Cruel Money: Cruel Book One

by Linde, K. A.

  “Yeah, well, the one who should have told me about this was making out with her.”

  “They weren’t making out,” Lewis said. “It was one kiss, and we don’t know what it means. You just left. You didn’t even ask him.”

  “What would I ask exactly? Why did you lie to me? Why are you kissing some other woman that I don’t know anything about? How much of this is just a game to you?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It’d be a start.”

  “I’m too angry for his fabricated answers right now. Just tell me the truth.”

  “Natalie, why don’t we talk about something else?”

  I finished off my scotch and passed him the glass. “I met your ex-girlfriend Addie. We could talk about her.”

  “Are those my only options?” he asked with a wince. He rubbed the back of his neck and checked his phone.

  I sighed and flopped backward on the couch. I’d already had Lewis remove the stupid wings attached to my back and flung off the thousand-dollar shoes I was borrowing from Katherine. I kicked my white-stockinged feet up onto Lewis’s lap and held my hand out for my drink.

  His eyes roamed my scantily clad body for a heartbeat too long before he passed me my drink. I’d forgotten that I was still just in a corset, garter, and stockings. My cheeks heated.

  “Sorry,” I said, straightening.

  “Hey, no, you can lie back down. It’s fine,” he said, but he had to clear his throat to get the words out.

  “Tonight is so fucked.”

  “I think you should talk to Penn. You’ll feel better.”

  “Yes, I know what you think.”

  But would I feel better? Knowing more about Emily. Knowing why he’d kissed his ex-girlfriend and not told me he’d met her the week before. I didn’t really think so. But then I remembered the bracelet tucked away in my purse, which I’d hastily discarded as soon as we entered Lewis’s posh penthouse. The crown that dangled from it and the constellation it symbolized. Maybe I owed him a conversation.

  “Fine. I’ll hear him out, but I’m still staying here.”

  He shrugged. “There’s a room for you if you need one.”

  “Thanks for this, Lewis. I do really appreciate it.”

  “Anything for you, Natalie.”

  His eyes met mine, dark and comforting and honest. He smiled in a way that said he was sincere. And for some reason, I believed him. That he might actually do anything for me.

  Then there was a ding of the elevator.

  Our moment of silence was broken, and Lewis scrambled to his feet as if he were the one who had done something wrong. Instead of being the white knight who had whisked me away from disaster.

  I sat up and set my drink on the coffee table. I’d just straightened up in time to see Penn blow into Lewis’s living room like a tornado.

  Lewis cleared his throat. “I’ll just…give you two a minute.”

  Then he disappeared into what I had to assume was his bedroom, leaving me alone with Penn. The knot of his bow tie was undone and hanging around his neck. He’d unbuttoned the first two buttons on his shirt. His eyes were a mixture of anger, pain, and confusion. I’d never seen him look like that before.

  “You just left?” he demanded.

  I raised my eyebrows. “You just kissed your ex-girlfriend?”

  “I didn’t kiss Emily.”

  “Oh, and now, I’m blind, too?”

  “She kissed me. There’s a difference. If you’d stuck around long enough to see, I stopped her and had her thrown out of the party. Because I have no interest in Emily.”

  “I don’t know why you’re yelling at me,” I said, raising my voice. “You’re the one who saw her last week and lied to me about it. You’re the one who never mentioned an ex to me, even when I asked. You’re the one who went to her tonight as soon as she showed up. What the hell am I supposed to think, Penn?”

  He backed down at my comment, coming forward to stand in front of me. I could see the fire had left his eyes. All that was left was guilt and sorrow.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking, coming in here. None of this is your fault, and you had every reason to leave that party.”

  “I know,” I said, sinking back into my seat on the couch. “I know that much. I just don’t know what the hell is going on with you, Penn. You say you don’t want things to be casual between us, but then you treat us casually.”

  “No, no, I didn’t. I don’t,” he corrected. He dropped into the seat next to me. “I only went over there to tell her to leave. That was also the reason I saw her last week.”

  “Why wouldn’t you just tell me that?”

  “Emily is complicated. She’s a nuisance and a liar and my past. She’s not someone I like to think or talk about. And it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”

  I sighed heavily and looked away from him. I could still see his lips on another woman, and it hurt. No matter how I wanted to shield my heart from him, he’d ripped everything wide open. There was no going back. I was vulnerable now.

  “It’s not you, it’s me,” I said softly. “Original.”

  “Look, you want the whole story? Here’s the story,” Penn soldiered on through gritted teeth. “Emily and I met at Columbia. She was a law student. We knew each other vaguely through our families. We hit it off. We dated for a year and a half. Then one day, I came home and walked in on her. Fucking Court. In my bed. There. That’s it. That’s the story.”

  I gasped. Shock hit me like a tidal wave. What the fuck was wrong with her that she would do something like that? What was wrong with Court? Jesus, no wonder he hated his brother so much. No wonder they didn’t get along, and he had been so defensive when Court talked to me. With that history…anyone would have been defensive.

  “That’s horrible. I see why you can’t stand being around Court.”

  “Among other reasons,” he said. “But can’t you see now that I want nothing to do with Emily? We broke up at the beginning of the summer, and she kept trying to fix things with us—showing up in the city and at events I was at, begging me to come to her place, and generally being infuriating. I wanted her to know it was completely over and done with. That I was never going to entertain her bullshit again. I wanted it done before I talked to you.”

  “And you didn’t think I’d understand?” I asked softly.

  Because I did understand. And I hurt for him. Even while I was so angry with him for what I’d seen. He’d clearly felt deeply for Emily if he dated her for over a year. I’d only ever dated one guy that long, and the breakup had been brutal.

  “I wouldn’t have been happy you went off to see your ex-girlfriend, but if you’d told me…”

  “I know,” he said. “I should have told you. But, at the time, I didn’t know if you really wanted anything more from me. You wanted a month of casual sex, right? No need to bring exes into that equation.”

  “But you clearly wanted more since you asked for more right after seeing her.”

  “I did…I do want more. And I had to clear things up with her before starting something with you.”

  I nodded. That at least was admirable. If it hadn’t resulted in her kissing him in front of me tonight and ruining everything. Toppling my already-shaky trust in him.

  “I asked you about exes point-blank, and you said there was no one important enough to mention. Emily seems pretty damn important.”

  He ran a hand back through his dark hair. “That was the truth. She wasn’t important enough to mention because she’s nothing to me.”

  I sighed and buried my face in my hands. “I don’t know, Penn. She doesn’t seem like nothing.”

  He stood and paced the room. “I don’t know what else to do to prove to you that we’re over. Do you want to call Emily or go find her wherever the security guard dumped her after I kicked her out of the club? Do you want to find out the truth from her? Or at least whatever her version is? Because I’ll do it. She’ll tell you that
we’re done. That we have been for a long time. And I’ll tell you…that I only want to be with you.”

  I stared up at him, pacing and irritated. As if he couldn’t believe he’d managed to fuck all of this up within a week. That Emily had shown up and he’d dealt with it all wrong. I’d never seen him lose his cool so completely. Normally, he was this put-together guy with his Upper East Side flair and his philosophical chill. But right now, he actually seemed…scared that he’d lose me.

  “Penn, sit down.” I patted the couch next to me. He took the seat next to me. “I need to know if there’s anything else I should know. Any other girls in your closet? Waiting to jump out at you and kiss you. Katherine maybe?”

  “Katherine?” he asked in surprise. “Dear god, no. There is absolutely nothing going on between us.”

  He had such conviction in his voice. Such earnest calm that he seemed to come back to himself at my question. As if he couldn’t even believe I was asking about Katherine.

  “I think she’s in love with you.”

  Penn laughed and shook his head. “I’m honestly not entirely sure if Katherine has feelings. And even if she did, it wouldn’t matter because I feel nothing for her. I never have. Not like that. The only person I want…is you.”

  He reached out and placed his hand over mine. When I didn’t immediately pull it away, he threaded our fingers together and rubbed his thumb down mine.

  “Can you forgive me?” he asked.

  I didn’t pull away, but I remained silent long enough that I could tell he was worried. And it made it all the harder to say no to him when I could see that he was being honest. That he was worried about losing me. And it might be stupid, but I wanted him, too. I didn’t want this to come between us. But at the same time, I didn’t a hundred percent trust him either. And I hated that.

  “I think I need some time,” I told him honestly. “I can’t erase the anger and hurt and betrayal I felt tonight.”

  “Right.”

  “I need more than the last hour to process.”

  He brought my hand to his lips. “I understand that. But can I convince you to come back to my place with me? I can grovel some more if you’d like.”

  I laughed softly and shook my head. “You don’t have to grovel. I’ll come back with you. I just need you to be honest with me from now on, okay?”

  His eyes drifted away and then back to mine. I didn’t know what that look meant, but he then nodded. “Okay.”

  Natalie

  31

  Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

  Ever since Penn had brought his big philosophy brain into my life, I’d started reading daily quotes from famous philosophers. Most of them I read, deleted, and moved on from. But this one from Spinoza’s Ethics stuck. It resonated. It sang symphonies in my brain and let the words just pour out of me.

  And right now, it felt like a hit to the head with a two-by-four.

  Because Penn and I were excellent together. I knew that for certain.

  But difficult was hardly a strong enough word.

  Still, I knew what we had was rare.

  The way our stars had aligned to bring us to this moment. How effortless we were when we were together. The ease with which we fit together like a diver landing in the water without a splash. And yet we felt like a tide being pushed and pulled by some unseen force that just didn’t let us fucking be.

  And I wanted us to be.

  I didn’t want my prediction to Amy to come true.

  Still, I was quiet on the way back to the beach house the next morning. I wasn’t even upset that Penn had seen Emily so much as he hadn’t told me he did. We weren’t dating at the time. Though things had obviously been heating up. And I understood that he wanted to have closure in regard to her.

  I just hated the lying. How easy it had come to him. How he’d been able to say he was going to a meeting and let me assume it was for work. Then say he was visiting a “friend.” As if that friend wasn’t his ex-girlfriend.

  Totle bounded up the stairs ahead of me as we exited the Audi and entered the beach house. I let him out back and watched as he ran around before doing his business. I heard Penn’s footsteps behind me. His hand rested on my back.

  “Nat.”

  “He’s so happy. Carefree and happy.”

  “He is,” Penn agreed. “You’ve been quiet.”

  “Just thinking. Curse of a writer. Always stuck in my head.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I turned and looked up into his gorgeous face. Those big blue eyes and that strong jawline and perfect lips. But there was no smile. Only a furrow from worry between his eyes and concern in his baby blues.

  “You know, not really.”

  “Okay,” he said evenly, taking a step back. “Well, I think we should talk about it when you’re ready. But in the meantime, the guest bedrooms are finished. You could always move back into your old room. Or I could take a different bed if you want. That way, you have your own space.”

  “No,” I said at once. I was even surprised by my immediate resistance. I didn’t want to move out of the master. I wanted to stay where he was. I didn’t want this to ruin everything.

  “No?”

  “I don’t want space. Not from you.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “You made a mistake. You owned up to it. I don’t want to move backward with you, Penn. I just want forward.”

  That beautiful smile returned, and he retrieved that step he’d taken backward. “Good. I didn’t really want you to leave my bed.”

  I playfully swatted at him. “So, this is all about sex?”

  “You know it’s not,” he said, pulling me closer.

  “I do know.” It was the reason that I was even saying this. Because it wasn’t just sex with him. It was so much more. And I knew that I had trust issues, but I didn’t want it to crumble us. “I’m only here for ten more days. Then I’m going home to Charleston.”

  “I don’t want you to leave,” he told me.

  “I know. But my contract is up for the house. I planned to go home for the holidays and look for another home-watching job for the New Year. So, I think we should make the most of this.”

  “You don’t know what’s in store for the future.”

  “That’s kind of part of the job.”

  “I meant with us.” His hands slid up into my silvery-white hair, and he gazed down at me with a look of adoration.

  “Can we take it one day at a time?” I asked helplessly. Because if I thought too far forward, the prospect got scary. Did we work long-distance? Did I try to get another job in New York? He couldn’t leave Columbia, but I couldn’t afford the city.

  It was all too complicated. And with the issue of trust still hanging precariously between us, I didn’t want to deal with it right now. So, I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and kissed him before he could respond one way or another.

  Penn didn’t need any more encouragement after the last twenty-four hours. He pressed me back into the wall. His hands moving freely down my body. His lips hard against mine. As if he could kiss away our problems. Use his tongue to make me forget what we were going through. And honestly, it worked.

  My brain shut down. There was just him in this moment. I craved his touch, his lips, his everything. I wanted him to claim me. Remind me that I was his and he was mine. And what had happened wasn’t real.

  It was irrational. Our problems would still be there when we finished. But I still cared for him. I still wanted things to work between us. I still wanted him so desperately. Just like I had that night in Paris.

  It didn’t change how I felt. Even though how I felt complicated my entire life. Because Penn Kensington was a game changer.

  I knew it. And was helpless to the fact.

  I’d been so upset all those years ago because I thought I’d known even then. We’d connected so deeply, so fast. I’d told him things I’d never really told anyone else. I’d thou
ght it would be a fairy tale. Now, I was living that fairy tale. And I refused to let it go.

  Penn’s hands pushed under my dress, sure yet impatient. He found the edge of my thong and yanked it down my legs. They fell to the floor, a casualty of our desire.

  I fumbled with his belt, button, zipper. Tugged his pants over his ass. He never relented on my lips as he hoisted one of my legs around his hip. His body pressed against me. I knew exactly what he wanted, and I wanted it too. I wanted last night to not have happened. I wanted to forget.

  My hand moved into his boxers, and I stroked his dick. He was already hard at my touch.

  “Please,” I pleaded against his lips.

  He groaned and lifted me up completely. I squeaked slightly at the sudden movement, but then his cock was in his hand, and he lowered me onto him. Slow at first, easing himself deep inside me.

  My eyes fluttered closed, and I gasped at the feel of him. The pure strength of holding me against the wall as he filled me. My legs were tight around his waist, arms on his shoulders, but he was the one doing the work. He was the one lifting me off of him and slapping me back down into place.

  Up and down.

  Harder and harder.

  He rocked into me, driving up into my body as he leveraged me securely against the wall. And I just wanted more. More of him. More of this. More of us.

  I knew that we had issues. That, together, we were both a daydream and a nightmare, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t go back to how things had been. Not when I knew what was right in front of my eyes.

  “Come with me, Natalie,” he commanded.

  Our eyes locked, and something crashed down between us. Joy and ecstasy and sweet, sweet relief. Climax hit us both at full force. He dropped his head into my shoulder, and I nearly cracked my head open on the wall behind me.

  Then he pulled out of me and released me to my feet. We were both panting. Our chests heaving. I felt like, at any minute, I could collapse into a puddle of goo. Still, I dragged his lips back to mine and kissed him, tender and sweet.