by K. A. Linde
“So, you see, the tears aren’t for Lewis. They’re for the person I was before all of this. They’re mourning the loss of a part of me so that I could gain the strength I needed to stand up to him. To live in this world.”
“Why would you want to live in it?” he asked in earnest. Not the same question he had asked me earlier. The other one had been disbelief. That I was insane for wanting it. Now, it was curiosity. Like he was seeing the truth in my eyes for the first time. And not just my anger.
“My whole life, I’ve only ever really had one friend, and she’s standing in this room. I never really felt like I belonged anywhere. I needed to jump from place to place to place to find what I was looking for. I was just beginning to feel like I belonged here for the first time in my life.” I swiped at my eyes and cleared my throat. This was the first time I was admitting this, even to myself. “I won’t let Katherine or Lewis or anyone take that away from me.”
Penn sighed heavily, as if coming to some conclusion. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I asked in confusion.
“I’ll help you.”
My eyes rounded in surprise. “Lewis changed your mind.”
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t help. I want to keep you safe. I want us to spend more time together. I can make this world easier for you. As easy as this world will allow it to be for anything. So if this is where you think you belong, then you’ll belong here with me.”
Part II
Tricks Of The Trade
Chapter 8
Natalie
“This is not how I thought we would start the training,” I told Penn.
My freshly manicured hands brushed down the front of the dark blue dress that had been delivered earlier that morning. It was simple and elegant. A sharp contrast to the jaw-dropper I’d worn only last week for New Year’s Eve.
“Well, this is where we will begin. You’re under my tutelage now, and I believe in a hands-on approach.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “That I did know.”
The tilt of his lips said he was amused by me, but he didn’t let it show otherwise. He was fully in control tonight as we took a sleek black car to a charity dinner for the children’s art foundation. It felt too soon for me to be out in public. I’d thought that he’d want to show me the ropes or give me a PowerPoint slide lecture or something equally professorial. But he’d insisted this was the best way to learn. Since it was how they had all learned.
It made me unbelievably nervous. I’d been to any number of events for the Upper East Side, but I hadn’t been trying to be one of them. I’d just been me and thought that was enough. But, for me to pull all of this off, I had to be more than me. I had to belong.
“I can tell you how to act and think and feel. I can walk you through it. Observe and critique as if I were in a classroom, but it would be for nothing. Think of this as an immersive language experience. Instead of learning French in school, you’re being dropped into Southern France with a family who speaks broken English. You have to find a way to fit, and you have to do it pretty quick.”
“You make it sound terrifying,” I told him.
His eyes flicked to mine. “Now, you’re getting it.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. “For helping me even though you don’t want to be in this world and you hate stuffy dinners and galas.”
“I’m thinking that, if I fuck you at all of these stuffy dinners and galas, I might find them more tolerable,” he deadpanned.
My cheeks flushed, and heat flooded my body. “You’re not serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
No. No, he did not.
“I do have one rule,” he said carefully, sidestepping right over the fact that he intended to have sex with me in public places as part of my training.
A fact that I was…very interested in hearing more about.
“Oh? I’m surprised you only have one.”
“It’s an important one.” He looked tense as he said it. “I reserve the right to add more as we go though.”
I chuckled. “Fine. What’s the main one?”
“This is going to be…uncomfortable for me. This training is unorthodox and goes against the man that I was trying to become. I realize that I was only half as successful as I wanted to be. And only tried about a quarter as hard as I should have to get there. So the Upper East Side is home, and I guess it’s where I’m to stay, but that doesn’t make me okay with that fact.”
I nodded in response. I had known that he was conflicted on helping me. That he was only doing it after he saw my breakdown about Lewis. About this damn seductive world that had pulled me in like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
“I’m not always going to be the Penn that you know. I will have to be the Penn Kensington who owns Manhattan. The dark beast within that paces through my mind and threatens to unleash himself upon the world. The beast that I’ve leashed ever since my asshole father died of an overdose and left me to realize what the fuck I was doing with my life. You won’t always like what I do, what I say, or who I am. Are you okay with that?”
I swallowed before nodding. I’d seen his mask before. I knew what he was capable of. And I was the one unleashing him on the world.
He blew out a breath before regaining composure. “You say that now. We’ll see later. But the only thing that I ask from you, the only rule I want us both to follow, is, no masks in private.” He stared deep into my eyes as if he could convey the importance of that rule in just one look. “No matter who we are or what we do or how we act in public, you’re still my Natalie in private, and I’m still your Penn in private. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I told him.
I didn’t want him to be fake with me either. Not if I was going to be able to see past the man who had bet on me and back to the one I’d fallen in love with. Those two people were already blurred in my mind. But I could see when the mask came up. I was sure that he’d be able to see me, too.
“You’re sure? No hiding from me.”
I nodded. “This is who I am.”
“After tonight, this will just be one side of who you are. Are you ready?”
My stomach coiled into a knot. “You’re sure Katherine won’t be here?”
“As far as I know, she is still on her honeymoon. I have no idea how she could stomach a month alone with Camden Percy. But there are so many things I don’t understand about Katherine.”
“Well, that’s good for us at least,” I said as the car rolled to a stop. I took a deep breath and then released it. “I’m ready.”
* * *
I knew this part. How to make an appearance. Katherine had inadvertently taught me how to survive this a year earlier when she brought me to my first ever Upper East Side event. I could walk a red carpet with a coy smile on my face. I knew which way to stand that flattered me best. There had been proof of that on Page Six.
That was the easy part.
It was everything that came afterward that I always second-guessed. Even when I’d been brought in with the entire crew, I hadn’t felt entirely with the crowd. It was easier on the arm of a Warren or a Kensington, but I was still small-town Natalie whose father had moved us all around the country with the military. I still had the moral compass that said right and wrong were black-and-white issues. I didn’t see their strategies or straight-out lies. I had been ill-prepared for what I witnessed, but Penn was in his element.
It was crazy to think that someone who hated this world so much could fit in so seamlessly. As if he had never left. As if he had been born for this role. And I supposed that he had, in fact, been born for this. He just rejected it on base principle.
Yet he was here for me.
The charity function was held in a stunning domed banquet hall fit for royalty. It was bedecked in navy-blue and gold with large, circular tables facing a small stage. A row of items was on display along one side of the room for the silent auction. I wondered what outrageous big ticket items the uber w
ealthy would bid on.
Penn effortlessly guided me away from the tables.
“We won’t look until later. No one wants to look eager,” he told me.
“Oh,” I said softly. “But there are people over there.”
“What do you think that says about them?”
“That they’re bored?”
“No, there’s an array of people at this event. It’s one of the reasons that I decided to choose this one. I thought it would be beneficial for you to observe people. Everyone here has money. But not everyone is Upper East Side. There’s a difference, and it’s very obvious to people who know what to look for. So tell me, the people at the auction before dinner are…” he prodded.
“Not Upper East Side,” I guessed.
“Correct. No one would outbid us, and if there were something we had an eye on, we would have been informed about it ahead of time by the organizers. So, there’s no point in going to browse. We’re here to mingle. The auction is secondary.”
“I see.” Though it sounded ridiculous to me. But that was the point. I never would have noticed that.
“Look around. Tell me who is the wealthiest person in the room.” Penn’s arm was warm on my elbow as he stopped us in our tracks. He snapped his finger at a passing waiter, and the man scurried over, eager to please. He plucked a glass of champagne off of the tray and passed it to me. “I’ll have a bourbon, neat. Make it a double.”
The man nodded quickly and then disappeared into the crowd to get Penn his drink.
I shook my head in surprise. “You’re good at this.”
“Yes,” he said in dismay. “Now, focus. Did you select a person?”
My eyes traveled the room. I felt, at some level, like this must be a trick question. Penn was incredibly wealthy, but it probably wasn’t him. My eyes skittered around the massive space as I tried to figure out how the hell I should answer this.
“I don’t know. Everyone’s rich. Maybe…that woman?” I said with a hitch, making my statement an uncertain question. I gestured to an elderly woman a couple of rows over in a mink coat and diamonds.
“Hollywood,” Penn said grimly. “That’s Henrietta Groves, a very successful fifties film star. Charming but handsy. She probably has less than half the net worth of that couple.”
My eyes followed to where he was pointing out a man in a tailored black suit with a trim, graying beard and a woman, who I guessed was his wife, in a loose black dress. Her hair was pulled severely off of her face. They both looked disguised but nothing out of the norm.
“George and Alessandra Moretti. George’s family owned half the utilities in the country. Alessandra brought five chains of motels that crisscross middle America to the marriage. Together, they have money from generations and generations in America and Italy. You’d never know it, except that, once you see it, you can’t not see it.”
“What is it?” I asked, observing Alessandra.
She was sharply dressed and by all accounts sophisticated and in charge. But there was nothing to suggest they were as wealthy as Penn had claimed.
“Do you remember when you first came to this world? How did people treat you? Who did they think you were?”
I shrugged. “Camden thought I was some kind of California model. Most people knew right away that I wasn’t from here. I figured it was the hair.”
Penn’s smile lit up at that word, and he brushed aside a strand of the silver locks from my shoulder. Then it was quickly replaced by the mask he wore so well. “Yes, the hair definitely does it. But it’s how you carry yourself. The way you wear your clothes. The lilt to your speech. The innocence in your eyes. It’s all there, and it says you aren’t in control. You have no power. Which means you aren’t one of us.”
“That…makes sense,” I admitted reluctantly. It turned my stomach to think that everything about me gave away that I wasn’t from here. “But Page Six thought I was a New York elite.”
“What was different about that?” he demanded, latching on to my point. Ever the professor. “It wasn’t your hair or your dress or your shoes.”
“The confidence. The fact that I felt like I belonged there and wanted everyone to know it.”
“Yes, and no. You did belong there. And that’s all the difference.”
“I don’t—”
“You have to belong, Natalie. Not pretend to belong. Think about the people you know from here. Think about how they flit through life as if it were made for them, as if they owned it and nothing could stop them. You have to take that, bottle it up, and wear it like you did at Trinity. And then you have to wear it everywhere like perfume.”
Easier said than done.
But he had a point.
Katherine walked through life confident that, even though her father had lost all of her money, she would land on her feet. Because there was never a time when she had not landed on her feet. Even Lark, who hardly lived in this world anymore, still had that walk like she knew her place. Lewis’s sisters, Charlotte and Etta, devoured every room that they entered. No doors were barred. People listened, and they jumped and only ever asked how high.
Even Penn—no, especially Penn could command a room with one look of those sexy blue eyes. A quirk of his lips. A slip of his hands into his pockets. He commanded me like that, and I realized as I thought back that he always had. He’d known that he had me on that first look on the balcony in Paris seven years ago. That was Upper East Side confidence.
“You get it. You see it.” He nodded.
I flushed at his approval. I found I liked it.
“Now, observe tonight. Gain that confidence and belonging and own it. Then, the real work will begin,” he said as he guided me to our table.
Chapter 9
Natalie
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for attending this charity dinner to benefit the children’s art foundation. Due to unforeseen personal circumstances, we had to reschedule our guest speaker last minute. And I am pleased to introduce Mayor Leslie Kensington.”
Penn stilled next to me. I could feel the tension coming off of him in waves. His relationship with his mother was fraught at best. She wanted him to take over the family business and pick up where his father had left off since Court refused to do anything but drink and party. Leslie had been nothing but horrible to us when she found out we were first seeing each other. And though I’d had one positive interaction with her at Katherine’s wedding last month, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing her again. Especially not on her son’s arm.
“Did you know?” I whispered.
He shook his head once. “This complicates things.”
“Should we leave?”
He gritted his teeth. “It’ll be worse if we do. I didn’t want you to deal with this yet. Guess you’re getting a second lesson.”
I didn’t ask for him to clarify. It probably wasn’t going to be pleasant. Penn and I were just getting off the ground again. I was seeing past the bet. He was still struggling with the fact that I’d had a relationship with Lewis. Having his nosy and opinionated mother in the middle of that was probably the last thing he wanted. And I couldn’t disagree.
We finished our dinner and then listened to his mother in her element. She was an excellent speaker. It was clear why she had been elected time and time again. She had this fire that I frequently saw in her son when he was speaking about philosophy. Not that his mother would ever equate the two.
“We’re going to have to stop to say something to her,” Penn said when her speech had concluded.
“Okay. Are you going to be all right?” I asked him as we stood.
He placed his hand on the small of my back, guiding me through the tables toward his mother at the front of the room, as if he were going to his own execution. “I can handle my mother. For your lesson around this, it’s best to get that mask in place now. No concern for me. No concern for anything. You belong here. You own this room. Nothing she says to you or me can affect you in the least.”
“Do you think she’s going to be rude in front of other people?” I asked in disbelief.
“Mask,” he instructed. “Now.”
I schooled my features into a semblance of what I’d seen Katherine do. Not blank like Penn’s, but almost bored, the world at my feet, silver spoon in my mouth. I straightened my spine and felt a stillness take over my limbs even though I was still walking.
“Better,” Penn conceded on a sigh. “Terrifying. My mother won’t say anything purposely inflammatory, but you never know. It’s better to be on guard.”
We stepped around a crowd congratulating the mayor on the speech and offering larger donations to the organizer. Leslie’s eyes lifted from the short, balding man who she was speaking to. They widened a fraction in surprise when she saw her son. It wasn’t much, but even I noticed that she hadn’t expected him to be here either. I hoped that was a good thing for us.
“Penn,” Leslie said with a politician’s smile. One who was as likely to shake hands and kiss babies as stab you in the back. “I didn’t know that you would be here, darling.”
She didn’t embrace him or reach out or show joy at his presence. Penn’s life must have had so little love. My heart ached. Not that I allowed it to show on my face. This new Natalie didn’t feel those sorts of things. At least, not in public.
“Mother,” he said crisply. He gestured to me. “You remember Natalie.”
Leslie barely glanced at me. “Ah, yes, of course. How could I forget?”
Penn tensed as if he were about to defend me even though he had been the one who said not to give any reaction.
“We met at the Percy–Van Pelt wedding. You’re friends with Jane and a bestselling author, correct?”
“That’s right,” I agreed easily. I knew that she remembered how we’d first met. When she’d thrown me out of her Hamptons mansion and stopped me from working as a vacation home watcher ever again. “Pleasure to see you again.”
