Cruel Money (Cruel 1)

Penn snorted. “Possibly the opposite reason as to why I’m not close with Court.”

“What does that mean?”

“My brother is…a professional fuckup. He’s never actually held a job, he has no real passion, he’s fucked nearly every eligible woman in the city, and he doesn’t give a shit who sees.”

“How does he even survive?”

“Charm and a trust fund.”

“Well, I guess Melanie isn’t looking so bad.”

“I don’t get why you don’t get along with her,” Penn said. “What did she do to you?”

“Nothing. It’s more how she made me look to my parents. Hard to compete with perfection. I’m not your brother, but this isn’t exactly what my parents thought I’d be doing with my life.”

“Now, that I completely understand. I’m pretty sure no one in my life wants me to be a philosophy professor.”

“But you’re so passionate about it.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

I couldn’t imagine Penn doing anything else. Not when I’d heard him speak about what he was working on in his book. Maybe other people just saw what he was doing rather than how much he clearly loved it and made snap judgments. Obviously coming from money and the Kensington name, it had to be hard. Most families would be ecstatic if their son had such a prestigious job but not the Kensingtons.

I decided to let the subject drop. It was clearly a sore subject. He’d been studying philosophy for more than a decade, and his family still didn’t accept it. Talking about it wasn’t going to help.

We changed the subject and got on easier topics. The music changed multiple times with all sorts of songs I’d never heard before. I was considering stealing his playlists. But he shocked me even further when he turned on Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” With the top down and the wind whipping my hair in my face, we sang at the top of our lungs and enjoyed every minute of it.

The drive seemed to take half as long as it had when I first came out to the cottage. Either it was because I had an idea of where I was going or if it was just Penn.

Between the three weeks we’d spent alone in that house.and the careful truce we’d drawn that night out on the deck, things had changed with us. Penn hadn’t come on to me since he had that look in his eye. But I couldn’t deny that I found him attractive, and he was easy to talk to. He was too good to be true, which probably meant he was.

And I needed to stop fooling myself.

There was a reason I had been angry with him.

For everything he’d done to me that night in Paris. For the person I’d become due to those actions. How cheap and used I’d felt.

I never wanted to feel like that again.

But sometimes, when we were alone like that, it would all disappear. And I’d forget entirely why I was mad at him in the first place.

It was dangerous. He was dangerous.

I needed to be very careful.

“All right. Here we are,” Penn said as he finished navigating the New York traffic like a pro.

My eyes traveled up, up, up the building off of Central Park. Somewhere up there, Katherine was waiting for me. Nerves bit at me. I liked Katherine. She seemed nice enough, but I couldn’t figure out why she wanted to do this for me. I didn’t know enough about her to make a judgment about who she really was. And until then, I knew I needed to keep my guard up.

“What are you going to be doing?” I asked.

“I’ll be at my apartment with Totle. I brought some work with me,” he said, gesturing to the leather messenger bag in the backseat. “I’ll take your stuff up to my place with me.”

“Okay. Maybe I should just…hang with you and Totle. I have work, too.”

“Go on. Get out. Have a good time.”

I sighed heavily and slung my purse over my shoulder. “Fine. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said with a brilliant smile.

Then, I was on the sidewalk, alone, in New York City, and he was taking that beautiful smile and his even more adorable puppy far away. I double-checked my phone for instructions to get to Katherine’s apartment and took the elevator upstairs.

I stepped hesitantly inside. I’d never seen an elevator that took you into a person’s actual house. That was a bit disorienting.

“Hello?” I called out as I turned the corner.

“Natalie!” Katherine squealed and rushed toward me. She hugged me tight. “I’m so glad that you made it. Come inside. Mimosa?”

“Uh…sure,” I said, taking the champagne flute out of her hand.

“How was the drive?”

“Easy.”

Since Penn’s friends didn’t know that he was staying in the Hamptons, we decided not to enlighten them. I didn’t mind them coming out to visit, but it would disturb the peace we had out there. And all the time I’d spent writing on my new project, which I still hadn’t figured out a title for. My agent had been asking about it because I’d finally confessed to putting the other book aside. But I just wasn’t ready.