by K. A. Linde
My tears had dried up. The dizzy feeling of pressing anxiety remained. And something else was clogging my throat and holding me under.
I dropped my suitcase in the living room, peeled my jacket off, and fell face-first into the couch. “My life is over.”
Totle’s tags jingled as he rushed across the room and jumped onto my back. Then he crawled forward and licked my face.
“Yes, yes, you. I know. I’ll love you.” I squeezed him into my side until he flopped his head down on the couch and huffed.
Penn stood with his hands on the back of the chair. “Your life isn’t over.”
“It feels like it.”
“We can fix this.”
“We?” I asked with an arched eyebrow. I released Totle and sat up. “There’s no fixing this, Penn. This is all over. I have no job. I have no place to live. I have nothing.”
“We can get my mother to come around.”
I snorted. “Your mother is not coming around on this.”
“Well maybe not on your job, but we might be able to get her to not call the agency. Then you could still get another job somewhere else,” he said hopefully.
For a realist, Penn was being unbelievably optimistic.
“She’s probably already called. It’s over.” Anger bubbled up inside of me. “Everything I’ve worked for in the last eighteen months is just gone. Poof!”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect this to happen.”
“Of course not. Why would your mother even come out to the beach house?”
He frowned as if he hadn’t even thought about that. Fury crossed his features and then dissolved. “I don’t know. She wasn’t scheduled.”
“Do you think, if she was scheduled, I would have let you even stay today?” I snapped.
“Hey, I’m trying to help. I want to figure this out. Figure out a way that we can salvage this.”
“We can’t solve this problem, Penn. I have no leverage to fix this. And you can’t do anything to help,” I told him. “This isn’t a problem you can throw money at.”
His eyes rounded. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means. As much as you might have tried to get away from your roots, you are still money and used to using it to get you in and out of everything. You can take the boy out of the Upper East Side, but you can’t take the Upper East Side out of the boy.” I waved my arms around the room as proof, letting my anger fuel this argument.
“That has nothing to do with this.”
I jumped to my feet. “It has everything to do with this! You want to fix this. You want to make it all better. But you can’t. You can’t make any of this better.”
“Natalie…”
“Money fixes your problems, Penn. But it only causes mine.”
I picked up the closest thing to me, which happened to be a coaster, and hurled it against the wall. It thudded noisily before dropping to the floor.
“It’s just cruel…cruel money,” I said, my voice going shallow and fierce. “I’m seen as the help, white trash, a project. Whatever, but I’m not like you. I’m not one of you. As you said before…I don’t belong here.”
“You belong with me.”
“Do I?” I asked with wide, conflicted eyes. “No one else seems to think so.”
“I don’t care what anyone else thinks.” He stepped forward, taking my hands in his. “I only care about us.”
I wrenched my hands free and listlessly paced around the room. “Of course you only care about us. Because you have never had to consider what all of this means to someone without. What did your mother say? Diddling the help again, Penn? Again?”
He sighed. “Yeah. That was before.”
“Before what? You tried to become all enlightened?”
His jaw clenched. “You know that I’ve changed.”
“But is it really that different?”
“Yes. Of course it’s different. We are different, Natalie.”
I shook my head and tried to hold it all in, but I couldn’t. I felt so helpless. So utterly useless. I’d put all of my eggs in one basket, and someone had shattered them.
“Why are you trying to pick a fight with me?” he asked.
“Because this is my fault. I should have never let you stay that day. I should have done something else. Should have turned you away.”
“And where would we be now?”
“I’d be employed!”
“Is that more important than us?” he demanded. “You don’t need a job right now or a place to stay. You can stay here with me for now.”
“I don’t need your charity,” I hissed.
“Natalie, it’s not charity!”
“You have no idea what it’s like to have nothing.” I gritted my teeth. “If you did, then you’d know charity when you saw it.”
“You’re right,” he said, holding his hands up. “I have never been in this situation. But I am only doing this because I care for you. I want to make this right the best I can. And if I have to use my resources to do that, why does that have to be a bad thing?”
I yanked my jacket off of the floor and tugged it on. “It’s not a bad thing. It’s a great thing,” I grumbled, striding back toward the elevator.
“Natalie, where are you going?”
“I need some air. Some space to think.”
He reached out and brought me to a halt. “Please don’t run out of here like this.”
I tugged my arm away from his. “I can’t think straight right now, and if I stay, I’m going to say something else that I regret. So, just…let me go.”
“Okay,” he said softly. “I’m going to try to figure this out.”
“Go work your magic.” I stepped into the elevator.
“We’ll make this work,” he tried to assure me.
As the doors closed between us, I realized that I wasn’t sure if he was talking about my job or…us.
Natalie
35
I strode aimlessly through Central Park. With nowhere to go and nothing on my mind to see, I got lost while wandering the park and managed to run into the Boathouse. I grabbed a hot dog and bottled water before meandering back around the lake. Bethesda Fountain loomed up ahead, and I remembered us coming here with Melanie and Amy. How different that day had been. Before Penn and I had even started this liaison. I’d predicted that I’d leave brokenhearted. The more I thought about it, the more I really, really didn’t want that to happen.
My temper cooled as I walked up the steps that led to the Mall. I passed the park benches that were in a dozen movies and then turned back toward Penn’s place. I’d been unfair. That much was obvious. I’d just been so angry. So frustrated that this had all happened because he had moved into the beach house with me. I hadn’t wanted him to, but he’d done it anyway. I could have gotten another job. Picked a different household to work for. They would have been less desirable, but it would have been an option.
Instead, I’d stayed. He’d stayed. And neither of us had looked back. I wouldn’t trade our time together, but we only had three more days! It was wrong that we were here with so little time left.
I tucked my hands into my jacket and finally walked out of Central Park. My legs were tired, but my mind and soul were exhausted. Today had been a roller coaster. I needed to talk to Penn and decide what to do from here.
I wasn’t prepared to give him up.
But I had no idea what I was going to do for work or where the hell I would stay. That was a scary prospect in a place like New York City.
I was glad that I’d gone for my walk even if Penn and I had argued before it. The cool weather and time away from it all had settled me. I wasn’t better. I didn’t know when I would be again after being fired like that. But I was functional at least.
My mind was still so far up in the clouds that I didn’t even realize someone was saying my name until I had almost reached Penn’s building.
“Natalie!” Katherine cried, darting
forward.
Oh great, just what I needed.
“Hey, Katherine. You know…now is really not a good time.”
“God, I’m sure, Natalie. Penn told me what happened at the beach house. I am so incredibly sorry.”
I shot her a half-smile. “Yeah. Thanks. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“I wanted to stop by and check on you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said as short and curt as I could manage.
Katherine had been nothing but kind to me during Halloween, telling me how excited she was to hang out again at the mayor’s party, but I honestly did not want to talk to anyone. Just Penn. Just to make it right.
“I could come up and make you some tea.”
“I said…I’m fine,” I snapped.
Her spine straightened, and her eyes widened. “I’m just trying to help. I could not believe it when Penn told me.”
I sighed. Of course, just trying to help. “I’m just going to go upstairs and see Penn.”
“Oh, he went over to Lewis’s, I think, to talk to Lark.”
“What is Lark doing at Lewis’s?”
Katherine shrugged. “She apartment-hops between the four of us when she and Thomas are fighting.”
“Does that happen often?”
“More often than she’d admit to,” Katherine said with a sad sigh. “Lewis is helping Lark with boy troubles. Are you sure I can’t come up and help you with yours?”
“I don’t have boy troubles. I have unemployment troubles.”
“Oh,” Katherine said in surprise. “Well, we can fix that.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t need anyone else’s help finding a job. What I need is icing.”
“Icing?” Katherine asked.
“Never mind.” There was no way that Katherine could understand that particular habit. “I’m just going to go.”
“Well, I don’t think that you should be alone.” She stepped forward to follow me inside.
I wanted to bite her head off for being so presumptuous, but I just didn’t have the energy. “Fine.”
Katherine smiled brightly and then whisked me inside. We took the elevator upstairs. Totle was pleased to see us at least. He kept running around our feet, begging for attention. I finally settled onto the couch with him in my lap under a blanket.
“I cannot believe he just gives that dog the run of the house,” Katherine said. She was true to her word and making me tea.
“Try to stop him. It’s impossible.”
“True. At least he’s cute.” She brought the tea over and set it on the coffee table. Then she went back for her own cup. “It’s good for the soul.”
“I’m usually more of a coffee person.”
“Drastic times,” she said.
I took a sip of the tea and was surprised it was good. Katherine didn’t seem like the kind of person who had to do much for herself.
“Thanks for this,” I said, tucking my legs up underneath me.
“Of course. What are friends for?” She smiled. “So, how are you feeling about all of this?”
I shrugged. “Horrible. Pretty much horrible.”
“Ugh! I could imagine. Penn said that you two had a blow-up fight.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking another sip. “I just kind of lost it. I need to talk to him. Make things right.”
“Natalie…” Katherine said. Her eyes darted to the ground and then back up at me. “I really need to tell you something.”
My stomach dropped at the way she’d said those words. What could she possibly need to tell me?
“Do you?”
“This whole thing with Penn…I really don’t think it’s a good idea.”
My brain froze. Was she really trying to pull this right now?
“Oh, yeah? Why do you think that?”
“He’s just…he’s done this sort of thing before, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“What sort of thing? Dated the help?”
Katherine furrowed her brows. “Well, yeah. I mean, he’s slept with the help before at least. Led them on. But he’s really not what you think he is.”
“Katherine, you should stop. I don’t need to hear this right now.”
“I mean, I hate that all of this started over a silly bet.”
I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head. “A bet? What bet?”
“It was stupid,” she said with a halfhearted laugh. “Penn swore he could get you into bed and make you fall for him. We tried to talk him out of it, but, well…he wants what he wants.”
My mouth went dry. This couldn’t be real. Who actually bet on things? Let alone on whether or not you could sleep with someone? We had already slept together. What kind of prize was that? It didn’t even make sense. That was something dumb jocks did in high school or maybe college. But we were…adults. The whole thing just sounded absurd.
“I’m really sorry. I felt like you should know.”
I finally looked back up at Katherine. Really looked at her. That sad, sympathetic routine. The light in her eyes that didn’t match her expression. Her mouth that tilted just slightly in the corners.
She wasn’t concerned. She wanted me to believe this. She wanted me to fall into her trap.
What had Lewis said? If Katherine knew we were dating, she would do anything to keep us apart. She would be worse, so much worse.
Had she been hiding her true character? Was this the depth of her deceit?
“I don’t believe you,” I said, my voice low and even.
“Natalie, it’s true!” she gasped.
“You would do anything to keep us apart,” I spat in her direction. “Anything. You are clearly in love with Penn and cannot stand the fact that he would pick me, a nobody, over you. Well, your lies are not going to change my mind about him.”
“I swear. It’s true. If you don’t ask Penn, then ask the rest of the crew. They were there that night. They’ll tell you it’s true.”
Suddenly, I couldn’t hold back any longer. I was laughing. A manic laugh. This was not real. This was not real life.
“Get out,” I told her.
“Natalie…”
“I said, get out!” I yelled at her. “I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth. You aren’t my friend. You aren’t Penn’s friend. You’re a leech, a disease, a fake, and a fraud.”
Katherine straightened. “We’ll see about that.”
When she left, I collapsed back into the couch. My breathing was uneven. My fury returning in force. A bet? Was she out of her mind? Was that the best that she could do?
Then for a fraction of a second, it hit me. I wondered, Could it be true? Could all of this be a result of some stupid bet?
I bit on my lip. I didn’t want to give credence to Katherine’s tall tale, but maybe I should find out…just to be sure.
Penn
36
When I entered Lewis’s apartment, he and Lark were sitting in the living room, watching some detective show. They both glanced up at my entrance and then went back to their show.
“Hey,” Lewis said.
Lark put her hand up in a form of a wave.
“Hey.” I wanted to just dive into this conversation. After what had happened with my mother and Natalie, I needed to actually figure out how to make this right.
But then I sat down and saw Lark’s eyes were red and puffy. She had a box of tissues at her side and was curled up in a ball in sweats.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” Lark said at once. Her voice was a mess.
I shared a look with Lewis. Thomas had happened.
“Another fight?” I asked.
Lark shrugged. “It was nothing. I just need a place to crash for a day or two.”
“But it’s your apartment,” I argued.
“Easier than asking him to leave.” She sniffled and then blew her nose. “It doesn’t help that I’m sick from the campaign. It looks worse than it is.”
“I’m sorry.”
<
br /> She shrugged again.
“I hate to do this when you’re not feeling well, but is there any chance that you could talk to my mother?”
Lark arched an eyebrow. “Because of Natalie?”
“I told her,” Lewis said.
“Yes. She fired Natalie because of me, and I need to find a way to make it right. She’s not just firing her. She’s trying to ruin her chance of getting any other job after this.” I sighed and ran a hand back through my hair. “It’s to get back at me. She said, if I came back to work for Kensington Enterprises, that she wouldn’t call. But I can’t do that.”
“You can’t negotiate with her,” Lark said. “That would be like me going back to work for my parents because they threatened me.”
“I don’t want to negotiate. I won’t come back and work for her. Even if I did, I doubt she would hold up her end of the bargain. I just need her to see reason from someone she trusts.” I pointedly looked at her. “You’re her right hand.”
“I’m flattered you think so. But I’m really not.”
“We both know that you’re important to her organization,” I said. “If you could just talk to her…”
“Penn, it might not be the right time,” Lewis said.
“I know. But…”
“I’ll do it,” Lark said, coughing into her tissue. “At least…I’ll go see her and find out where her head is at. I can’t make any promises. You Kensingtons have an irrational streak about you.”
“Thank you, Lark. Thank you so much,” I said, jumping to my feet.
“Don’t thank me yet.” She stood uneasily. “Just let me change, and I’ll go.”
Lark was only gone for ten minutes before she appeared again in a business suit and her hair slicked back. She waved good-bye to both of us and then left.
“That is not going to work,” Lewis said.
“I know,” I said. I flopped back into the chair and tilted my head up. “But I have to do something. She’s furious over what happened, and how can I even blame her?”
“Well, you can’t. But you can probably blame Katherine. This has her stink all over it.”