One Cruel Night

by K. A. Linde

  ONE CRUEL NIGHT

  K.A. LINDE

  Copyright © 2019 by K.A. Linde

  All rights reserved.

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  Cover Designer: Sarah Hansen,

  www.okaycreations.com

  Photographer: Wander Aguiar,

  www.wanderaguira.com

  Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1948427272

  A L S O B Y K. A. L I N D E

  CRUEL

  One Cruel Night

  Cruel Money

  WRIGHTS

  The Wright Brother ✦ The Wright Boss

  The Wright Mistake ✦ The Wright Secret

  The Wright Love ✦ The Wright One

  AVOIDING SERIES

  Avoiding Commitment ✦ Avoiding Responsibility

  Avoiding Temptation ✦ Avoiding Intimacy

  Avoiding Decisions

  RECORD SERIES

  Off the Record ✦ On the Record ✦ For the Record

  Struck from the Record

  ALL THAT GLITTERS SERIES

  Diamonds ✦ Gold ✦ Emeralds

  Platinum ✦ Silver

  TAKE ME DUET

  Take Me for Granted ✦ Take Me with You

  BLOOD TYPE SERIES

  Blood Type ✦ Blood Match ✦ Blood Cure

  ASCENSION SERIES

  The Affiliate ✦ The Bound

  The Consort ✦ The Society

  STAND ALONE

  Following Me

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Cruel Money

  Also By K.A. Linde

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To Paris,

  You’re a thief. You stole my heart.

  And I never want it back.

  Chapter 1

  Rich, decadent, self-indulgent depravity.

  That was my first thought when I surveyed the party I was currently crashing.

  “What the hell am I doing here?” I asked barely above a whisper.

  But my best friend still heard me.

  “To loosen you up, Natalie,” Amy said. She nudged me forward into the room on the stiletto heels she’d all but forced onto my feet before we left her flat.

  “In a dress this tight?” I gestured to the skintight black designer dress she’d pulled out of her outrageous closet for me.

  Bohemian was a bit more on-brand for me, but I’d relented when I saw how eager she was. We’d been spending all summer in Paris and managed to stay out of trouble. I shouldn’t have even been surprised that she’d gone looking for it our last weekend. Trouble was Amy’s middle name.

  “You look hot. Now, shut up and have a good time.” Amy pushed through the packed penthouse party and into the mayhem.

  People danced to the music blasting in through unseen speakers. Bodies crushed together, hands touching, hips grinding. It was possible a couple was having sex in a darkened corner. Alcohol flowed like a fountain. Cocaine lay white as snow across a coffee table. For a split second, I saw the Eiffel Tower light up a window before we moved into another room.

  “Do you even know where you’re going?” I asked, clutching on to Amy’s hand.

  “The bar, obviously. Then, we’ll see if Enzo showed.”

  I cringed. This was going to be an interesting night.

  Amy found the bar with ease and ordered us both vodka tonics. She promptly downed hers and started in on number two before I even had more than a sip of mine. I was more interested in people-watching. It was a writer’s curse. Or that was what my dad always called it when I was able to recall useless information about strangers. I had a knack for details and never forgot a face.

  That was how I found Enzo long before Amy. We’d met him a total of one time before he slipped Amy the address to this party and told her to crash if she dared. Amy could never resist a dare.

  “Ma belle,” Enzo said in his thick French accent.

  I admired him as he approached. His dark brown skin gleamed under the stark white shirt he’d left unbuttoned to the middle of his chest. His black hair coiled alluringly. He had delicate hands with paint still on his fingertips, as if he’d rushed over here while still working on some new masterpiece. I’d seen his work. I knew, one day, he’d be famous.

  “Enzo,” Amy said, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “We made it.”

  He kissed Amy on both cheeks in greeting. “So you did. So you did.” His eyes cut to me. “Both you and your little friend.”

  “Natalie,” Amy interjected. “She’s with me.”

  He shrugged as if he didn’t care one way or another. His eyes were only on Amy. That was normal between the two of us. Amy stood out. I hid behind the page.

  “Any trouble with the doorman?” Enzo asked.

  He slung an arm around Amy’s shoulders and moved them toward another room. I sighed and followed. Typical.

  “We’re here, aren’t we?”

  Amy had paid the doorman to let us through. Not that she’d say that. Her parents were rich but not this rich.

  Enzo seated us in an enormous space that I could only guess was a den. Enzo’s friends greeted us. While they were all handsome, they were all definitely Amy’s type. She loved artists. And her parents hated them. Win-win in her eyes.

  But the line of vapid narcissists all seemed the same to me. I wasn’t sure I had a type. If I did, they weren’t any of these men. I willingly relinquished center stage to Amy and let my eyes drift out toward the exquisite balcony that wrapped around the full exterior of the room.

  To the four sets of open French doors. And the white curtains ruffling in the faint breeze off the Seine. To the intricate crown molding that accented the soft blue walls. The dozen people outside laughing. All gorgeous, confident, and utterly carefree like Amy.

  But my eyes were drawn to one man.

  Gooseflesh broke out over my skin. I’d seen this mysterious man before. He must be staying at a flat near the one I’d been staying at all summer with Amy because I’d seen him in the park across the street on multiple occasions. He was always scribbling furiously in a notebook or gazing off unseeingly into the distance, as if a profound thought might hit him at any moment. He’d seemed intense…even from afar. Intense and charming.

  Now, he was here.

  “Amy,” I said, gently nudging her.

  “Hmm?” Amy asked, prying her eyes away from Enzo for a minute.

  “Do you recognize that man?”

  Amy followed my line of sight and frowned. “Should I?”

  “I’ve seen him before in the park by our flat.”

  Amy pursed her lips. “Did you meet Enzo’s friend, Alexandre? He’s hot, charming, and here right now.”

  I glanced over at Alexandre and smiled half
heartedly. I didn’t know what it was about this other man. Maybe I did have a type, and men who wrote furiously in notebooks was it.

  “Yeah, but…do you think…”

  “Natalie,” Amy said, “no way.”

  “What? No way what?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  I widened my eyes in confusion. “Why are you freaking out?”

  “I know that kind of guy. You should stay far, far away from the likes of him. He has bad news written all over him.”

  I laughed at Amy. “You haven’t even met him.”

  “I don’t have to meet him. I can just tell. Trust me. You do not want to get tangled up with that.” Amy spread her arms out. “Especially when you have a buffet of hot Parisian artists.”

  My eyes roamed the gorgeous stranger. What about him would make Amy tell me to run for the hills? He exuded a confidence that had clearly been bred into him. He wore high society like a second skin in a tailored black suit. His dark hair shone in the chandelier lighting, and the candles flickered against his sun-kissed skin. He had eyes like a hawk—observant, cunning, and wicked. Lips that were sensual and inviting. A body made to worship. He was exquisite. A work of art.

  Amy touched her finger to my chin and forced me to look back at her. “Don’t even think about it, Nat.”

  But I was thinking about it.

  I was definitely thinking about it.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” I mused.

  “Fine. It’s your funeral,” Amy said. “But just know that I warned you. I don’t want to have to say I told you so, but I will.”

  “You’re so dramatic.”

  Amy waved her hand at me, telling me to run off and play. Even though she thought it was a horrible idea, she’d let me make my own bad choices.

  But I should have taken her advice. I should have known that Amy was only looking out for me. She wouldn’t have warned me off of this mysterious stranger for no reason.

  When he finally saw me, everything screeched to a halt. Amy’s advice fluttered out of my mind like a quick summer breeze. His attention made me feel as if I were trapped in a spider’s web. I could struggle to escape, but it would be pointless. The end result would always be the same.

  Then, he smiled—a controlled, devious thing—and moved toward me.

  I let the web cocoon me and prepared for his imminent arrival.

  Chapter 2

  I t was his eyes that slayed me first.

  Cerulean water on a cloudless day. A colorless diamond, bright and clear with just as many facets. Brimming with emotion and mischief and pure ego. A thousand novels could be penned from one look in those eyes and never hope to capture them.

  “Hi,” I blurted out with all the couth of an elephant at a tea party.

  The corners of his mouth turned up in something that wasn’t quite a smile. But it was certainly an invitation. My heart rattled in its cage, a bird desperate to escape its long-forged prison.

  “Bonsoir,” he said. “You’re new here.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “No. It’s just that I would have remembered you if I’d seen you before.”

  A blush crept up my neck and settled into my cheeks. “Well, I remember you.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “We’ve met before?”

  I bit my lip and shook my head. I couldn’t believe I’d even said that. It was going to sound creepy that I’d seen him in the park. That I remembered him writing in his notebook. Most people only noticed as much as they needed to fill in the gaps. My brain didn’t work like that. Not when it might all end up in my next unfinished manuscript.

  “Well, no,” I said hesitantly. “I recognized you from the park.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, you’re always writing so intently in your notebook,” I admitted.

  It was the right thing to say. A real smile split his face. “That I am. Now, you leave me at a disadvantage.”

  “How so?” I asked, nearly breathless as he stepped closer to me.

  “You already know that I’m a slave to writing, and I know nothing about you.”

  I swallowed. I should have felt uncertain about him and his cool charm, but I felt nothing of the sort. Amy’s warning felt like days ago, not minutes. And I was completely at ease with him. More than I was with any stranger I’d met previously.

  “My name is Natalie,” I said, offering him my hand.

  “Natalie.” He tasted my name like a fine wine.

  Then, he took my hand in his, but instead of shaking, he brought it up to his lips and placed a tender kiss on it. Goose bumps erupted on my skin.

  “I’m Penn.”

  I giggled. “Like what you write with.”

  “Never heard that before,” he said with a casual laugh of his own.

  He gestured toward the balcony he’d come from, and I walked at his side back to the stunning city view.

  “Is Penn…short for something?”

  He shook his head. “My parents like unusual names.”

  “So, just Penn?”

  “That’s right.”

  He leaned one elbow back against the railing and slid the other hand into the pocket of his suit pants. I suddenly felt as if I’d slipped right into a James Bond film. Except I was anything but a Bond girl, and things like this didn’t happen to me.

  Up until this encounter, I would have said that men this attractive didn’t exist in the real world. They graced magazine covers, starred in blockbuster movies, and modeled for designer brands. If they existed outside of that glamorous life, then they definitely were not in Charleston. I hadn’t seen them in Kansas or Texas or Colorado or any of the other places my dad had ended up throughout his career in the Air Force.

  “So, what’s your favorite part of Paris so far?” Penn asked. “Other than watching me write in my notebook.”

  I laughed and eased forward against the balcony. “Probably watching the Eiffel Tower twinkle when the sun sets.”

  “Ah, yes. A favorite tourist pastime.”

  I scoffed. “If I’m a tourist, what does that make you? You’re American, too.”

  “I stopped being a tourist a long time ago. But yes, I admit I am American. New York. You?”

  “I’m not from anywhere,” I told him. When he looked at me in confusion, I clarified, “My dad was in the Air Force. He retired in Charleston.”

  “Transient and adaptable,” he guessed.

  “Suppose so.”

  “What else have you done since being in town?”

  I shrugged but saw that he was actually intently staring at me. His body language was completely fixated on me. His eyes slid to my lips and back up as he waited for an answer.

  “All the regular stuff—Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame, Louvre, Basilica du Sacré-Cœur, the Champs, Versailles. I’ve been staying all summer with my best friend. She’s been here before and showing me the sights.”

  “Sounds like a good friend.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “If you’re not a tourist, what have you been doing?”

  “Trying to get my head on straight.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

  “New York is too loud. I needed another point of view. To walk the streets where the greats walked before me and eat at the cafés where they ate and drink at the speakeasies and clubs they frequented.” His eyes grew distant at the thought.

  I could see that he was in the same place he’d been when he was writing in the park. That writing, whatever he had been writing, spoke to a piece of him. It opened up something within his soul that also opened up within me.

  “I know what you mean. Not about New York,” I said quickly, “but about needing to get a new point of view. Everything looks and feels and tastes the same at home. Paris is so…alive.”

  He nodded. “And you’ve seen so little of it. When do you leave?”

  “Tomorrow night,” I confessed.

  He pushed off of the balcon
y in apparent alarm. “You’re leaving Paris tomorrow, and you’re at this party?”

  “My friend wanted to come. She likes Parisian artists as much as I love the sights and sounds of the city.”

  “This is a travesty. You cannot waste your last night in Paris.”

  I shrugged and turned back to face the city below. “It doesn’t feel like a waste.”

  “Maybe not, but you haven’t even lived the city. And you can’t live it from up here,” he said passionately, “looking down as it passes you by.”

  He was right. It was strange to agree so easily with someone. As if Penn understood me better than my own best friend…better than I knew myself. That was disorienting, to say the least.

  “Maybe.”

  “Well then, let’s go.” He stepped away from the railing.

  His blue eyes glittered with anticipation. A thrill shot through my spine at that look directed at me. And then reality crashed in.

  “What?” I gasped. “Go where?”

  “See Paris.” He gestured toward the door. “I’ll show you.”

  I stared back at him in shock and excitement. I wanted to go. That much was obvious. But…I shouldn’t go. I wasn’t this insane. I couldn’t go around the city, alone at night, with a guy I’d just met. It wouldn’t be safe.

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “So?”

  “You could be a serial killer.”

  He laughed, a soft, guttural thing. “Fair. What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know,” I muttered. I hadn’t expected that question. Not that I’d expected an invitation to wander Paris with him.

  “I’m an open book.” He spread his arms wide. “Ask me anything.”

  I scoured my mind, trying to figure out what the hell I could ask him that would make me trust him. Truth be told, I didn’t trust easily. Everyone had always said that moving so much in the military meant that you made friends easily. But if anything, it’d made me more introverted. Why try when you’d be out of that school in a year? It was only Amy’s persistence and my dad’s retirement that had kept me from being a loner in high school.