by Linde, K. A.
“No. You know why. And that shit in the past doesn’t even matter.” I sprang to my feet and paced the window overlooking Central Park. “She’s pissed because she was fired. She blames me and herself. But it’s not her fault it’s mine. I never would have pushed to stay there if we hadn’t had the bet. I thought it was harmless. I could fuck her and win the bet. I thought it would be a joke, and now…”
“It’s not funny?” Lewis asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Not even a little.” I slid my hands into my pockets. “What would you do if you were in my position?”
Lewis breathed out heavily. “Not get in this position in the first place.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Lewis said. “Natalie, she’s…special. She’s not like other girls out there. She has a mind of her own. She’s funny and sweet and smart. You’d be an idiot to let her go, man.”
I nodded. I would be. That much was vividly clear to me. I’d spent so much of my life trying to be a better person, and then the one person who had come into my life that I actually cared about…was throwing that all into question. Would an ethical person make a bet like this? I couldn’t figure out how the one person I thought made me a better person also made me a worse person. The conflicting sides of my character tore at me like a real-life angel and devil on my shoulders. And anything I did to fix it all…could only make it worse.
A buzz drew me out of my deep thoughts.
Lewis pulled his phone out of his pocket. “It’s Natalie.”
I froze. “Calling you?”
He shrugged. “Looks like it.”
“For what?”
“I’ll put it on speaker, but you need to stay quiet.”
“Fine.”
Lewis answered the phone. “Hey, gorgeous!”
He pressed the speaker button and placed the phone on his coffee table. He put his finger to his mouth, and I nodded.
“Hey, Lewis,” she said. Her voice was shaky. She sounded like she had been crying again. “Is Penn still with you?”
“No, he just left,” Lewis lied.
“Okay, good,” she said with a sigh.
I pursed my lips in anger. She was glad that I wasn’t there while she was on the phone with Lewis. What the hell?
“What’s going on? I heard you two got in a fight, and I’m sorry to hear about your job.”
“Yeah. Yeah, we did. I probably need to talk to him about that. I said some things that I shouldn’t have.”
Lewis looked up at me and raised his eyebrows. “That sometimes happens in arguments.”
“Anyway, that’s not why I’m calling.” She took a deep breath.
I could tell that whatever she was thinking was eating at her.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. Katherine came by,” she said softly.
I jumped to my feet and cursed softly. Lewis glared at me and waved his hand to tell me to sit down and shut up.
“What did she want?”
“Well, she claimed she wanted to comfort me. I think she thought Penn and I were breaking up, and she wanted to gloat. I remember what you said at the concert about her being worse if Penn and I were together. And then she said something that was just…ludicrous.” Her breath hitched. “Just so ridiculous that it couldn’t be true. She was just trying to force us apart by whatever means necessary. But she said that, if I didn’t believe her I could ask any of you…and you’d tell me the truth. So…can I ask you?”
My eyes locked on Lewis’s. We both were frozen in place, as if we knew exactly where this train wreck was going but had no way to stop it.
“Of course. What did she say?” Lewis asked.
“She said that I was just a…bet.” Natalie slowly breathed out.
“A bet?” Lewis asked with his eyes on me, as if to ask what I wanted him to say.
But I didn’t know. This wasn’t how I’d wanted her to find out, but fuck, I couldn’t keep lying to her.
“Yeah…she said it was a bet to sleep with me and make me fall for him.”
Lewis arched an eyebrow, and I finally slowly shook my head.
“There was no bet, Natalie. That’s Katherine trying to get in your head.”
“Oh,” she said with a big sigh. “Oh okay, good. That’s what I thought. But I just…I had this voice in my head, saying that I had to check. And I knew you’d tell me.”
Lewis narrowed his eyes at me. “Anytime. Hey, I have to head out now. Do you need anything else?”
“No, I’m okay. I’ll just wait for Penn to get back. Thanks, Lewis.”
“Anytime, Natalie.”
He hung up the phone and then vaulted to his feet. “You have me lying for you now!”
“How is that different than any other time?”
“She asked me point-blank, and I told her it wasn’t true.” He spread his arms wide in anger.
“It will all be over in three days!”
“Are you that blind and stupid? Katherine will never let this go. Natalie deserves to know.”
“I know. I know, but it’s not the right time.”
“It’s never the right time,” Lewis spat at me. “You did this. You can’t keep stringing her along.”
“I’m not stringing her along. I care about her, and I don’t want to hurt her. I just want this whole thing to be over with.”
“You are unbelievable,” Lewis said. He shook his head and stormed away from me. “You have this girl. This amazing, beautiful, confident, funny, brilliant girl. A girl any guy would die for, and you’re just going to sit there and say, Let’s wait three days and hope it all goes away. News flash: it’s not going to go away.”
“Jesus, Lewis. Since when do you even care?” I demanded.
I was staring at my best friend and hardly recognized him. For all the years we had known each other, Lewis had always had my back. He’d been the one to egg on my antics. To amp everything up to make it worse. To be there when things went south. And now, this?
“Because you don’t deserve her,” he roared at me from across the room. He clenched his hands into fists, breathing deeply. Then he released them as the tension seemed to leave him. “You don’t deserve a girl that amazing.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?” I demanded. Then I saw what I hadn’t seen before. This couldn’t be reality. “Do you…like her?”
“Just now catching on?” Lewis asked sardonically.
“What? How? When?” I stammered.
“I thought she was gorgeous the moment she walked into the beach house and yelled at you. Then when she drank straight out of that whiskey bottle and held her own against us. Totally out of her element and totally alive. And then a million moments since then. But it was her words…” Lewis held his hands up, as if he could barely get it out. I hardly recognized him. I had never seen him like this. “It was her books that really won me over.”
“You’ve read her books? She won’t even let me read them.”
He shrugged. But his next words were chilling. “You need to tell her about the bet….or I will.”
“You’re not serious.”
But looking at him…I knew he was.
He really was.
I had to tell her.
I stared at the elevator that led up to my penthouse and wondered how the hell I was going to break this to her. I’d lose her. She’d been shaken when she called Lewis. Me confirming it…that would only break her. One more thing on top of everything else.
But I still had to do it. It was the right thing to do.
I took the elevator upstairs and waited for Totle to come attack me. I scratched his head. “Okay, Aristotle, make this easier for me, man. Help me out.”
I kissed the top of his head and then followed him inside.
But what I found when I entered was Natalie sitting on the couch, sobbing.
“Natalie?” I asked, striding toward her and enveloping her in my arms in one big rush.
“The�
��vacation home agency…called,” she gasped out between sobs.
“Oh shit, really?” Guess Lark hadn’t gotten to my mother in time. Fuck!
“They said that…I was terminated. They’re removing my account and sending…final payment.”
“I am so sorry, baby. I’m so, so sorry.”
I rocked her back and forth in my arms, as I had back at the beach house. One punch after another just kept coming.
“No, Penn, I’m sorry,” she said, swiping at her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I was just mad. And now, this. I don’t know. I can’t keep it together.”
“Hey, you have nothing to apologize for. Nothing.”
“You sure? Because I was pretty mean. I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”
I tilted her chin up to look me in the eyes. “Forget about it. I’m just sorry about the agency. I tried to get Lark to talk sense into my mother, but she must not have gotten to her in time.”
“Well, thank you for trying. It was kind of inevitable anyway.” Natalie’s shoulders shook one more time. “And then Katherine was here, being a total bitch.”
“What did she want?”
“Ugh! Nothing. She acted like she wanted to help me out, but I really think she’s in love with you and trying to break us up.”
Her blue eyes looked up into mine, so trusting, and I knew then…I had to do it.
“Natalie, I…need to talk to you for a minute.”
“Okay,” she said uncertainly. She wiped at her eyes again. “I’m kind of a mess. This has not been the easiest day.”
“No, I suspect not.”
“What is it?”
“I…” I opened my mouth to tell her. To get the words out. But they wouldn’t budge. “My…my mother did this because of me. Not you.”
“I mean…I know she said that, Penn, but you don’t have to blame yourself.”
“No, she said she’d give you your job back or at least not talk to the agency if…if I went back to work for the company.”
“Well, that’s awful!” Natalie cried. Her eyes were angry again. That sadness replaced by fury. “She can’t do that to you. That’s blackmail. How dare she use your affection for me against you.”
“But…I should have done it,” I said out loud for the first time. “It would have saved your career.”
“At what cost?” she gasped. “The loss of your career and life and passion and soul? No, Penn, that is not an even trade. And if you think that I’m going to blame you for this, you’re wrong.”
“There’s more,” I said cautiously.
“What?”
I needed to contradict her. I needed to tell her the real reason this was my fault. But that look. That look of adoration in her eyes. I couldn’t break this. Even if it was an illusion. I couldn’t break her heart along with anything else.
“I want you to stay here,” I told her.
She nodded. “Okay. I’ll stay until my flight on Saturday.”
“No, Natalie.” I took her hands in mine. “I want you to move in with me.”
“Penn, it’s so…so soon.”
“I know. I’ve never done anything like this before in my life. But for you, Nat, it’s real. Move in with me. Stay in New York. Let’s work this out together. Here.”
“No,” she said softly.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, but…no.”
“No?” I asked, dumbfounded. My jaw hung open in shock. I’d never thought that she would say that. Not in a million years.
“It’s too soon for us to move in together. We’ve only just begun. I need to go home. To go back to Charleston and figure out my next move. I can’t stay here and do that. But…I don’t want this to be the end for us.” She took my hand in hers again. “I know it won’t be easy, but we’ll figure it out.”
“You really won’t stay?” I asked, still in shock.
“No, I won’t.”
Natalie
37
I’d said no.
I still couldn’t believe that I’d actually said the words.
I’d been shocked. Penn Kensington asking me to move in with him. It had been a dream. And I’d wanted to say yes so bad. So, so bad. But…I couldn’t. Not with my entire life hanging in the balance.
And I didn’t know how I was going to say good-bye.
Penn pulled his Audi into the drop-off lane at JFK International Airport. My flight home left in two hours, but I liked to be early, to Penn’s dismay.
He put the car in park, hopped out, and went to get my suitcases out of the trunk.
I kissed Totle’s head and then hugged him to me. “I promise, promise, promise that I will come back and visit you, cutie. You’re my little man, you know? Have to take care of Penn while I’m back home. But don’t let him skimp on treats. Be good.” I kissed him again. Tears welled in my eyes. I hated leaving him so much. “I love you.”
Then I moved him back into the passenger seat and closed the door. I heard his whimper as I walked away and faltered. Ugh! Leaving him was almost harder than Penn. Totle, who had no idea why I was leaving. Who wouldn’t understand about long distance and trips to visit. He was just this cute, defenseless, little puppy that I’d come to adore. And I just wanted to take him with me.
“Are you sure I can’t steal your puppy?” I asked Penn from the curb next to my first suitcase.
“I am certain you cannot steal Aristotle.” He dropped the second suitcase next to the first. “What other leverage do I have to get you to come back?”
I laughed. “I can think of a thing or two.”
“Can you?” he asked, tugging me in close and kissing me until I was breathless.
“Well, with that kind of send-off, I most certainly can.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go.”
“Me too,” I murmured.
“You could stay.”
“I know, but I can’t.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I know. You’d think, if you were going to change your mind, you already would have. Now, I’m stuck going to this party solo.”
“I can’t even believe you’re going to your mother’s party. After what she did to you and how she tried to blackmail you.”
He sighed and then lifted one shoulder. “It’s the one party every other year that I’m expected to attend. It would be worse for me if I didn’t show up.”
“Well, I hope the house is beautiful. Send me pictures of it all decorated for the event. I was looking forward to that much.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
“Just…drink lots of booze and try to ignore your mother.”
“It’ll be hard, being there without you. I can’t imagine looking at that house and not seeing you in every corner, on every surface.”
“Are you picturing me naked now?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Always.” He kissed me again. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I know. I’m going to miss you, too.” I tried to pull away, but he just held on harder, kissing me so long that I was sure someone was going to make us leave.
Finally, he reluctantly released me, tucking my silvery-white hair behind my ear. “Text me when you get there.”
“You too.”
He smiled that charming smile that had won me over time and time again, but I saw the sadness in it. I grabbed my bags and left before I changed my mind. Because if I had to look at that smile one more time, I might stay.
We’d had our ups and downs. We had our differences. We came from different worlds. But at the end of the day…we fit together.
And I loved that about us.
With my heart in my throat, I strode into the airport. I waited in the outrageously long line to check my bags in and made it past the security check. Then I maneuvered around the large airport until I found my gate. I checked the time and groaned.
One hour and nineteen minutes until takeoff.
I could have sworn it had taken longer than that to get
to the gate. I plopped down in my seat and pulled out my headphones to drown out the noise. Then I took a selfie of me waiting and sent it in a text to Penn. He responded with a picture of Totle in the passenger seat of the Audi. A text came in right after it.
He misses you too.
I snapped a picture of me pouting and then rested my head back against the chair. This was going to be nearly impossible. Like seriously impossible.
Another text came in, and I glanced down at it but was surprised to see it was from Amy.
You’re really coming home today? After that boy asked you to move in with him? I cannot believe you’re really doing this.
Me either.
Because I honestly couldn’t believe it. What was I even thinking?
We said two scenarios, Nat. You catch feelings. He doesn’t. You come home brokenhearted. OR you have a fling with no feelings and come home and get in a relationship. Neither of those is happening! You got the scenario we hadn’t even pictured. You both caught feelings. He wants you to stay…
I know, Amy. I know.
Another text came in from Penn. It was him pouting this time with a text that said:
Come home soon.
Where’s home?
Amy interrupted our conversation again.
If you know…then why are you coming back? Stay with him!
I can’t. I know we didn’t predict this, but we also didn’t guess I’d lose my job. Plus, even though I care for him, I don’t even know if I trust him.
And that will get easier with a thousand miles between you?
No…
You’ve been given the opportunity of a lifetime. I love you to pieces, Nat, but this is stupid.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say.
I’d had all these reasons when I told Penn that I couldn’t stay. I wanted to be independent. We’d only known each other for a short time. I didn’t know if I could trust him with everything we’d gone through. We came from two different worlds. I still needed to figure myself out before I could figure us out. But as the call for boarding came through, I couldn’t seem to think of any of that. Just that I was leaving.
