Cruel Money (Cruel 1)

“You’re going to love the beach house,” I told them. “It’s massive.”

“Michael had a massive beach house,” Melanie muttered.

“And we’re not thinking about Michael this weekend.”

“I know. I know. You’re right.”

“The other option,” Penn said, cutting in as her veered us back into traffic, “is that we spend tonight in the city.”

“Penn,” I warned.

“I’ve never been!” Melanie crowed.

“I’m from here. So, I could show you around.”

“We agreed we were going to go back because I have work.”

“You don’t have work,” Penn responded.

“Oh, come on, Nat, please,” Melanie begged. “I want to see New York.”

“Yeah, Nat,” Amy said with a Cheshire grin on her face. “We want to see the city.”

“You’ve been before,” I accused. But I saw the light in Melanie’s eyes that hadn’t been there a second before. And I couldn’t deny her this if she wanted it. “Fine. We’ll go to the city.”

“Yes!” Melanie said. “I’m so excited!”

I sank back into my seat and glanced over at Penn. “Happy?”

“I am actually,” he said. “I wanted to show you around last weekend and didn’t get to. Now, I get to.”

“Serendipitous,” I drawled.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go into the city. I did. I wanted to show Melanie around the big city for the first time. Sip lattes with Amy at tiny craft coffee shops and shop at boutiques in Soho. Get Melanie into her first real club and dance the night away.

But…I didn’t want to do all that with Penn. With that looming complication over my head. Now that he had weaseled his way into our fun, I had to figure out how to navigate his presence.

Of course, he’d done everything that I’d asked of him. He hadn’t pressured me for more or even asked about the kiss again. He’d hardly mentioned it, except to repeat that we were friends. But the way he said the word friends…it spoke volumes about what he thought of it.

That we were absolutely not just friends.

And his lips had every intention of reminding me of that fact.

Natalie

18

I shouldn’t have worried. We’d had the perfect day in New York City.

We had dropped Totle off in Penn’s apartment and then wandered the city. Penn took us to all of his favorite haunts—a coffee shop that was to die for, a sushi restaurant that I would have dreams about, and even an art exhibit that he and Amy swooned over for a full hour. We’d listened to a musician in Washington Square Park and watched an impromptu flash mob on the subway, and now, we were walking Totle around Central Park as the sun set on the perfect day.

Melanie was eating an ice cream cone as we walked down the stairs toward Bethesda Fountain. In our hours of walking, she hadn’t complained once all day about the high heels on her feet. I wanted to complain, and I was in flats.

“I wish I could eat like this at home,” Melanie said, groaning over the ice cream.

“You can,” I told her.

“Ha! With dance and crop tops? No way.”

Her life was sometimes so distant from mine.

“You work out so much; you can eat whatever you want.”

Melanie shrugged. “I don’t think so. We weigh in with the coach every week.”

“Barbaric,” Amy said with a laugh.

“Competition season is coming up. It’s important to look our best.” Melanie bit her lip. “Sometimes, it’s really dumb though. I think it makes people eat too few calories. I just try to stay in a range, but I’m not going to starve myself or anything.”

“Good. Mom would probably kill you anyway.”

“She’d divine it,” Melanie said, giggling.

“Tea leaves?” I guessed.

“Oh no, she’s all about horoscopes and divining futures from the stars right now.”

“Your mother might as well be a centaur,” Amy said.

“Ten points for Gryffindor,” Melanie cheered.

Amy scoffed. “Hufflepuff.”

I shook my head at their antics. “She has her eccentricities.”

“Don’t we all?” Amy muttered.

“Oh, oh,” Melanie said, finishing her cone. “Take pictures for me. My followers need to know about my family emergency.”

Amy cackled and took her phone. “Let the artist go to work.”

Penn watched our impromptu photo session with a pensive smile on his face. And for a few minutes, as we all jumped in and out of pictures, posing with Totle and each other, I forgot that Penn was a Kensington. That his mother was the mayor. That he had billions. That we had a history.

We were just a young couple enjoying the city with friends.

Harmless. Easy. Normal even.

He even took us to the Cherry Hill Fountain from Friends and proceeded to take his shoes off, roll his pants up, and get in the fountain with Melanie. She screeched with laughter as they pretended to be the characters from the show, which was Mel’s absolute favorite. I swore, she wanted to be Rachel when she grew up.

Amy was busy snapping pictures of them on Melanie’s camera. I held Totle’s leash.