by Linde, K. A.
“Let’s do it.”
“Do you want me to send invites out?” Harmony asked. She pulled out her phone and started scrolling through Crew.
“No,” I said at once. “It should come from me. Put me together a list, and I’ll reach out.”
Jane grinned. “I love this side of you.”
I blinked. “What side of me?”
“So confident and in control. Knowing exactly where you belong.”
Harmony agreed, “It’s kind of hot.”
I flipped my silvery hair off of my shoulder and smiled. “Thanks, girls. This is so fun.”
It was as much a charade as the event hosting, but I had to sell it. I wasn’t confident or in control. I was just acting. Trying to walk in the footsteps of those who had been successful at this before me. Channel my inner Amy and merge it with the Upper East Side superiority.
Jane at least knew where I’d come from and how I’d been when I first entered the scene. Most other people, Harmony included, didn’t remember that Natalie. Or if they’d read about her in Katherine’s salacious article, it was whispered behind my back as they worshipped at my feet. And I had to decide to not care or else the whole thing would drive me crazy.
“So, girls’ night out. I’ll add it to the list,” I said with a laugh.
“Excellent. I’m excited. I need a girl time. Maybe we can finally find me a better guy than my last douche,” Harmony said. “We can’t all be lucky enough to snag Kensington men.”
Jane and I both shrugged at the same time. Then we giggled that we’d done it together.
Harmony started to ask about logistics for the event, and I pulled out my phone to take notes. I didn’t want to miss anything. But first, I checked the text from Penn. My eyes narrowed at the words on the screen.
Heading to Rowe’s to see the crew. Something’s happened.
Then he linked to a news article.
A slight gasp escaped my lips as realization hit me like a cold shower.
“What?” Harmony asked with round blue eyes.
I didn’t respond. I just turned the screen toward them so that they could see the New York Times article about Warren being under investigation. About Lewis being under investigation…for the exact thing that I had contacted the journalist about.
When I’d contacted the journalist, she hadn’t seemed that interested. She said she’d look into it. That I shouldn’t get my hopes up that it would become anything. That her boss might not even want to run it. Sometimes, that happened with powerful players…especially ones who weren’t in politics.
I didn’t like it. Just like I hadn’t liked the lack of a restraining order. But I’d done my part. She’d said she’d contact me if she needed more information or if she got the green light.
I hadn’t been contacted. I’d had no knowledge that this was going to come out. I’d hoped for it. Her boss would have been an idiot not to want to bring down the Warrens. But of course, they’d had to get real proof. The proof that I’d been sure was there. And here it was…exactly as I’d imagined.
A small, satisfied smile lit up my face.
Karma at its finest.
“Oh my god!” Harmony gasped. She took my phone out of my hand and was reading the article word for word.
But Jane had stopped reading and glanced up at me. She knew whose byline that was. She knew that it was a friend of hers. She could put the pieces together. But she didn’t look upset. If anything, she looked…impressed.
“This is crazy,” Jane said softly.
“Isn’t it?” I agreed.
“An investigation on the whole company now.”
“All for shady dealings.”
“Pity,” Jane said with a matching smile.
“Holy fuck!” Harmony interjected. “I mean…Lewis fucking deserved it if he was really doing this shit.”
“Oh, he was,” Jane said. “Everyone knows they’ve been doing this kind of shit and getting away with it. No one wants to work with them, but they’re hamstringed because the Warrens have all the power.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, he had it coming. But shit,” Harmony said. “I didn’t think this kind of thing happened to men on the Upper East Side. Not…one of us, you know?”
Harmony’s look pleaded with me to understand. Because to her, I was one of them. I’d integrated into their circle. And she wasn’t wrong. Nothing bad had ever happened to these people. That was the whole fucking point. They could commit murder and get away with it.
That time was over.
It was fucking over.
“I guess it does now,” I calmly told her.
“I guess so,” Harmony said, passing me my phone back. “Kind of scary. Almost like…who’s next?”
Who indeed?
I made it back to Penn’s before he did. Totle and I snuggled on the couch as I went through the list Harmony had sent over for our girls’ night out. It was like fifty fucking people long. I’d thought, like, ten at most. Was this normal? Did I need fifty people I didn’t know helping me with an event?
It was a headache. I’d raided Penn’s liquor drawer, and I was sipping from a glass of whiskey when he appeared in the living room. My eyes trailed down him. The navy jacket and gray slacks that hugged him. The bow tie hanging around his neck, undone. The electric-blue eyes that took in my own state of undress with efficiency and need. Then to the glass in my hand.
“Long day?” he finally settled on.
“Taxing,” I told him. “Who knew party-planning was so cumbersome?”
“Literally everyone.” He took the drink out of my hand and took a sip. “Oh, the good stuff. I think I’ll have one.”
“Fill mine up,” I called as he headed back to the liquor cabinet.
He chuckled and did as I’d asked, bringing his own glass over as well. He sank into the seat next to me and slung his arm across the back of the sofa. Totle crawled over me, licked his dad’s face, and then settled comfortably into his lap.
“Should I be thankful or nervous that you’re not immediately yelling at me about seeing the crew?” Penn asked with a dangerously sexy smirk.
“It’s fine,” I said on a sigh. I chewed on the end of my pen as I stared harder at the list.
“Fine? The last time, you freaked out.”
“Yes. Last time, you didn’t tell me. And…that was before you explained them to me in Charleston.” I glanced up to meet his eyes. “Do I like it? I mean, no. I don’t think it’s healthy, but I’m not going to tell you not to see them. You’re a big boy. You can make your own decisions.”
He grinned like he was about to devour me. I laughed as he nipped at my bottom lip.
“I like coming home to you.”
“Me too.”
He pressed a kiss to my lips. “So, maybe you should move in.”
I pulled back. “What?”
“We can get you out of your new lease. You can live here.”
I opened my mouth. “Are you joking?”
“Do I look like I am?”
“No. But…I like my place. We go over there still. Totle likes it over there, too.”
“That’s because he likes to hump your neighbor’s dog.”
I snorted. “True. It just feels…soon.”
“Okay,” he said easily. His eyes skittered over the list in my lap. “What’s this?”
“Wait. Okay? Just like that?”
“If you’re not ready, that’s okay, Nat,” he said, running his finger along my jaw and pulling me in for another kiss. “I’m not pressuring you into anything.”
Sometimes, I forgot how amazing he was. That we worked so well like this. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I’m going to try to get you to move in with me, and one day, you’re going to say yes. But you can’t say yes if I don’t ask.”
“Sneaky.”
He winked at me and then returned to the paper. “Why is every girl that I know on the Upper East Side in a spreadsheet in your lap?”
/> “Oh god, you know them all? That would be so helpful. I’m planning a small girls’ night out, and Harmony sent me a list of people I could invite. Whittling it down is…intense.”
Penn shook his head. “You don’t want to be friends with any of these people, Nat. They’re all snakes.”
“Pot, meet kettle.”
He pointed his finger at me. “Touché. I have the ultimate snake friends.” He snatched it out of my hand and then started listing off names. “That’s probably where I’d start. You do know these are all Katherine’s friends, right?”
I shrugged. “So?”
“She’s going to get pissed if you don’t invite her.”
“Well, I guess she’ll just have to get pissed, won’t she?”
“All right,” he said with a shrug. “Just be careful. I don’t want her to try to hurt you again.”
“Me either.”
“The stuff with Lewis is scary enough.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, biting my lip.
“Did you hear the shit with his mom?”
I frowned. “What about Nina?”
“They’re putting her on hiatus for her UN ambassadorship until they find out if she was involved in any way,” Penn said with a shake of his head.
I blanched. “Oh my god.”
I liked Nina. She had been the best part about dating Lewis. She was this perfect, unbelievable woman who, against all circumstances, had come out on top. She was honest and good. I hadn’t thought that this could hurt her.
“Yeah, Lewis is pretty fucked up over it.”
“You talked to him?”
He shrugged. “I called when I found out. He called Ren and filled us in while I was at Rowe’s.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t think this would affect Nina.”
“None of us did,” he said, pulling me in close to him as I swallowed bile. “Hopefully, the investigation turns up nothing, and she can go back to work.”
My stomach pitched. Lewis deserved what I’d done. Even his smarmy dad who had tried to buy me out of dating Lewis deserved this shit. But Nina? No. She was an innocent in all of this. It was an unintended consequence of this mess. And it made me feel as sick as I had that morning when I realized I’d gotten away with how I’d treated Michael. I didn’t like knowing that this hurt people I cared about.
“Yeah, hopefully,” I whispered. “Nina doesn’t deserve to be blamed for what Lewis and Edward did.”
He drew me closer. “That’s how it happens sometimes. It’s a snowball effect. It picks up speed until it runs down everything in its path.”
It felt like an apt metaphor for my revenge. And fear hit me that I wouldn’t be able to control it once it started downhill.
Chapter 27
Natalie
Harmony borrowed the Percy limo for the night. Since the Percys were now her stepfamily, she’d insisted that she was owed their swank limo. Which was how Jane and I were sipping champagne in the back with her and listening to her explain Camden’s reaction when he’d found out.
“You should have seen his face,” Harmony said with a grin. She tried to imitate Camden’s face with her brows rising ever higher, her mouth open, and clear outrage and disbelief across her features.
We all broke down into hysterical laughter at the imitation.
“Stop. Stop!” I crowed. “My sides hurt.”
Jane waved her hands at us both. “I can’t breathe.”
“It was great. He was so fucking serious, too. It was perfection.”
“I cannot believe you did it,” I told her.
She shrugged. “It was great to hear him say that he was going to murder me for taking it. Anything to upset him is like a job well done.”
I shook my head and then finished my glass of champagne. Harmony cracked me up. I didn’t know how she had lived under Katherine’s oppression all these years. Her personality vibrated out of her.
And to think that I’d been nervous all week about this club outing. But now that I was with my girls, all of that melted away. It was just like all the times Amy and I had done this in college. Except for the part where I’d had a fifty-person guest list to go through and had to hand-select a dozen girls to hang out with me. That had never been part of my life. Surreal to think that I’d been the loner, and I was now constantly surrounded by people who wanted exclusive invites to go to the club with me.
“You ready for this?” Jane asked with a glint in her hazel eyes as we pulled up to Club 360.
“Of course she is,” Harmony said.
I nodded. I was. This was the test run for everything I’d been working toward. The life I was stealing. “Bring it on.”
We stepped out of the limo and walked into the Percy hotel in Midtown. We were escorted into the elevator up to the rooftop bar that had started everything with me and Penn. It had also been the beginning of my career that was still up in flames. And Lewis, who I’d just lit on fire. It was a club for new beginnings. For taking control of the now. And I had every intention of doing so.
Club 360 was slammed with people, as if everyone knew that this was the place to be tonight. Our escort easily drew us through the crowd and showed us to our mostly full booth. There were ten girls already sitting around, drinking, and chatting with each other. With Harmony and Jane, it made a solid dozen that I had invited for the evening. Everyone went silent when we appeared and then almost immediately jumped up to greet us.
“Oh my, Natalie,” Fiona said, appearing in front of the fray. “Look at how amazing you look.”
“Yeah, you’re so hot,” Sloane agreed.
Isabel pushed her way into the bunch. “For real. Why didn’t I buy that dress?”
“Because it would never look as good on you,” Fiona said easily.
“Yeah, Isabel, you’d be washed out in that,” Sloane agreed.
I laughed at the girls, who were basically complimentary lackeys. “Oh, stop.” I brushed down the sides of the rose-gold dress I’d chosen for the occasion. “You are too nice.”
And it went on like that for a while. I officially met the rest of the party. I’d apparently met a few of the girls at other parties, but I didn’t remember them. I wouldn’t have remembered the lackeys if it wasn’t for that one strange conversation at the Fashion Week gala. But they all came from the right families, Penn had picked most of them, and it was good to be seen with them. Though it was still a little strange to think about friendships that way.
Like Danielle and Carrie, who modeled like Harmony had. And Jenniel, whose husband owned a bank. Ellie and Emma—still couldn’t tell them apart—who had a cosmetics line. And Sorcha, who designed for Elle. Imogen’s father was in the fashion business somehow. I knew the list by heart, but putting names with faces was going to be a challenge.
A bartender was serving our party and came over with a bottle of Patrón. “Shots?”
I blinked. “Yeah, that would be great.”
She grinned wide. “I thought so. Don’t you always start with tequila shots?”
“Always?” I asked in confusion.
I’d never done this before. Why would she think that?
“This is Katherine’s box, right? She loves a good tequila shot with her girls.”
This was Katherine’s box? I’d sat in it with Penn and Lewis the first time I was here, but I hadn’t realized there was some unwritten rule that it belonged to her.
I glanced over at Harmony, who was grinning like a fool. She had been the one to call and make the reservation. I didn’t have to ask if she knew. Because of course, Harmony had known. She had likely asked for it personally and put her weight behind it, like she had with the limo. I appreciated the gesture. It wasn’t something I would have even known to do.
“It used to be Katherine’s box,” I told the waitress. “I’m Natalie.”
“Oh!” the girl said in surprise. “Sorry about that. Still want tequila?”
“Sure. Might as well.”
The waitress poured out thirt
een shots along with limes and salt. We each took a shot and raised it into the air. Everyone looked to me to make a toast. Amy had always been the one to do that. Oh, how everything was turned upside down.
“To new friendships,” I started, tipping my head to Harmony.
“New hook-ups,” she cheered.
“Lots of sex,” Jane added with a wink.
“And getting fucked up!” Fiona cried.
“I’ll toast to that,” I said with a laugh. Licked the salt and then tossed the shot back.
The rest of the girls followed suit, drinking the potent liquid and then sucking on limes.
The girls moved back into their own small circles while others went out onto the dance floor to find man candy for the night. Harmony among them. I grabbed another drink from our personal bartender before sidling up with the lackeys. I was surprised to hear them discussing Lewis.
“Oh yeah,” Sloane said, “I have a friend who works for Warren. The whole place is a mess.”
“Damn,” Isabel said. “It looks so bad, and he’s single. Do you think that I have a chance now?”
“No,” Fiona said baldly.
“Oh sorry, Natalie,” Isabel said when I drew close. “I know that you dated.”
“He’s all yours,” I said easily.
“Of course, Isabel. She’s dating Penn Kensington now,” Fiona said. Then she snickered. “We’ve all been there, right, girls? We all found out how good that was last year.”
I froze in place at her words. At the close way they all watched me, as if waiting for a reaction to Fiona’s words. Then it all came together. These must have been some of the girls that Penn had slept with after we broke up. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t had more discriminating taste. But I knew he had done it to get back at Katherine. In some sense, wasn’t I using them for the same reason?
“Oh yes, he mentioned that,” I said evenly. Though I would bring it up with him later as to why he hadn’t. How many other girls on the list had he also slept with and let me walk into the lion’s den without a warning?
Fiona seemed startled by my response, but Sloane’s dry voice filled the silence. “I wish my choices were between a Warren and a Kensington.”