by K. A. Linde
“But I thought you’d made yourself clear at the club. So, I’m surprised to find you in my apartment.”
I dropped my head backward on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “I really don’t know what I’m doing here. I just started walking. I couldn’t go home. Then I saw your light on. And…I don’t know.”
He waited for me to elaborate. I didn’t.
“You feel safe with me,” he said. A statement, not a question.
Despite all the shit he’d done to me. And how much I was mad at him for making that stupid bet. And the year of silence. And, and, and…the list went on. No matter what we’d gone through, I did feel like this was a safe place. That he wouldn’t turn me away or push me. I didn’t know what that said about how I felt about him that I could be so angry with him that I was seeing red but still feel safe with him. That I didn’t trust him, and yet…I trusted him. It was irrational and hurt my head too much in the moment to put it all together.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Penn stepped back into the living room and took a seat in an armchair across from me. He looked more relaxed. The crystal glass dangling in one hand over the side of the armrest. His foot nestled across his knee. His gaze locked on me. Weighing.
“What?” I asked.
“You look…like you.”
I gave him a quizzical look. “And I normally don’t?”
“No, I’ve only seen you in designer dresses and heels. This”—he gestured to my flares, billowy top, and moccasins—“is the Natalie that I knew.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have a big party to go to tonight. The seventies apparel came back out to play.”
“It suits you.”
I waved my hand at him. “You’re in running clothes.”
“Yes.”
“And not a suit,” I pointed out.
“I’m at home, working.”
“On what?” I asked. Anything to delay the inevitable.
“Edits for my book. We’re in the final stages of production. I can’t help but tinker with the arguments while I have it.”
“I know that feeling,” I muttered. “When are you releasing?”
“Sometime next year. Academic books work on a different timeline than mainstream publishing.”
I nodded and took a sip of the drink he’d handed to me. It was some kind of bourbon—biting and delicious. It was strange, being here. And how easy it was to talk to Penn. We had so many of the same interests. And we’d spent so many long hours together in the house in the Hamptons that this here felt totally normal.
“Why is it so easy to talk to you?” I mused.
“What kind of answer would you like to that?” he asked carefully.
I shrugged. “I know why it is. But you’d think there’d be some awkwardness.”
“There never has been. Not even in Paris. We bared our souls that night, and not once was it awkward with you.”
“Yeah, what a strange night.”
“Not the word I’d use.”
My eyes flicked to his, and I felt the heat across the room. “No…I suppose not.”
The tension brimmed between us again. And I went back to petting Totle. This conversation was just a distraction from what had brought me here. But I couldn’t work up the energy to tell him what had happened.
“You said at the club that you weren’t writing an Olivia book,” he said, changing the subject. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, I’m working on my literary novel again. It’s called It’s a Matter of Opinion. Kind of inspired by my parents’ deep love despite the fact that they’re opposites. The idea is that love isn’t easy when you come from two different worlds, and the reader sees it all unfold from the point of view of everyone close to the situation. But never the truth.”
“Hmm,” he said softly. “Love wins out despite outside influences and their differences.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Sounds a bit unrealistic, doesn’t it?”
He arched an eyebrow, waiting for me to elaborate.
I sighed and flopped down next to Totle. “Lewis’s dad called me a gold digger and offered to pay me off to get out of his life.”
Penn sighed. “He’s done that before.”
“So I’ve been told. Doesn’t make it any less humiliating.”
“I imagine not,” he said. “Especially with your experience with my mother.”
“Yeah. That didn’t help. But…it was Lewis. He…fuck.” I didn’t know why I couldn’t say it. It felt as if I was proving Penn right by admitting what Lewis had done.
“You can talk to me, Natalie. I’m sure anything Lewis has done, I’ve heard worse.”
I sat back up, took a deep breath, and then let it out. “When my book went to auction, it sold for seven figures to Warren. They weren’t the first publisher to try to buy it, so I thought that all of this had happened on my own merit.”
“But?” he urged.
“But Lewis interfered and drove the price up to get me more money.”
“Ah. And now, you feel like you didn’t earn any of that. Like you got preferential treatment, but not because of your work.”
“Exactly!” I snapped. “It feels like the success of the book was because of Warren flexing its muscles and not anything to do with the book.”
“Well, for one thing, the book is incredibly well written, so don’t discount your talent.”
“Fine, talent, whatever. But, fuck, I feel so…duped. Like, I thought that Lewis might have been involved, but I didn’t ask him. I should have asked him, and now, I feel stupid. Like, his dad now thinks I’m a gold digger because of this, and I didn’t even know.”
Penn waited until I’d finished my rant. Finishing his bourbon, he settled back into the armchair. “What are you going to do about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Besides come here and rant to me about something I already guessed. What are you going to do about him withholding information from you? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s never just one thing.” Penn sighed. “The stupid fucking bet should have taught you that.”
My anger sliced through me as hot as a poker. The bet had that reaction. But also, he wasn’t wrong. It hadn’t just been Emily or Katherine or his mom…there had been something else, and he hadn’t told me what it was. He’d held it back, even as I’d asked him. Everyone had. Lewis had lied. Penn had lied. Katherine had told me about it, but I’d thought she was lying.
“You think there’s something else he’s hiding,” I said.
“You’re the one who came back to the Upper East Side, Natalie.”
The words stung. Yes, I had. I’d said I hadn’t wanted this life, and then I had somehow gotten embroiled in it again. So, the question was…did Lewis have another secret? And could I trust him after this?
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked, suddenly cautious. “You don’t want me with Lewis.”
“No, I don’t,” he confirmed. “But I do want you happy. Seeing you in my apartment with red-rimmed eyes, here as a desperate measure, is not the way I wanted you to come to me, Nat. So, right now, this isn’t about me and you. This is just about you. And I’ve played this game way longer than you have. I’ll help you play it if I have to.”
“I don’t want to play games,” I whispered.
“I know.” He shrugged helplessly. “Neither do I. But, if you don’t, you won’t survive the Upper East Side.”
His final word was punctuated with his phone buzzing noisily on the table, drawing both of our attention. He stepped forward and flipped it over to see who was calling so late at night. His eyebrows rose, and he chuckled.
“Didn’t see that coming,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?”
My eyes moved to the screen, and there, in bold white letters, read Lewis.
“This should be good,” Penn said and then put the call on speaker.
Natalie
30
“Lewis,” he said
, “it’s been a while, man. What’s up?”
“Is she there?”
Penn glanced up at me. “Is who where?”
Lewis huffed out angrily. “Natalie. We got into a…disagreement, and she ran out. She’s not at her apartment. She’s not with Jane.”
I could tell that he was frustrated and likely pissed off. I couldn’t imagine what he must have gone through to get to the point where he would call Penn to try to find me. He must have gone to my apartment, and when he’d found that I wasn’t there, he’d panicked and called people who knew me. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, that list was pretty small in the city. Jane and Penn.
“Really? A disagreement? About what?”
“Penn, is she with you?” Lewis growled low.
His eyes cut to mine, and a silent conversation passed between us. He wanted to know if he should tell him that I was here. Or if he should leave him to fret longer.
I nodded. I couldn’t hide here forever anyway.
“She is,” Penn finally said.
A string of curses followed softly. As if he’d jerked the phone away from his face so that he could scream them into the night. I winced.
“She’s here, and she’s fine. She just needed to calm down. I think you should give her some space.”
“I don’t give a damn what you think, Penn,” Lewis snapped. “If you lay a hand on her, I will destroy you.”
And then he promptly hung up. The silence was a living thing between us. My hand half-reached toward the phone as if to comfort Lewis. To reassure him that nothing had happened here. But he was gone. Leaving me more on edge than ever.
“Well,” Penn said, dropping the phone back on the table, “that went about as well as expected.”
“He’s probably on his way here.”
“Probably.”
“I guess that’s my cue.” I set the drink down, kissed Totle’s head, and stood.
“You don’t have to go just because he’s coming here, Natalie.”
He stepped toward me, bridging the distance we’d had between us all night. I looked up into those blue eyes, lost to them for a moment. He stroked back the silver hair from my face.
“You’re safe here.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But I highly doubt he’s going to leave this alone.”
“I can refuse him access to the elevator. You don’t have to face him yet. Not until you’re ready. On your terms. Not his.”
“I still should go.”
But he didn’t move. And I didn’t move. We just stood together. Trapped perpetually in this inescapable vortex. A whirlwind of passion and pain. Of all the unspoken reasons that I’d shown up at his place. And all the unspoken reasons he’d allowed it.
His hand still held that stray hair. His fingers slipped up into the tresses. An intimacy that should have never been allowed. The mingled heat that couldn’t be cooled. The desire that raged like a tempest, no matter how we tried to push it aside.
“I want to kiss you,” he told me. His voice strained. His breath heavy and tortured.
“I know,” I breathed.
“I’ve pushed you, and it didn’t work, Nat.” His lips dipped lower, lower, lower. Hovering, inching, waiting. “It’s hard to have you here now. All I want is to pick you up and carry you into my bedroom.”
“We can’t.”
His nose touched mine. Brushed against it once, gentle and somehow intoxicating. The tension taut. I arched toward him. Not quite touching. Not giving in. But not quite turning away either.
“I have to go,” I reminded him.
“I’m fighting for you.” He threaded his other hand up into my hair. “I didn’t say I’d fight fair.”
His lips skated against mine as he held my face in place. His tongue darted out and licked across my bottom lip. I shivered all over at the tease of it all.
“Penn,” I murmured. My brain going fuzzy. “He’s going to kill you.”
He smirked. “Then I might as well make it worth it, huh?”
I pressed my hand to his chest and tilted my forehead against his before he could make good on his promise. “Please don’t put me in this position.”
“You know that I want you.”
“I do.”
“You knew that coming here.”
“I did,” I whispered weakly.
“And you want this.”
“If I kiss you, then I have to tell him.” I pulled back enough to look in his eyes. “And then our argument is about you. Not what happened. I don’t want that. I need to talk to him and find out the truth. This…this just complicates things.”
He sighed as if he hated to see my reason. My rather valid reason.
“I will rain check that kiss,” he said, dropping his hands to my sides and pulling me in for a hug instead.
I slipped my hands around his neck and breathed him in. “Thank you for being there for me when I needed you. I’m sorry it’s…about this.”
“Yeah.” He abruptly broke away and turned back to the kitchen.
“Penn…”
“Good luck,” he ground out and then headed for the liquor cabinet.
I swallowed hard. This wasn’t what I’d wanted. Fuck. All I did was fuck it all up. And now, I had to go face Lewis when I wasn’t ready.
I ruffled Totle’s head and then left Penn’s apartment without another word. He was probably going to drink himself into a stupor. I wouldn’t mind doing the same right about now.
Especially when I stepped off the elevator and found Lewis walking into the building.
“Natalie,” he said in relief. “I’ve been all over the city, looking for you.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“I needed time to think.”
“With him?” he all but snarled.
I gave him a flat, level look. “Nothing happened with Penn. He just listened to me and let me draw my own conclusions.”
“Oh, I bet he did.”
“Let’s not do this right now.”
“I just need to know if, every time we have an argument, you’re going to go run to him,” Lewis said.
“Are we planning to have a lot more arguments?” I asked, my anger trying to slip its leash once more.
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t think that I do,” I said sharply. “I have been nothing but honest with you, Lewis. Nothing but honest. I even told you when he kissed me at Harmony’s party. I told you when I had to tell him to leave us alone. You watched me do so. I don’t see any reason that you wouldn’t trust me when I said that nothing happened right now. Unless perhaps your guilty conscience is speaking.”
“I don’t have a guilty conscience,” he said.
“Then what is this?”
“It’s more like, I yelled at my own father for what he did to you. Then, when I went looking for you to apologize, you were nowhere. When I finally worked up the nerve to call Penn—fuck, can you imagine how that felt?—you were actually there. So, I’m on edge. Sue me.”
I narrowed my eyes at the tone of his voice. “It was wrong of me to go to Penn’s. Especially when you didn’t know where I was. But I cannot believe that you are actually using this outrageous tone with me right now when you’re the one who has been keeping secrets and lying to me again. Again.” I shook my head as my anger spilled into my words. “After you lied to me about the bet, I wouldn’t think you’d be stupid enough to do that again.”
“It wasn’t a lie.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie!” I yelled.
“Okay. Okay.” He held his hands up. “Can I just take you home, and we can talk about this there?”
“No. We can talk about it right now.”
“You’re still mad.”
“You fucking think so?”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about the money. Or the deal with the publishing company. I’m sorry that I
couldn’t save you from what my father did. I should have seen what was coming when he was acting so nice. It was a ploy, and I fell into it. And I hate it. I’d take it all back if I could.”
“Fine. I just need to know what else there is.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, suddenly on guard.
“There’s something else you aren’t telling me, and I want it out in the open.”
“Why would you think there’s something else?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Because this is the Upper East Side. I’ve been fucked over by this world before. I saw warning signs and ignored them. And I won’t do that this time.”
“Are you comparing me to Penn?” he demanded.
“I’m speaking from experience. Not drawing a comparison,” I told him. “You pushed the company to give me more money. If you’d do that and not tell me, what else would you keep from me?”
His eyes moved back and forth over my face, as if he were debating what the hell to say next. And I could see it then. See it all over his pretty face that there was more. He was deciding whether or not he would lie to me.
“Tell me right now,” I said, low and brutal, “or I walk.”
“I was going to see you on your signing tour. They’re standard for an author in your position. But I hadn’t factored in the fact that you’d refuse a tour,” he said carefully. “So, when I heard from a contact at the company that they were thinking of bringing you into the city anyway, I told them to pull the trigger.”
My mouth went dry. “You…orchestrated my appearance in New York.”
“It was already in the works. I just…told them to make it happen.”
“Did Gillian know?” I asked, remembering that moment of surprise on her face when he’d shown up.
“No. She didn’t know about any of my involvement. Her work with you was all her.”
“And you did it…so that you could see me.”
“I’ll admit to wanting to see you again. That was why I was so nervous when I saw you at the publishing house that day. But…I wanted you to have everything and more. I still do.”
I didn’t know what to think about that. On one hand, he’d done it all to see me. Which was charming, but also…it felt like I was a marionette on strings. He was the puppeteer, scheming to put things into place for me to be here with him.