Cruel Money (Cruel 1)

“Fine. I’ll hear him out, but I’m still staying here.”

He shrugged. “There’s a room for you if you need one.”

“Thanks for this, Lewis. I do really appreciate it.”

“Anything for you, Natalie.”

His eyes met mine, dark and comforting and honest. He smiled in a way that said he was sincere. And for some reason, I believed him. That he might actually do anything for me.

Then there was a ding of the elevator.

Our moment of silence was broken, and Lewis scrambled to his feet as if he were the one who had done something wrong. Instead of being the white knight who had whisked me away from disaster.

I sat up and set my drink on the coffee table. I’d just straightened up in time to see Penn blow into Lewis’s living room like a tornado.

Lewis cleared his throat. “I’ll just…give you two a minute.”

Then he disappeared into what I had to assume was his bedroom, leaving me alone with Penn. The knot of his bow tie was undone and hanging around his neck. He’d unbuttoned the first two buttons on his shirt. His eyes were a mixture of anger, pain, and confusion. I’d never seen him look like that before.

“You just left?” he demanded.

I raised my eyebrows. “You just kissed your ex-girlfriend?”

“I didn’t kiss Emily.”

“Oh, and now, I’m blind, too?”

“She kissed me. There’s a difference. If you’d stuck around long enough to see, I stopped her and had her thrown out of the party. Because I have no interest in Emily.”

“I don’t know why you’re yelling at me,” I said, raising my voice. “You’re the one who saw her last week and lied to me about it. You’re the one who never mentioned an ex to me, even when I asked. You’re the one who went to her tonight as soon as she showed up. What the hell am I supposed to think, Penn?”

He backed down at my comment, coming forward to stand in front of me. I could see the fire had left his eyes. All that was left was guilt and sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking, coming in here. None of this is your fault, and you had every reason to leave that party.”

“I know,” I said, sinking back into my seat on the couch. “I know that much. I just don’t know what the hell is going on with you, Penn. You say you don’t want things to be casual between us, but then you treat us casually.”

“No, no, I didn’t. I don’t,” he corrected. He dropped into the seat next to me. “I only went over there to tell her to leave. That was also the reason I saw her last week.”

“Why wouldn’t you just tell me that?”

“Emily is complicated. She’s a nuisance and a liar and my past. She’s not someone I like to think or talk about. And it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”

I sighed heavily and looked away from him. I could still see his lips on another woman, and it hurt. No matter how I wanted to shield my heart from him, he’d ripped everything wide open. There was no going back. I was vulnerable now.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” I said softly. “Original.”

“Look, you want the whole story? Here’s the story,” Penn soldiered on through gritted teeth. “Emily and I met at Columbia. She was a law student. We knew each other vaguely through our families. We hit it off. We dated for a year and a half. Then one day, I came home and walked in on her. Fucking Court. In my bed. There. That’s it. That’s the story.”

I gasped. Shock hit me like a tidal wave. What the fuck was wrong with her that she would do something like that? What was wrong with Court? Jesus, no wonder he hated his brother so much. No wonder they didn’t get along, and he had been so defensive when Court talked to me. With that history…anyone would have been defensive.

“That’s horrible. I see why you can’t stand being around Court.”

“Among other reasons,” he said. “But can’t you see now that I want nothing to do with Emily? We broke up at the beginning of the summer, and she kept trying to fix things with us—showing up in the city and at events I was at, begging me to come to her place, and generally being infuriating. I wanted her to know it was completely over and done with. That I was never going to entertain her bullshit again. I wanted it done before I talked to you.”

“And you didn’t think I’d understand?” I asked softly.

Because I did understand. And I hurt for him. Even while I was so angry with him for what I’d seen. He’d clearly felt deeply for Emily if he dated her for over a year. I’d only ever dated one guy that long, and the breakup had been brutal.