Cruel Fortune

by K. A. Linde

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Charlotte cut in, “Ignore Ettie here. Tell us more about you. All we know is that you’re a famous author. Where did you grow up? Where did you go to college? What do your parents do?”

  I heard Lewis curse from where he was mixing drinks and mutter something that sounded a bit like, “You two are the worst.”

  “Well, I think we’re dating.” My eyes caught his, and he grinned. “If anything, I’m the one taking it slow.”

  “Oh, flipping the gender norms. I approve,” Etta said encouragingly. “Keep my brother on his toes. He needs that.”

  “Jesus Christ,” came from the bar.

  “And there’s not much to tell about me. I grew up in the military. My dad retired in Charleston. I went to Grimke University and have a bachelor’s in English. Now, I’m writing here in the city.”

  “Wow,” Charlotte breathed. “You must have lived all over.”

  “I did. We moved every other year until I was a freshman in high school.”

  “And here, I’d never moved until I graduated,” Etta said and then pursed her lips. “Unless you consider vacationing in Paris or the Hamptons or Ibiza for that winter or the Swiss Alps.”

  Lewis plunked down glasses in front of us. “It’s not the same. And you sound ridiculous when you spout it off like that.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Rein it in, so you don’t sound like an entitled brat.”

  “As if you’re any better, Charlie.”

  Charlotte fluttered her fingers at them and took a long sip of the cocktail in front of her. “Oh, heavy on the gin, brother. I do approve.”

  “At least I’m good for something,” Lewis said.

  “That’s a change,” Etta joked.

  “Anyway,” Charlotte drawled, “we’re glad we got to meet you. And didn’t have to keep following your escapades on Crew.”

  “Well, it is new.” I took a drink of my cocktail for liquid courage to get through this apparent interview with his sisters. I’d never liked interviews, and I hoped I was passing.

  “Oh, girl, my brother does not give his affection lightly. If he likes you, then you’re it,” Etta said.

  “Yeah. I mean, he’s only ever had three real girlfriends, right?” Charlotte asked.

  “Guys,” Lewis grumbled.

  “Yep,” Etta confirmed. “Addie in high school.”

  “Monica in college.”

  “And that bitch, Alicia.”

  “Ugh, Alicia,” Charlotte groaned.

  “Would you two knock it off? We’re not here for you to tell Natalie about my previous girlfriends.”

  “Hey,” Etta said, poking him in the chest, “we’re helping you out, brother.”

  “Yeah. We’re showing her that you stick with a woman when you find one that you like. The others are just…” Charlotte flitted her fingers up.

  Lewis shook his head. “Why did I think introducing you all would be a good idea? Oh wait, I didn’t.”

  Etta rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but if you’d introduced us to Alicia earlier,” Etta said, “then we could have told you she was a bitch. Would have saved you a lot of time!”

  “And Natalie isn’t a bitch,” Charlotte confirmed.

  “Well, thank god,” I muttered. My eyes were wide as I kept up with their swift exchange, learning so much in the process.

  Charlotte laughed. “As if there was any doubt. You’re so sweet that you’re going to rot his teeth.”

  Etta tilted her head onto my shoulder. “This is Charlotte’s way of saying that she likes you.”

  “You three are so fun all together.”

  Lewis looked mildly offended. “They’re trouble.”

  “So are you,” Etta accused.

  “A hundred percent.” Charlotte nodded her head. “Mom is going to love her.”

  Etta eyed Lewis. “So, when are you bringing her home?”

  I coughed in surprise. Meeting his sisters was one thing. I’d technically already met them at the Chloe Avana concert. Plus, drinks at Lewis’s wasn’t scary, only a bit intimidating. But meeting the parents…that was…wow.

  Lewis shook his head at them. “Whenever I damn well please. You menaces should butt out.”

  “Just saying, Mom is curious,” Etta said.

  “All right. That’s it. Go bother someone else.”

  Etta and Charlotte cackled as they drained the last of their drinks and stood. They pulled me in for hugs, promising to see me again soon and that I was welcome with them anytime. They dramatically bustled out of the apartment.

  “They are…”

  “I know,” he grumbled.

  “Amazing, Lewis. Truly so amazing. You’re lucky to have that relationship with them.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Most people find them overwhelming.”

  “Well, sure. But what part of the Upper East Side isn’t?”

  “You’re incredible. You know that, right?” He stepped into me and planted another kiss on my lips.

  “Obviously,” I joked.

  “No really. There’s no one else quite like you, Natalie.”

  “You make all of this seem so easy.”

  “It is easy with you.” He pulled back to look at me sincerely. “Can I tell you something?”

  I nodded.

  “I would really like you to meet my mother. She’s a wonderful, powerful, incredible woman. And the girls weren’t wrong when they said that she’d love you,” he said against my lips. “Is that too much?”

  I found myself shaking my head. Not if she was anything like his sisters. Anything like him. “It’s not too much.”

  “Good. I want everyone I care about to know and love you.”

  And I surprised myself by not only believing him…but also agreeing.

  Natalie

  21

  “There’s no reason to be nervous.”

  I warily glanced over at Lewis as we took the elevator up to the top floor. “That’s easy for you to say. How would you feel if you were meeting my parents?”

  “If you invited me to Charleston to visit your family, I think I’d probably be over the moon.”

  “My dad was in the military. Now, he’s a cop. He’s very good with a firearm.”

  Lewis laughed. “Well, I don’t think my family even owns one. Does that ease your fear?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  He lightly wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my temple. “It’s going to be fine. My parents are great. Shockingly little drama for the Upper East Side.”

  The elevator opened into the Warrens’ impressive apartment. Though it felt as if that was such an insubstantial word for their home. My dinky third-story one-bedroom on the Upper West was an apartment. Even Lewis’s huge penthouse still had the feel of an apartment. This was something else entirely. The ceilings in the living room were two or three stories high with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park. Stairs led up to a second floor where I assumed the bedrooms were tucked away. Everything was monochromatic with a touch of greenery. Classy and conservative and all-around stunning.

  “Mom, we made it,” Lewis called into the house.

  “In the kitchen,” his mother called back.

  We walked through the foyer, past the living room, and into the kitchen, which was as insane as the rest of the house. The island at the center of the kitchen could possibly be the size of my entire living room. My eyes doubled in size when I saw the industrial-sized stainless steel fridge and—I counted one, two, three, four—four ovens.

  “We brought you a pinot,” Lewis said, holding the wine up as we stepped fully into the professional-grade kitchen.

  But it was the beautiful black woman standing in front of a host of pots on the stove that drew my attention. Nina Warren. She looked like a mix of Etta and Charlotte. Her hair in a shoulder-length inverted bob. Her designer dress fit like it had been made for her. But it was her stance as she turned in her stilettos to face us that made me see the real woman. The current amba
ssador to the United Nations, a woman with grace and poise in every feature.

  “Oh, thank god,” his mother said in response. “Pop that open. I’m going to need a glass before I finish with this sauce. It is not cooperating.”

  Lewis reached into a drawer to remove a wine opener. “Mom, this is Natalie.”

  She set down the spoon she’d been stirring with and came forward to draw me into a hug. “It is so nice to meet you. Lewis speaks so highly of you, and now, my daughters do as well.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, too, ma’am.”

  She laughed. “Nina will do just fine.”

  “Three glasses?” Lewis asked, extracting them from a cabinet.

  “Definitely,” his mother said. “We all need it to deal with my cooking.”

  “Oh please,” Lewis said as he poured the wine. “Your cooking is the best.”

  Nina gave me a skeptical look. “Normally, we’d have the chef over, but I wanted to do it myself. If it’s burned, blame it on someone else.”

  Chef. Right. I hadn’t thought it was strange to see her cooking.

  “Mom always used to cook,” Lewis said, handing me a glass. “She’s too important now.”

  “Never trade your ambition for a home-cooked meal,” Nina said.

  “We just ate a lot of pizza at my house.” I shrugged. “My mom burns eggs unless they’re in a cake. And my dad worked late hours in the military. I learned how to make the essentials pretty young after that.”

  “Oh, what do you like to cook?”

  “Pasta was a specialty. A lot of lasagna. I’m pretty good on a grill, too. Don’t ask why I was allowed near that much fire before I was out of elementary school.”

  “I’m going to need to try this lasagna,” Lewis said.

  I laughed. “Oh god, what did I get myself into? I’m going to use your kitchen.”

  “Done,” he conceded easily.

  “Okay, you,” Nina said, pointing a wooden spoon at her son. “Roll those sleeves up and start chopping vegetables. Don’t think you can come in here and not work for your food. Your sisters should be here any minute. I think Charlie’s bringing a boy.”

  “Which one?” Lewis asked. He’d already set his glass down, and to my surprise, he was rolling his sleeves up to do exactly as his mother had demanded.

  “There’s more than one?” Nina asked worriedly.

  Lewis shot me an amused look. Apparently, the answer was yes.

  “Do you need my help with anything?” I offered.

  “Absolutely not,” Nina said. “You’re a guest. Lewis needs to be put to work but not his lovely girlfriend. You enjoy your wine and the sarcasm that will ensue as soon as Charlie and Etta show up.”

  The elevator dinged then, announcing his sisters, as if summoned from her proclamation.

  “Here’s trouble,” Lewis muttered.

  Charlotte and Etta appeared around the corner, chatting about something that had happened earlier. Charlotte had her hand laced with her date, a man who made even her almost look short. He was tall and trim with black skin and close-cropped hair. He was dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt that revealed the tattoos spiraling up his left arm.

  “Natalie!” Etta said excitedly. She was in black jeans that were torn at the knee, a skintight black tank top, and a cherry-red leather jacket.

  She pulled me into a hug, and then Charlotte hugged me, too.

  “This is my boyfriend, Brodie,” Charlotte said.

  Etta snorted.

  “Shut it, Ettie.”

  “No offense, but I really can’t keep them all apart. Is this the one at Harvard or the I’m back for break boyfriend?”

  Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “I hate you.”

  Brodie was either oblivious or didn’t care, and Charlotte carted him off to the bar. Etta came to stand beside me, taking Lewis’s discarded wine glass and draining the rest of it.

  “I wasn’t finished with that,” Lewis said.

  “Guess you are now.”

  “Brat.”

  “Jerk.”

  “Children,” Nina said with an exaggerated sigh. “All my babies in one place, and a headache is already blooming.”

  “I already hear your mother is frustrated. Everyone must be home,” a male voice said from the direction of the stairs.

  I’d been so wrapped up in meeting Lewis’s mother that I hadn’t thought that much about his father. I didn’t know much about Edward Warren, except that he had come from a long, long line of wealthy Warrens. I didn’t even know that he was white until he walked into the kitchen with all the presence of a hurricane and wrapped his arms around his wife. He planted a kiss on the space between her neck and shoulder.

  “Don’t let them stress you out, dove,” he murmured against her skin.

  Nina smiled like a lovesick puppy and turned into her husband. “Edward.” She breathed his name like they were teenagers again. The love quite evident in both of their eyes.

  “Ew, Mom. Can we not?” Etta grumbled.

  “God, are they making out again?” Charlotte asked, striding back into the kitchen with Brodie following.

  Nina laughed and took a half-step from her husband. “Edward, you remember Brodie, right?”

  “Ah, yes.” Edward held his hand out, and Brodie shook it.

  “Sir,” he said with a head nod.

  “And Lewis’s girlfriend, Natalie.”

  He turned his stern face toward me. He looked so much like Lewis but twenty years older. Handsome, regal even, and rather serious.

  He held his hand out to me then. “Nice to meet you, Natalie.”

  “You, too.” I swallowed and shook his hand.

  There was nothing off-putting about him. Yet I could feel his judgment on me like a weight. Maybe it was just his intimidating presence, but I felt like he had already made up his mind about me.

  “Well, are we all ready here, Nina?”

  “Pretty much. Etta, help with drinks. Lewis, start carrying everything to the table. Charlotte, show Natalie and Brodie where to sit.”

  Everyone jumped into action. I took my seat in the middle of the table between Nina and Charlotte. Lewis took the chair opposite of me with Brodie and Etta on either side. And Edward took his place at the head of the table. Nina said grace, and then we all partook of her incredible food.

  “So, Natalie, how did you and Lewis meet?” Nina asked.

  My gaze swept up to his. Oh, jeez, I hadn’t thought about these sorts of questions.

  “Um, we met last year when I was in the city.”

  “I thought I’d already told you that. We met in the Hamptons. I took her on the yacht.”

  Nina nodded. “Right. Right. I remember now.”

  “You took her on the yacht, and it took you a year to catch her,” Edward said with a raised eyebrow. “Maybe I need to upgrade.”

  The girls laughed, and I tried to force out a laugh, too, but it sounded hollow. No reason to explain why the yacht hadn’t worked and the year had passed. Lewis gave me a sympathetic nod.

  “How did you two meet?” I asked Nina to change the subject.

  “Oh, that old story,” she said.

  “Tell it, Mom,” Etta said. “It’s our favorite.”

  “If you insist.”

  “We do,” Charlotte agreed.

  “Well, I was eighteen and a freshman at Harvard. I came from a banking family in Boston. So, it was home territory for me. I was pre-law, and your father was business, but we had a class together.”

  “Where you kicked his ass,” Etta butted in.

  “She always did,” Edward said with a loving smile.

  “And well, one thing led to another, and I became pregnant with Lewis. Everyone told us we were crazy for keeping him, but it was love at first sight. We eloped. I took a year off of school. But everyone still said that I’d never make it because I’d had a baby in college. That Edward and I weren’t paired.” She rolled her eyes. “A lot of people didn’t want to see two successful people toge
ther, period. When you add in the fact that it was an interracial couple, it was even worse. But we proved them wrong. I still finished college and got a law degree. Then once I was a partner at my firm, we decided to have Charlotte and Etta. Proving everyone wrong again.”

  My smile widened at the story. “What a great story.”

  “True love,” Nina said, reaching for Edward’s hand and squeezing.

  I was still thinking about that heartwarming story as the conversation shifted to the girls. Etta taking a gap year before going to Harvard next fall. Charlotte’s business classes at Harvard. She’d finished exams earlier this week, and she was pretty certain she’d aced them.

  “All that, and we have such a busy Christmas. Between your modeling debut at the Trinity club opening, the wedding, gingerbread houses, a handful of charity functions, and Christmas, I don’t even know when I’ll find time to work,” Nina said. “Natalie, I hope that you’re coming with Lewis to the wedding?”

  “Um…wedding?” My eyes shot to his.

  “I was going to talk to you about that,” Lewis said across the table.

  Nina raised her eyebrows. “I assumed you were bringing her as a plus-one.”

  “I do intend to bring her. But I haven’t asked her yet.”

  “Sorry, whose wedding?” I asked.

  “Katherine Van Pelt and Camden Percy,” Nina said with a wide grin as if those two names didn’t send acid through my stomach.

  “Oh.”

  Of course.

  No wonder Lewis hadn’t brought it up. Not with how I felt about the pair. That was the furthest thing from taking it slow in society. The furthest thing from what I wanted to be doing with my life. The epitome of the Upper East Side. An arranged marriage between a deceptive, penniless, scheming bitch and her cheating, addicted, asshole groom. Count me out.

  I didn’t know what anyone said after that. I was still stuck on that one point. And how I knew for certain that there was no way I was going to Katherine’s wedding. No way in hell.