Cruel Money (Cruel 1)

“Good. I’m glad. Okay, let’s get started.”

“Started?” I choked out.

She’d told me that we were going to have a full day of pampering, but I hadn’t thought she actually meant a full day. What could possibly take all day?

“Yes! We have a full day ahead of us—massage, facial, waxing, tanning, hair, and makeup.”

My jaw dropped. I’d had massages, sure. When I’d swam in college, the trainers and physical therapists would sometimes massage out knots from the pool. They were usually intense and made you cry. For some reason, I didn’t think that was the kind of massage she meant. The rest I’d never had the money to splurge on.

“It’s going to be great!” Katherine said, tugging me into a bedroom that had been transformed into a day spa.

Then I was quickly whisked away by Emmanuel, who was gorgeous enough to be a male model. He spoke the entire time about his boyfriend, who actually was a male model. Besides that, he had a constant stream about how much I clearly needed these treatments. About how my skin was begging for hydration and how my body had more knots than a sailor and how utterly transformed my face was with carefully sculpted eyebrows. When he trimmed my hair, I quaked in fear that he’d lop it all off. But he was right that it needed it…that I needed all of it.

“This color is so trendy,” Emmanuel said as he blew my hair out.

“Thanks. I like the silver more than my natural blonde.”

“Well, it’s not something I see often around here. More likely in the Village than the Upper East Side,” he said with a laugh.

I bit my lip and nodded. I loved my hair, but it didn’t exactly blend in. I could have walked off of the set of Game of Thrones with my Targaryen-white locks. Likely, I would be more comfortable in the Village too, but somehow, I’d landed on the Upper East Side.

“Everyone will be raving about this,” Emmanuel said.

I just didn’t know if it was going to be in a good way.

But when I stared at my reflection in the bathroom after six hours of pampering and another half hour of trying on designer dresses, I hardly recognized myself, even with my signature silvery-white hair down in voluminous supermodel waves.

“Look at you,” Katherine said. She twirled her finger in a circle, and I spun for her. “Who knew those incredible cheekbones and amazing eyes were hidden? Just look at your hair! It’s so glossy. So silver. And that dress. It’s perfect!”

“I can’t thank you enough. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Well, you will have to do it more often because damn.”

I laughed and covered my mouth.

“Don’t touch your face,” Emmanuel said in dismay. “Or your hair.”

“Right,” I said, dropping my hand with a laugh. “You’re incredible. Thank you.”

“Rock it tonight, ladies,” he said with a wink.

“Okay, final touches!” Katherine cheered. “Come with me.”

I obediently followed her out of the bathroom and across the apartment to her bedroom. We stepped into her gigantic closet. She entered a code into a punch pad attached to a dresser, and it clicked open. She pulled out one of the drawers and revealed row after row of glittering jewelry.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

She laughed. “Basically.”

She pulled necklace after necklace out of its case and held it against my neck. She’d admire it for a few seconds and then veto the selection.

“So,” she said, holding a sapphire-studded choker against my throat, “have you spoken to Penn since he left?”

“I…”

She giggled at my reflection. Seeing my uncertainty about how to respond as discomfort. “It’s okay. You can tell me. Obviously, you two have history.”

“Yeah, but…it was a long time ago.”

“Seemed pretty relevant that night he found you on the beach.”

“Well, yeah, I hadn’t seen him in six years.”

“You’re going to see him tonight though.”

“Right. He’s going to be there.” I was a terrible liar. It was definitely not my forte, and sparring with someone like Katherine, it seemed relatively impossible to keep it up.

“Oh, yeah. Of course. I would just be careful,” Katherine said, holding up a new necklace with a teardrop ruby at the center.

“Careful?”

“You know how Penn is.”

“I know how he was.”

Katherine shrugged. “Can a tiger really change its stripes?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? The one I’d been asking myself for three straight weeks. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to believe that people could change. But I didn’t really know if they could.

“Oh, this is the one!” Katherine crooned. She strung the band of diamonds around my neck and nodded. “They’re perfect.”

And they were.

Who knew that adding thousands of dollars’ worth of diamonds could completely transform but not overpower an ensemble? Not me.

“Let me step into my Manolos, and we can head out,” Katherine said.

I tried not to think about what Katherine had insinuated about Penn as we left her apartment and took a bona fide limousine to the gala. I wasn’t here for Penn. Nothing was going on with us. And Katherine had merely been curious because of our history. That was all.