CRUEL MONEY (Cruel #1)

3. Natalie

Natalie

3

My face turned the color of a tomato.

“I…um…” I stammered, at a loss for words.

I looked like a hot mess, standing soaking wet in my sand-covered dress with a bottle of bourbon and my bra. They probably thought I was a lunatic. A madwoman that Penn had picked up outside when he went to check on the fire.

It was even worse that, whoever these four people were, they looked fabulous. Two men and two women clothed in tailored suits and cocktail dresses. Glamorous, confident, wealthy. It was evident in their dress and mannerisms and the way they let me stand there and gape like a fish out of water.

“I’m so sorry,” I finally managed to get out. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be at the house tonight. I was hired by Mayor Kensington, but Penn informed me that he wasn’t aware of that fact. Just as I was not aware that he had…friends with him.”

Penn stepped over the threshold and inside. He kicked at the sand on his shoes. Our eyes met, and my breath caught. He was even more stunning in the light. No wonder I’d noticed him in Paris, writing furiously in his notebook in the park by my flat. Or why I’d approached him at that party. Or why…I’d had that one-night stand.

“Why don’t you introduce us to your friend, Penn?” the brunette girl asked coyly. She was tan, as if she had spent the summer on the beach, and wore a glittering emerald-green dress.

Strangely, she gave me Anne Boleyn vibes. I wasn’t sure yet if that was good or bad.

“He doesn’t have to, Katherine. I should be giving the introductions,” the other girl spoke up. She was pale with a splattering of freckles and wavy dark red hair to her shoulders. Her black dress fit her like a dream, but she didn’t seem as relaxed as the others. She was jittery, as if she’d had too much coffee. “This is Natalie Bishop. She’s watching the house for the next two months.”

“I…yes, I am,” I said in confusion.

“Sorry,” the woman said, stepping forward with an extended hand. “I’m Lark. Larkin St. Vincent.”

My throat bobbed. And I’d thought the night couldn’t get any worse. Here was the woman who had hired me.

I hastily put down the bourbon bottle and hid my bra before taking her hand. “Lark, it’s so nice to meet you.”

“It completely slipped my mind that you were going to be here this weekend. For some reason, I thought that you started next week. Since I handed this off to my assistant, I never saw you come into the office.”

“So, you knew someone would be here and suggested it anyway?” one of the men asked. He was incredibly tall with smooth medium-brown skin and short-cropped hair. One look from his depthless dark brown eyes said he was as much trouble as Penn standing next to me. He knew the effect of his good looks.

I swallowed and glanced away.

Lark just rolled her eyes at him. “I didn’t remember, Lewis. You can blame the fact that I haven’t had a vacation in three years.”

“That’s your own fault,” Katherine said.

The last guy just bobbed his head and said, “Yep.”

“Stay out of this, Rowe,” Lark said.

I saw this as my opportunity to get out of there. I looked horrible. This wasn’t how I’d thought I’d meet anyone. “I’m just going to…” I pointed past them, down the hallway to the bedroom I’d been staying in the last two nights.

“That’s probably for the better,” Katherine said. “Did you fall in the ocean?” Her eyes cut to Penn’s, and a smile grew on her pretty red-painted lips. “Did you push her in?”

Penn, who hadn’t said a word up until that moment, finally spoke up, “I think we should allow Natalie a moment of privacy. On a good day, we’re overwhelming. She shouldn’t have to meet the crew like this.”

My head whipped to the side. I was caught between anger and relief. Anger that he’d spoken for me. And relief that, dear god, I really needed to get the f**k out of there. It was way too much all at once. I didn’t people all that well to begin with. I was better one-on-one. But standing where I was and facing down his incredibly attractive and put-together friends when I wanted to yell at him didn’t help anything.

“Uh…yes. Privacy.” I nodded and then stepped around his friends. “Nice to meet you all.”

I raised my hand to awkwardly wave good-bye and realized a minute too late that it was the one that had been hiding my bra. My eyes widened in horror, and then I snapped it down to my side.

I opened my mouth to try to apologize for my behavior, but then I stopped and just fled down the hallway. I didn’t owe anyone in there an apology, except Lark. And, really, what good would it do at this point? There was no way that I was keeping this job after she saw me like that. She would most definitely tell the mayor that I wasn’t fit for the position. That whatever recommendation I’d gotten from my previous house-sitting job must have been fabricated. Because no one could have this many missteps and not be utterly incompetent.

The room I’d been assigned was a soft and luxurious guest bedroom with a white four-poster bed draped in a blue-and-pink-flowered duvet. It had an actual canopy on top. Everything was plush and inviting with a million and a half throw pillows of every variety imaginable and a rug so lush that my feet sank right into it. I was going to miss this room the most.

Only two nights in the down-feather bed, and it had already been the best nights of sleep of my life. I’d really been looking forward to another night in that bed. But, alas, it would not be.

I tossed my bra onto the bed with a huff, threw on a pair of shorts and an oversized T-shirt, and tied my hair in a messy bun on the top of my head. I kicked the sandy dress into a corner and then dragged the two suitcases out of the closet. I was a fast packer. Product of growing up as a military brat and traveling year after year after year to various locales the Air Force had sent us. As a vacation home watcher, I carried the entirety of my life in these two suitcases so that it was easy to move in. And, now, more importantly, out.

All signs had pointed that this was the perfect opportunity for me. Now, all signs pointed to run and run fast. I couldn’t have been more awkward if I’d tried. I wasn’t even that awkward when I tried. But something had just come over me. A cataclysmic reaction to being in Penn’s presence again. My brain had shut off, and my mouth had opened. Ready to unleash on a relative stranger.

A stranger who was the son of my boss.

Who apparently was friends with the woman who had hired me.

I shook my head in exasperation as I unzipped the suitcase and pulled out the packing cubes. What had I even been thinking?

Of course, I hadn’t been thinking. I’d just acted on impulse. Six years of pent-up anger had just unleashed.

I yanked open the first drawer and removed my clothes. This was such a f*****g disaster.

Now, I had no idea what I was going to do for the rest of the year. This was a cushy job. Sit around and watch someone’s house? Get paid to do that? Um…yeah, a no-brainer. But, without that, I’d probably have to go home. Back to Charleston. A month at home had been plenty to begin with. Between my parents constant arguing about my job and nagging about the lack of boyfriend situation and my perfect little sister, Melanie, starting her senior year of high school with the same guy that she’d dated since we moved to the town. I couldn’t handle it.

I’d have to find another way. Maybe have Amy get me a job at the gallery even though she really didn’t need the help. And maybe I could move in temporarily. Current boyfriend—Steve or Chuck or Tom or whatever his name was—probably wouldn’t like that. They always thought they were the one until a few months later when Amy would kick them out because a new artist had come into town for her gallery. It was a recurring cycle. She loved artists. She somehow continued to settle for losers back home in the interim.

I needed to call her.

She’d freak out about Penn.

She was the one who had warned me about him to begin with.

Of course, I hadn’t listened.

But I realized I didn’t even know where my phone was. Where had I left it after getting that awful email from my agent? Probably the living room.

I grumbled under my breath as I stuffed a bunch of underwear into a small cube. I was f****d because no way in hell was I going back out there to make a fool of myself.

It was bad enough that Penn was here. Let alone that he had seen me naked and watched me humiliate myself. I didn’t have to make it worse.

Plus, what the hell did I have in common with those people? I threw the cube into the suitcase. They all looked famous with their fabulous clothes and perfect hair and manicures and stylish makeup and easy confidence. They’d had their life given to them on a silver spoon. And I had grown up with nothing. Amy had money, but even she wasn’t rich like this.

There was rich, and then there was wealthy.

And I didn’t even follow the lives of the rich and famous, but I knew the name Kensington carried its weight in gold.

I was an i***t. I’d known in Paris that he had money. He’d opened doors that I couldn’t fathom even now. But it had never occurred to me that he was the heir to the Kensington fortune. That he was that wealthy.

A knock on the bedroom door broke me from my silent rant.

“Natalie?” Penn called from the other side.

What the hell? What was he doing, trying to talk to me?

I’d basically run away from him and his friends on his suggestion. It hadn’t been long enough for him to consider his offer of privacy expired.

“Yes?” I took a half-step toward the door and then stopped.

“May I come in?”

Come in? What the f**k? No!

I checked my clothes. Still in shorts and an oversized Grimke University T-shirt. It was one of the best damn private schools in the South and had the added benefit of being in Charleston. But still…it wasn’t much better than my dress.

Shit, why did I even care?

Oh, of course I cared. He was hot as f*****g sin. The man made delectable a proper noun. It was ridiculous.

I finally settled on. “Uh…why?”

“I wanted to speak with you.”

Very specific.

I rolled my eyes.

“I guess so.”

The door handle turned, and I tried to look natural. As natural as a deer caught in headlights. A gazelle staring down a lion.

Sometimes, I really wished my writer brain would turn off.

Like right now.

Penn stepped through the open door, and my breath caught. He’d removed his suit coat and his black tie. The white button-up underneath was undone on the first two buttons, and it fit him as if it had been made for him. Broad shoulders that narrowed down to his trim waist and those incredible legs.

I admonished myself with an imaginary smack in the face and met his cool blue gaze. “Can I help you?”

He leaned against the open doorframe and slid a hand into his pocket. Habit maybe. “I came to check on you.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to make sure that you were all right.” His eyes moved to the open suitcase on the bed and the mess of clothes between it and the drawer. He straightened. The only sign that my packing had taken him by surprise. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah. I’m just packing now, and I’ll be out of your hair by the morning.”

“That was not what I meant.”

“Well, why don’t you say what you mean?” For once, was the implied addition. “I’m kind of busy.”

“You don’t have to leave.”

“Of course I do. This is your house. I was hired to watch and maintain an empty house for the season before some big party in November. Not only is the house not empty, but I also assume I’ll be fired by Monday. So, I might as well get started.” I stuffed another shirt into the suitcase to make a point.

“Why on earth would you get fired?”

I released an exasperated breath. “Lark hired me. After that performance, I can’t imagine her reporting back kindly.”

“Lark…isn’t going to report back to my mother.”

Now, I turned to him fully. My own surprise clear. “Why ever not?”

“This is actually her first real vacation in three years. She got the weekend off from the office, and I dragged her here with the others after her last event.” He gestured to his suit as if to say, Hence the outfit. “The fact that it slipped her mind that you were here is a testament to how much she needs it. So, you can imagine work is the last thing on her mind.”

I couldn’t imagine. Her life sounded horrible. Who didn’t take any time off for three years? What kind of slave driver was Mayor Kensington?

“But,” he continued when I didn’t respond immediately, “we can get out of your hair. Head back to the city or something. So see, you should stay. And we’ll go.”

“No, that’s absurd. This is your house. I’m the interloper here. Even if Lark doesn’t report me, which I’m still doubting, I would get in the way. There’s no reason for me to be here if you’re here.”

“But it’s your job. None of us”—he paused on the word us, as if contemplating whether what he was about to say was true—“wants to take that from you. So, you should stay.”

“I’m already halfway packed.”

“Natalie,” he said softly.

He stepped forward into the room and placed his hand on one of the posters of the bed. His gaze softened and bore into mine. I was transfixed once more. The way he said my name. The way he stared at me. Oh god, he was such a menace.

“Don’t,” I snapped.

His eyebrows rose in response.

“Don’t say my name like you know me or even care whether I stay or go. We don’t know each other. And I’m certain I don’t want to know you.”

It was harsh but honest. And I didn’t feel bad, saying it.

“Fine,” he finally muttered on a sigh. “We’ll figure it out in the morning once you’ve cooled off.”

“I don’t need to cool off,” I bit out. “I’m perfectly levelheaded.”

“Just stay,” he barked.

“No, I think I should go.”

He walked back to the door. “Do whatever you want, I guess. I came to check to make sure that you weren’t humiliated after what happened. But it seems that your pride is too great to even continue staying under the same roof as us. You don’t have to stay,” he said, glancing back at me. “But, if you do, try to stay out of the way.”

He snapped the door closed behind him, and I threw the closest thing I had at the door. The pair of socks thudded uselessly against the door.

Here was the real Penn Kensington.

He wasn’t trying to make everything better. He was trying to keep from having to leave tonight while I was around. I was a nuisance and needed to stay out of his way. He made me want to scream. And not even in the fun way!

I didn’t even know how to respond to him. Pack or stay, it seemed I was playing into his hands. I flopped back onto the bed, sinking deep into the down comforter. When would I catch a break?

No. I wouldn’t succumb to this s**t.

That was the old Natalie. The idealist who had let herself get taken advantage of. The new Natalie wasn’t going to play that game anymore.

I was the one who was supposed to be here. I was the one getting paid to watch the house. I wouldn’t stay in my room and cower. Not from Penn Kensington or his beautiful friends.