CRUEL FORTUNE (Cruel #2)

2. Natalie

Natalie

2

My stomach dropped out of my body. It was the same sensation as getting to the top of a roller coaster and free-falling into oblivion. Sudden and total paralyzing fear ripped through me.

Because this wasn’t supposed to happen.

No one from last year was supposed to know that I was in New York. I’d been certain that I could get in and out of the city in a matter of days without seeing any of the crew or dealing with any of my emotional baggage. For one of the people who was the cause of all of it to stride right into my meeting, I couldn’t even begin to process it.

And Lewis was definitely one of the causes. Penn’s best friend and one of his crew who had been in on the little bet I was the subject of last year.

Admittedly, Lewis was a Warren. There had always been a chance he’d be here. But I’d thought it was so small as to be infinitesimal. I’d always gotten the impression from him that publishing was almost a hobby for his family of billionaires. A fun pet project but nothing with which to be concerned. They had much more important things to concern themselves with. Lewis had once likened his real family business to putting hotels on Boardwalk.

Except…now, he was here.

In my meeting.

And it couldn’t f*****g be a coincidence.

“Olivia, you know…Lewis Warren?” Gillian asked with a mix of shock and apprehension in her normally cheerful voice.

“Olivia,” he drawled. He arched an eyebrow at my pen name.

“No,” I answered at once.

“No?” he asked from those too-perfect lips and that too-handsome face.

“We’re acquainted,” I corrected. “Briefly.”

“Now, that is a story I’d love to hear,” Gillian said.

“It’s not really that interesting.”

“Oh, don’t be shy, Olivia,” Lewis said. “Tell everyone how we met.”

I stared daggers at him and wondered what sort of world I lived in to have to endure this torture in front of everyone who mattered for my career. I couldn’t just tell him to go f**k himself here. Not like I wanted. Not without questions getting hurled at me.

But what could I say that wouldn’t give away that he was part of my book?

“He…went on a date with my friend Amy.” Not exactly a lie.

“Ah, yes, Amy,” Lewis said with a laugh. “Does she still prefer broke artists?”

“She does.”

“And will she still love you after your book releases tomorrow and blows up all the charts?” His eyes twinkled as I squirmed.

“I’ll have to ask her,” I said with a fake smile on my face.

Gillian laughed at our exchange. “What are the chances that you would know Lewis Warren? Well, I cannot wait to hear the full story later. Why don’t we all take our seats and get started with this meeting?”

“Yes. Let’s.” My eyes narrowed in his direction.

“Great idea.”

Lewis promptly took the chair directly across from my seat and winked at me. My cheeks heated as my anger lit like a fuse. Forget nerves for this meeting and enter cold, hard fury that this moment was being ruined by an Upper East Side prick who had been involved in the bet on whether or not I’d fall in love with his best friend. It wasn’t enough that the only book I’d gotten published was about this event. He had to be here to witness them discuss it.

I tried to block him out and focus on the meeting at hand. But I couldn’t seem to get it together. I wanted to know how he had known. Because he had to have known. And, if he had known …did that mean the others did too? Did Penn know?

I recoiled from that thought. He couldn’t know. I didn’t want to think about him or deal with him or see him.

“Olivia?” Gillian asked, clearly repeating herself.

I’d been so zoned out, thinking about the past, that I didn’t even hear her question. Or much of anything that had come before that. Had we been discussing the marketing strategies? Or preorder numbers? Had someone mentioned the New York Times?

“Sorry. What was that?”

“We wanted to discuss your next project,” Gillian said. “It’s not often we have the whole team together with the author.”

“Oh, right. What I’m working on next.”

I chewed on my bottom lip and glanced back to Lewis. His eyebrows were raised as he waited for my response. He actually looked…interested. Was that legitimate or fake enthusiasm about my book? Was he mocking me? Surely, he hadn’t read my novel.

“We’re all dying to know what’s next,” my publicist, Kathy, said.

“It’s still in the beginning stages.” I flicked my eyes back to Gillian. “I’m not sure it’s ready for anyone to see. Might disrupt the flow.”

“Oh, come on. Not even a morsel?” she encouraged.

I fidgeted in my seat. How the hell did I get out of this?

“We can’t rush brilliance,” Lewis interjected. “If she’s not ready to share, then it’s clearly not ready for the public eye. I’m sure, once the book is in working condition, she’ll wow us all.”

I shot a relieved look in his direction for saving me from continuing. He likely didn’t know that it was because I had no idea what to write next and no muse. But he had kept me from having to say that, and for that, I was grateful.

“You’re right, of course, Lewis,” Gillian said.

“We’re just enthusiastic,” Kathy piped up. “If it’s anything like Bet on It, then I know we’re going to have a best seller on our hands.”

I paled and managed to push a smile through. “Let’s hope.”

“All right, well, that’s all we have for today,” Gillian said. “Do you have any questions for us, Olivia? We know tomorrow is a magical day for a debut. We want to make everything as seamless as possible.”

“I don’t think so. I’m just excited to go into a store and be able to actually hold a copy of my book,” I told them.

“You’ll have to take a picture and send it to us. We’ll put it up on our social,” Kathy said hungrily.

“Sure,” I told her. Though I had no intention of showing my face for the camera, I’d send them something to use.

“Okay. Well then, we’re through here. See you tonight at Twig for dinner,” Gillian said.

I stood and shook hands with the rest of the team. I’d been working with them off and on all year, so it was nice to have faces to go with the names. They probably felt the same way about me, if I had to guess.

But, by the end of the meeting, it was just me, Gillian, and…Lewis.

“I can show her out,” Lewis said with a broad smile to Gillian.

“Oh. Of course. I need to get back to work anyway,” Gillian said. She raised her eyebrows once at me as if to say, Have a good time, and then disappeared through the conference room door.

Once we were finally alone, I whirled on him. “What are you doing here?”

“Last I checked, I’m a Warren,” he said with a grin.

“You don’t work in the publishing arm,” I accused.

“No, I don’t.”

“So, what are you doing here?”

“I thought that was obvious, Olivia.”

“Don’t,” I snapped.

“I came to see you.”

“Well, I don’t want to see you.”

He shrugged as if that fact didn’t matter to him. “Yet here we are.”

“How did you even know I was going to be here? My identity was tightly guarded. Only Gillian knows.”

“Are you sure?” he teased.

“Clearly, I was wrong.”

“Go to lunch with me, Natalie.”

I scoffed in disbelief. “No.”

“Come on. It’ll be like old times.”

I shouldered my purse and headed for the door. “Might have escaped your notice, but I have no interest in old times.” I turned back to look at him with anger in my blue eyes. “And no interest in seeing you.”

I yanked open the conference room door and headed for the elevator. My hands were shaking, and I clasped them together to make them stop. My heart was hammering in my chest. It was a reminder of what I was running away from. That stupid smirk and confident air. The way he seemed to own the room. I’d always found Lewis handsome. He and Penn were two sides of the same coin. They both took up too much space, and worse, they knew it. I would not be caught in that web again.

Fool me once, shame on you. I’d been eighteen and in Paris and fallen instantly for Penn. I’d given him my virginity, and he’d repaid it by ghosting on me. Granted…it was because his father had died. Though I’d only learned it years later.

Fool me twice, shame on me. The bet. Penn, Lewis, Katherine, Rowe, and Lark had bet on me. And I’d fallen in love with Penn and made an utter fool of myself anyway.

Fool me thrice—well, I didn’t even know who I could blame for that. So, I was getting as far away from the Upper East Side and all the many charming men in it.

“Wait!” Lewis slid his hand in the elevator before it could close, and then he walked smoothly inside.

I pressed my body against the opposite wall. “Leave me alone, Lewis.”

“Go to lunch with me.”

“Go to hell,” I quipped.

“I guess I deserve that.”

I glared. “Deserve? That’s the least of what you deserve.”

“That’s probably fair.”

I crossed my arms and remained silent. I didn’t have to talk to him. I didn’t have to listen to him. Their antics had ruined my life as I knew it. And sure, I had bounced back onto my feet. But it didn’t excuse what they’d done or how callous they had been about it all.

The elevator chimed, and I pushed past Lewis onto the main floor of Warren Publishing. Its grandeur was still mesmerizing, but all I saw was him now. I should have taken another offer. Who cared that Warren had fought the hardest and won the auction? I could have taken the deal from Hartfield or Strider or any number of other publishers that had bid on my book.

I could feel Lewis’s presence behind me as I exited the building and said good-bye to Warren Publishing.

“Stop following me,” I hissed.

“I will. Just hear me out.”

“I’m under no obligation to do that,” I snapped.

“You always did have a hot temper.”

I stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk. He continued moving for a pace before he realized that I’d halted.

“Natalie…”

“You and your friends ruined my life. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. I have no interest in whatever lies you’re going to spin,” I told him with fire in my eyes. “If you thought this would go differently and that I’d fall all over myself at your feet, you are sadly mistaken. I’m not like the simpering idiots you have on the Upper East Side. I don’t care how much money you have. I don’t care what your last name is. So, leave me alone.”

“I’m sorry,” Lewis said. His eyes were wide and revealing. A window to his sincerity, and I hated it.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it.”

I yanked out my phone to check my messages. I was supposed to meet Amy for lunch, but then I saw I had a text from her.

Ran into Enzo while I was shopping. You remember him from Paris, right? His work has gone off the charts. He even has something in the MET. We’re going to get lunch. Don’t wait up. ;)

I sighed heavily at the text message. Great. There went my escape plan.

“You’re right,” Lewis said. “Sorry doesn’t cut it. But I still would like to apologize. I know I was acting arrogant and condescending in there, but I didn’t know how you’d react to me being there, and it was a defense mechanism.”

“Why would you need a defense mechanism? You’re the one who did this to me.”

“I know. It was stupid and childish and wrong on so many levels. I begged Penn to tell you. I threatened him beyond words to do it, or I would. And I should have. I see now that I should have done it. Should have stopped it all.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, Lewis. Why don’t you save your breath for someone who might believe this?”

He straightened. “You think I enjoy throwing myself at your mercy? Knowing that you can hold a grudge for six years that runs as hot as a California forest fire? I don’t enjoy your enmity, Natalie. I deserve it. We all do. But it does nothing to diminish how much I wish I could change it.”

I stared at him in surprise. He was…serious.

He was actually…groveling before me outside of a building he owned. A year later, and he still wanted to make things right. A small part of me got satisfaction in his suffering. It was nothing compared to what I’d gone through. But the Upper East Side never had repercussions to their actions, and his pain was at least one consequence.

“What do you want from me?” I asked cautiously.

“Nothing.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I thought, if I bought you lunch, it would be a good start.”

“Start for what?”

“Apologizing for what you went through.”

I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust any of them. But one lunch might not kill me.

“Fine. But we’re getting pizza. It’s the only thing I miss from this godforsaken city.”

He smiled at me as if he knew how much of that was a lie.