Cruel Fortune (Cruel 2)

“It’s too much, Jane.”

“Stop thinking so much. Just live.”

That was how I walked out of Bergdorf Goodman with clothes that cost more than most people’s monthly salary. And I felt a bit sick about it.

I carried the packages up the elevator and into Lewis’s apartment. I was pretty certain that I was going to return them before the day was officially up. Even bringing them up the elevator made me feel guilty. It had been different when I was borrowing shoes from Amy or a dress from a rack at Katherine’s apartment. These were now mine. I was probably going to have to go to Target and find some kind of knockoff to replace it with.

Lewis turned to face me when he heard the elevator ding, walking out of the kitchen. His eyebrows rose in surprise when he took in the various bags I was carrying.

“Well, well,” he said, “I feel a different person has just walked into my place. Bergdorf, huh?”

“Jane,” I said in response.

He laughed. “If I’d known you were so amenable to shopping sprees, I would have suggested I take you.”

“Trust me,” I said, tossing the bags down onto the couch. “I wasn’t amenable. Jane is just more convincing than you.”

“That so?” He moved to stand in front of me, sliding his hands down my hips. His lips met mine with deliberate slowness. “I think I can be pretty convincing.”

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Is that what you think? You issued a challenge, Miss Bishop. What did you expect from me?”

I shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought it through. And anyway, I’m probably going to have to return all of this stuff.”

A voice cleared from the kitchen, and I turned in surprise to see two people standing at the island bar. I immediately recognized them—Charlotte and Etta. Lewis’s sisters.

“Brother, do you care to introduce us?” Charlotte said.

“Or are you just going to stand there, looking sheepish all day?” Etta asked.

Lewis huffed. “You two are insufferable.” He turned back to face me. “Natalie, these are my sisters. Charlotte.” He gestured to the taller of the two. Then the shorter. “And Etta.”

Charlotte was stunning with dark brown skin and unbelievably long eyelashes. Her black hair was parted in the middle and curled alluringly to her shoulders. Her style was model perfect—dark wash jeans and a plain white T-shirt. She needed nothing else to accentuate her beauty.

Etta was all black leather leggings and moto jacket, gold studded bracelets, and dark red lipstick. She had replaced the bob I’d seen her in last year with a high ponytail of box braids that nearly went to her ass. She was curvy where Charlotte was trim, edgy where Charlotte was delicate.

They were a dynamic duo. And I couldn’t believe that they were only twenty-one and eighteen years old respectively. Upper East Side girls were from a different planet.

“They showed up, unannounced, in an attempt to ambush you, I’m afraid,” Lewis said, shooting me a look of frustration. “They have been bugging me nonstop since we started dating.”

“Bugging you?” Etta asked. “Is it too much to want to meet the woman you’re dating?”

I was taken aback. They’d wanted to meet me. I hadn’t heard a word of that from Lewis. Maybe he was worried that it would freak me out. Which maybe, if I’d had time to think about it, it might have, but here, when they were together, it just made me happy. A sharp contrast to a mother hating me so much that she’d fired me and blacklisted me from ever getting work again.

“It’s fine. I’m glad I get to meet you again,” I told them.

“Well, excellent,” Etta said. She darted over and looped our arms together, dragging me to the bar. “We’ve been dying to meet you.”

“Etta, give her room to breathe,” Charlotte chided.

“She can breathe,” Etta grumbled.

Lewis buried his head in his hands. “I should have made you leave the moment you walked in.”

“As if you could make us leave,” Charlotte said with a sly grin.

“Brother, make us a drink,” Etta said. “We’ll be a while.”

Lewis shook his head in disbelief. “What am I your bartender now?”

“Yes,” Charlotte and Etta said at the same time.

I started laughing right along with them.

“Oh dear lord, they’ve already converted you,” he said with his eyes lifted to the heavens. “I will play bartender just this once, but do go easy on her. I know you two.”

“Us?” Etta said, touching her chest, as if offended he would suggest that they’d be anything but nice.

Lewis gave them the look. A brotherly thing that clearly said he didn’t buy the innocent act. Still, he went to the wet bar to make us drinks.

“Now, tell me all the dirt. Lewis is so tight-lipped about you two.” Etta’s eyes were an intense hazel color, and they looked excited and maybe a bit devious. “Are you dating, dating? Has he defined the relationship? You know how guys are these days. They’re all about that let’s just see where it goes, which we all know is code for sex.”