Cruel Money (Cruel 1)

Those red lips were calling my name.

I tilted her backward and planted my lips on hers. She wrapped one arm around my neck and kissed me back just as hard. I faintly heard whistles and catcalls at the show we were putting on, but I didn’t care.

This was where we were meant to be.

She pulled away breathlessly and giggled as she tried to smudge the red lipstick off of my lips. “I seemed to have gotten some…”

“There’s no point. I’m just going to kiss you again.”

Her smile brightened the room. “That so?”

“Definitely.”

“Can you two get a room?” Lewis called teasingly.

“Not a bad idea,” I suggested.

Natalie disentangled herself from my arms. “Never a bad idea,” she agreed. “But I do really want to see Chloe. And Lewis knows every word. So, we have to stay for his benefit.”

“Don’t go telling him my secrets,” Lewis muttered.

It was only Katherine who looked put out by the whole thing. Natalie sank into a seat next to her and thanked her a million times over again for the tickets. I was pretty sure that Katherine was regretting this entire evening. I took the seat by Lewis and shook his hand.

“Thanks for hanging with Natalie while I dealt with Katherine,” I told him.

“Hey, no problem. She’s great. You got that all worked out with Katherine?”

“Honestly, I think I made it worse,” I told him.

“You think? That kiss probably made her go nuclear,” Lewis said. “Not your smartest move.”

“Can’t help myself around Natalie.”

“Well, watch out for Katherine. When she gets mad, she fights dirty.”

“I know,” I said, glancing over.

Natalie and Katherine were talking as if they were old friends. All those nasty things Katherine had said about Natalie came to the surface, and anger coursed through me all over again.

“It’s not too late to end this,” Lewis said with a lifted eyebrow.

“I just suggested that, and she wouldn’t bite.”

“Eh, it’ll all be over soon anyway,” Lewis said dismissively.

“Yeah,” I agreed and ignored the unease that shot through me.

Natalie turned back into my side just as the lights dimmed. “That was probably the hottest kiss of my life.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded.

“How about this one?” I asked and then kissed her again. And again. And again.

Actually, the show wasn’t so bad when I got to kiss Natalie on and off through the whole thing.

Natalie

24

“Penn!” I shrieked.

I raced down the hallway and burst into the master bedroom. We’d moved my stuff in before the show, and I’d thought it would take some getting used to. But I already felt completely at home, living in this enormous master suite with Penn. I swore that it was larger than my entire parents’ house.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, appearing out of the bathroom in nothing but a low-slung towel.

I’d discovered he was the kind of guy who went for a run every morning and came back and showered. Apparently, I’d caught him at just the right time.

My jaw dropped. “Holy abs.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that nothing is wrong?”

“Sorry, you are incredibly distracting,” I said with wide eyes.

“Am I now?” he asked, purposefully striding forward.

“Uh…yeah. Just look at you.”

“Me?” he asked. “You’re only wearing my T-shirt.”

I glanced down at myself and laughed. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. But I couldn’t find anything to wear when my agent called this morning.”

“She called? What for?” he asked with excitement in his eyes.

“She read my new manuscript and wanted to gush on the phone,” I said, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet.

“That’s great! Are you going to submit the new book?”

“She said that she wants to start right away. That she couldn’t get enough and wants to read the rest. She thinks this is the one!”

I did a little jig, and Penn just laughed.

“You’re adorable. This is huge news!”

“I can’t believe it. I mean…it doesn’t really mean anything. Just because my agent likes it doesn’t mean that the publishers will. She liked the last two books and the sample of my road-trip book, but no one bit on anything. So…I don’t know.”

“Okay, hold on. Let’s not sour this,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Your agent loved your new book and thinks it’s the one! That’s a great feeling. We don’t have to think about the next part of the process yet. Just revel in the fact that you are clearly writing in the correct direction.”

“You’re right.” I let the negativity of future rejection fall off my shoulders.

My agent loved it. She wanted to shop it immediately. And she had only seen fifty pages. That was astronomical odds! I’d never gone out on proposal before. Super scary to think about, but I wanted to be happy.

“This is the best news I’ve had in weeks.”

“Then we should celebrate.”

I grinned and gestured to the king bed mere feet from us. “I have a few ideas for how we can celebrate.”