and hope she emerged. But she never did.

He once caught sight of her at the end of a corridor, but she disappeared before he got anywhere near her. He was being stupid, he told himself. A schoolboy crush. She’d only say something strange, anyway. Accuse him of the tax avoidance that was becoming more undeniable by the moment.

Get back to work,he told himself.Eyes down. Stop looking.

By Friday, the last thing he felt like doing was going to the official staff party. Although had anyone ever wanted to go to a party that was described as the ‘official’ anything? Worst of all, this party was being thrown in his honour, in the entertaining space upstairs with its bar and rooftop garden. It would be full of execs and board members, the final part of the interview process, for Roscoe to show everyone they had made the right choice.

He tried. He talked to all the people he needed to talk to. Attempted to impress all the people he needed to impress. But he was doing it fairly abstractedly, because all the while he was aware of Poppy Fields standing alone near the bar.

He’d seen so little of her that he’d started to wonder if he’d dreamt her. But she was here, and he kept her in the peripheryof his vision as he circulated, because there was no harm in looking. He couldn’t help but look.

Adjoa, another of the people in his father’s team, was briefly with her. Then, the next time he looked over,Aubreywas with her.

Fucking Aubrey Ford. That smooth bastard.

Roscoe hastily excused himself from a detailed recital of someone’s home improvements—to their holiday home in the Seychelles—but was immediately waylaid by Andrew Carter-Hall—Duke of Molton, one of BlacktonGold’s largest contributing founders, and one of his father’s oldest friends. Not someone he could brush off. Damn.

“Ross,” the man said warmly, clasping Roscoe’s hand between two of his. He was a large man, big and bluff, fair-haired with weather-reddened cheeks. “Absolutely delighted for you, my boy.”

“Thanks, Andrew,” said Roscoe, dredging up his patience. “How’s Dodie? The boys?”

“All well enough. But look at you! All grown up into the man your father always knew you would be.”

Roscoe’s smile came out tighter than he had intended.

“He’s planned it almost since your birth,” confided Andrew, blue eyes twinkling. “Having you as his right-hand man. He used to tell me this story about you coming into his study when you were five—”

Across the room, Poppy laughed, and Aubrey leaned in. Roscoe gritted his teeth.

“—always precocious, even then. You asked him what he was doing, and being your father, of course he actually started to tell you all about it—stocks and shares and dividends and what-not. And he says you justdrankit in. Stood there wide-eyed, scabs on your knees, just absorbing it all. And the next day, you came back, and asked formore.” Andrew chuckled, laying a thick handon Roscoe’s arm. “That’s when he knew, you see. That’s what he always told me. That’s when he knew that the company would be safe with you.”

“Or my brother or sister, perhaps.”

“No, no…You, my boy. Hugo’s the heir to your father’s name, not his heart. It’syou,Roscoe. This job has been waiting for you for over twenty years. Just waiting for this moment.”

“Then it’s lucky the board agreed with my father’s vision.”

“Agreed? As if they’d ever have the guts to vote against him. The whole company’s in his pocket. You know that. It’s Blackton to its core. I might have written the first cheque that helped get it off the ground. But it’s George’s life’s work. And now yours too—a new generation ready to take the helm. A true family business.”

Roscoe barely heard the last part.The company’s in his pocket. They’d never vote against him.So this job, the one he’d been certain he’d earned fair and square, purely on merit… Was it nothing but nepotism, after all? If he hadn’t been George Blackton’s son, would they have ever voted him into it?

“There’s no line of descent when it comes to the company,”he’d told his brother.Except. It seemed there was.

THREE

This was all Adjoa’sfault.

Poppy stood near the end of the bar, by a potted plant, not far from the door to the toilets. Prime real estate for awkward people who knew they didn’t belong. She was gripping a gin and tonic, the glass cold and wet in her hot hand, and her other arm was tucked across her ribs, hand clamped under her elbow. It wasn’t that she wasshy—she could be fairly bolshy on her home turf—but she felt so obviouslyuninvitedand out of place that she was pierced with self-consciousness, rigid with it.

It felt presumptuous just being here. Yes, it was technically a company party and open to everyone, but people knew there was an unwritten pecking order to these things. Staff parties in the company lounge, catered and paid for by the company, were the preserve of the higher-ups: senior managers and above. There wasn’t anyone here who wasn’t on at least six-figures. Many were on seven. The board was here, the stakeholders were here. There were even a few clients—those high net worth individuals who couldn’t resist a free bar and finger food.

And even worse, this entire party was being thrown for no less an august personage than Roscoe Blackton himself. This was very much a party for the inner-circle. And Poppy Fields was very much outside of it.

He was busy in the crowd. And she was only aware of exactly where he was so she could scrupulously avoid looking. But after a week of successfully avoiding him, she was beginning to relax. Their very different roles never brought them into contact.

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